Friday, May 27, 2016

A new outlet

I started an art blog.  It's on instagram and my username is sarangapie if you want to go have a look.  I'd link it but instagram is bloody odd and I don't think you can view posts unless you have an account, and I don't think you can upload photos without using the app (so you can't upload from a laptop or pc, for example).

Don't get too excited about what is on there.  I can't draw. I'm not being modest, I have no artistic talent. My stuff  is nowhere in the realms of good.  But. I liked drawing in art classes in school (I think I stopped classes at 13).  I hadn't really drawn since - a few moon and goddess doodles, the odd flower, but when I sat down and tried to draw I got really frustrated that I couldn't get what was in my head down on the paper, so I haven't ever bothered.  Then this weekend I realised that didn't matter to me anymore.  The point is to draw, it is in the act of drawing itself.  It doesn't matter if it's trash and no one knows what it is.

And you know what, I'm actually quite proud of what I've done.  I feel accomplished. I drew a daffodil and it resembles a daffodil.  I even drew a mini comic and I think it kind of makes sense.

What caused this change in mindset?  It was the talk I went to last Saturday about trauma and women's comics.  Nicola Streeten referred to her art as bad art, then put it in inverted commas and said she thought it was good art.  It got me thinking that everyone has a different notion of what good art is.  I am used to, and I like, the American superhero art styles (as varied as superhero art is, it usually has a recogniseable style).

Streeten set up Laydeez do Comics.  I came away from the talk wanting that for Norwich, but aware that I don't have the time or energy, or skills, or network, to do this.  But I am pretty desperate to do something creative.  I have spent approx ten months looking after my little boy and have only had the energy to take things in - telly usually.  It's a very passive way to spend your free time.  I have a yearning to do something proactively.  I know I need to get back to New readers... but I feel constrained by the formalities of that site, and anyway, I don't have the time or energy to read comics, scan in pages and then create a decent review, so that's on hiatus for the moment.

I read about how the Birmingham LDC was set up and how the founder was inspired by London LDC to do her own comics.  I thought, I can draw.  If she can, I can.  I haven't checked out her work by the way, I don't know if I'd like it or not.  And I remembered that people say the best way to get better at drawing, is to draw.

So I drew.  I'm not sure if I want to get better, that isn't the point of this exercise.  The point is to give me a creative outlet, and writing isn't really doing that for me at the moment.  Although this post is going pretty well, maybe I just need more inspiring subjects....

Anyway. I draw now.

No comments: