The Draughtsmans five (bad) habits.

This was (kind of) an assignment that got thrown my way... We had seen some fun illustrations in the form of edutainment. I got this pass and I tried to do my best with it.

I’m not sure if these are bad habits, but they are all true!

Paper and pencil nearby
I think I’ve written about this before, as of now I’ve got sketch books laying in strategic positions in my apartment, so that I always got a sketch book nearby, so I can write down that idea or do a quick sketch.

Yearning to draw
Actually I heard this from a friend, that said that sometimes she couldn’t stop herself from drawing someones nose, if that had an interesting shape...

A sound relationship to pencils
This is definitely true for me, and I also saw this in a documentary where an artist dropped one of his paintbrushes in a manhole, so sad and so fun at the same time! If you have a favorite pencil then you want to use it, and when it breaks... let’s not go there...

Difficulty to get payed
This is very true and very sad, just because it is an illustration or something creative people expect you to work for free, more or less. A personal memory comes to mind... I had painted this watercolor that got some interest from a very small magazine. They wanted to publish it, and I told them my prize (I had looked it up what I could charge), and then the editor said to me that he had a friend that could do that for free! Although it was a very small magazine, with a very tight budget, I still think they could have offered me something... this was many years ago, for now I don’t really mind to do work for free if I get some compensation or if I think that the idea is especially good. I think you have to go to yourself, if you are okay with it or not. I mean for every assignment you do, you get experience that you can use for the next one.

Close to inspiration
I’ve written about this before, about the elusive inspiration. Yet another personal memory comes to mind... I was in a middle of this project and my time was limited and I didn’t know what to do. So I took a shower and all of a sudden I got this brilliant idea of how I could proceed with the project.

So is it done then? Well...sort of, I’m done with it for now, if I want to tweak it a little I can do that, but for now, it’s done! It’s a low rendition.

Take care!