Either you can or you don't

 Can you draw?

I think most people who read my blog agree that they can because most people who read my blog are linked into this via people who teach how to do art or they are via challenge blogs that are art journal based in some way. So I hope that most people who read my blog would say YES to this, if the only option is YES or NO. There's no qualifiers here. So no, yes but not well or yes but ... *insert qualifier*. Either you can draw or you think you can't.

For those who think they can't, I would challenge you. I would challenge your thought process. Is it that you can't, or is it that you don't?

Can you pick up an instrument that can make a mark on a piece of paper?

If the answer is yes, then you CAN draw. You just choose not to. 

I have often said the difference between an artist and someone who is not an artist is that an artist practices art. If you can put a mark on paper, you are an artist! If someone can tape a banana on a wall and call it art then you can draw one blue line in the middle of the page and call it art too.

Everyone can draw.

It's just that somewhere along the line, many of us were convinced by others that we couldn't and we internalised that until we believed it and it became a story we told everyone. I'm here to invite you not to believe every thought you have, especially not the thoughts that tell you that you can't do something.

I caught myself almost a decade ago now saying that I couldn't draw faces. I couldn't draw them, so I never tried because every time I tried they looked like a two-year-old had drawn them. Of course, they did! I hadn't sought the knowledge of how to draw a face. I just drew them and hoped for the best and sometimes I'd draw one and think oh hey, that was actually alright. I couldn't tell you why it looked better than all the others I drew but it did. 

So when I caught myself telling the story of how I couldn't, I decided to change the narrative. I went to YouTube and I searched how to draw a face and that led me on a journey where I learned different techniques and I learned about where, how, why, I learned the rules and then I practised. I practised these new skills that I had learned over, and over, and over again. I heard once that it takes 1000 times to become an expert at something, so that was my goal, to draw 1000 faces. I'm pretty sure I'm still not even halfway there. 

I wasn't interested in those hyper-realistic faces. I just wanted to draw a face and have it look like a decent face and not like Picasso had done it... unless of course I felt Picasso-esque that day. Today, I feel confident in drawing a face if asked. I learned the rules enough to break them and still have a face look good. I learned the rules and practised enough that I can draw a face with only a few details or with a lot and I'm happy enough with it. 

Why?

Because I did it. I picked up the mark-making instrument and I put it on the paper and I used it to practice drawing lines until the lines began to make sense. This, incidentally, is also why it irks me if someone tells me I'm so talented. No. Not even a little bit. It's not talent, it's skill. I worked HARD to reach the place I am at. It did not come naturally. I made it happen. So no, I'm not talented. I am skilled.

You just have to decide to DO art or you can decide NOT to do art. Whichever choice you make though, it doesn't mean you can't... it means you can or you won't. 

If you still think you can't draw, then do this exercise with me. Get a piece of paper and a mark-making instrument of some kind.

Now draw an elongated C, like this:

You already know where I'm going with this, don't you? And all you've done is drawn the letter C! Next, I want you to draw the number 66 and colour in the circle parts, like this:

All you've done is drawn the letter C and the number 66 and it's already looking like something, isn't it? Next, I want you to put two lines below the nose like this:

I don't know about you but that almost looks like Homer Simpson right there. That's not who we are drawing but it is someone most people will recognise. Next, you can draw a few more lines between those bottom lines, like so:

I can already tell who this is just by this, can you? Next we're going to add some hair, like this:

Surely you know who this is now? I hope so because when I did the jaw, I kind of stuffed it up a little. Part of me wanted to do it all again but I didn't. I have left it the way my hand drew it because I wanted to show that even when you stuff up, it can still look just fine. It also shows that a few slight changes and you can make so many different faces. So let's add the chin now:

Lastly the back of the neck:

You could even add a curved line along the bottom to represent a shirt but voila! Most people, if asked if they could guess who this famous person was, would say Einstein. Even with the bulgy chin. If you followed along at home and you previously thought you couldn't draw, look at what you did. You drew Einstein. If you can do that, imagine what else you could draw if you decided to commit to practising a little bit each day or each week. Imagine what you could do if you went looking on YouTube for free tutorials.

And now, imagine what you could do if every time you heard yourself think 'I can't...' you stopped and thought '... but what if I just try it anyway.'

In Joy!