Cafe Nero - 9th September 2006
Something changed today. Why, I'm not entirely sure, but today I let go. I stopped trying to produce little portraits and I just - sketched.
In all my previous cafe trips, I've done one drawing per page, and each one has been an attempt at a complete, albeit quick drawing. Many, many times I've told myself that I shouldn't be trying to do that, that these trips to the cafe are just practice, nothing more, nothing less. But despite my best intentions, I've found myself doing each drawing as if it was a little portrait, worrying about how good a likeness I get. But not today.
Instead of one drawing per page, today I just filled each page and then moved onto the next one. Some of today's drawings took less than a minute, and many are not complete figures, just small parts of people, the parts that caught my eye. putting a few little sketches on each page seems to have released me from the tendency to draw portraits, it liberated me in some way from worrying about how well the drawings turned out. Today, I was just practicing.
Before I did anything else today, I wrote "permission to fail" across the top of the first page, just to remind myself. I was giving myself permission to just draw, regardless of the quality of the finished drawing. The results don't matter. All that does matter is that I got to the cafe and did some drawing.
So no write ups today, just pictures. Make of them what you will.
