![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Aug. 3rd, 2017
UK musings
Aug. 3rd, 2017 12:50 pmhere's a bit more about my experience of becoming non-attached from my life back home:
I packed sketchbooks, pencils, etc., for the trip, thinking about the wonderful opportunities for life drawing there would be in England. And of course there were lovely things to see -- and I took photos. But I never drew them.
Part of me was thinking, "Well, I'm with other people, they aren't gonna wanna stop and wait for me to sit and draw this scene" etc. But even when I was out on my own, I still never did it. I simply didn't feel like it.
I didn't miss drawing at all while I was away. At home, I can get kind of antsy if I lie fallow too long, but over there it simply wasn't a part of who I was, somehow. Unexpected.
As it turned out, I ended up drawing on only two occasions during those three weeks. Once was in York -- I don't like those drawings so I won't share them here, but I will talk a bit about them in a later post. The other was later in Greenwich, where almost out of a sense of obligation, I decided to make myself sit and sketch the view out the living room window. [There was an interesting lamp post.] While I was at it, I started wondering if I still remembered how to draw Space Kid after not doing so for this long. So, as you can see, I drew him, too -- and for an off the cuff sketch it's about as good an SK as I ever do. So that was some comfort, that I don't get that rusty that fast...
Still, it was a strange experience for me. For so many decades, my drawing has defined me in my own mind. A cartoonist is what I am. I have felt that since I was a kid. When I was threatened in the 90s with no longer being able to draw, I was at a complete loss. But now... there's this new awareness that my self is not actually the things I do. I exist apart from my drawing, and it is possible for me to have a life without it -- even a satisfying life. A few months ago I would never believe that I could say such a thing.
Even more strangely, after I got home, I still had no desire to get back to drawing. When I was back at the board, it felt more like a chore, and I was drawing out of a sense of obligation and duty [to my deadlines, I suppose]. I'm still coming to terms with this experience of drawing not feeling the same as it did before.
I packed sketchbooks, pencils, etc., for the trip, thinking about the wonderful opportunities for life drawing there would be in England. And of course there were lovely things to see -- and I took photos. But I never drew them.
Part of me was thinking, "Well, I'm with other people, they aren't gonna wanna stop and wait for me to sit and draw this scene" etc. But even when I was out on my own, I still never did it. I simply didn't feel like it.
I didn't miss drawing at all while I was away. At home, I can get kind of antsy if I lie fallow too long, but over there it simply wasn't a part of who I was, somehow. Unexpected.
As it turned out, I ended up drawing on only two occasions during those three weeks. Once was in York -- I don't like those drawings so I won't share them here, but I will talk a bit about them in a later post. The other was later in Greenwich, where almost out of a sense of obligation, I decided to make myself sit and sketch the view out the living room window. [There was an interesting lamp post.] While I was at it, I started wondering if I still remembered how to draw Space Kid after not doing so for this long. So, as you can see, I drew him, too -- and for an off the cuff sketch it's about as good an SK as I ever do. So that was some comfort, that I don't get that rusty that fast...
Still, it was a strange experience for me. For so many decades, my drawing has defined me in my own mind. A cartoonist is what I am. I have felt that since I was a kid. When I was threatened in the 90s with no longer being able to draw, I was at a complete loss. But now... there's this new awareness that my self is not actually the things I do. I exist apart from my drawing, and it is possible for me to have a life without it -- even a satisfying life. A few months ago I would never believe that I could say such a thing.
Even more strangely, after I got home, I still had no desire to get back to drawing. When I was back at the board, it felt more like a chore, and I was drawing out of a sense of obligation and duty [to my deadlines, I suppose]. I'm still coming to terms with this experience of drawing not feeling the same as it did before.