A few weeks ago, I led a drawing workshop in which I focused on making quick figure drawing sketches. Drawing is something I very much like to do and have comfort with, and showing other people is such a different mode. I showed some steps that I used for sketching a modern dancer taking a leap. I felt energized talking about all the different strategies I use and what I have learned in my own artistic journey. The intent of my workshop was to lead people who draw on rare occasions to develop comfort with practicing drawing human proportions. It is very odd for me to try to teach drawing. I think I am very good at teaching subjects which I previously had a discomfort with and since developed mastery. In those subjects maybe I had more conscious thought of what I was doing from a mechanical sense.
Drawing is something I just do. I don't have a clear memory of having a discomfort with it, although I have received critiques of things to fix, which I was hungry for but did take a bruise to my ego before improving on those bits of feedback. I also just have an aversion to any step-by-step instruction on how to draw something specific. I don't believe people should draw like other people. Drawing skill comes from developing the ability to draw what you see from doing that over and over again and releasing the filters of what you think something looks like and drawing what it actually looks like. Think of how hard it is to draw a bicycle on a first attempt. It seems simple enough in concept as a structure with two wheels and a handle bar, until I realize I have a very distorted idea what a bicycle actually looks like and how all those parts are arranged in the physical. Developing the focus to see not only the individual parts but how they are arranged within a space, using the context of how pieces are positioned in relation to each other, using parts of the composition as measuring tools for their placement (i.e. her left foot is positioned slightly to the right of her elbow, but a few inches to the left of the doorway frame in the background.) If I lead another workshop focused specifically on developing drawing skills rather than developing comfort with drawing itself, I think I will focus on just seeing things in space. After someone learns to draw what they see, they can just amplify it by combining it with idea. Then you get styles like surrealism, impressionism, and everything else that combines elements with realism and just pure thought.
Last year I participated in The Great Resignation, and left a job at a corporation that was no longer a fit for me and worked on my own projects for several months. This website was born during that time. Since then, I have started a new position working for other people again, but there were a lot of shifts in perspective that came with these decisions. First, quitting my job was not the worst thing in the world, as many more conservative colleagues had warned. I think the timing played a large role, as I do believe last year was probably one of the most advantageous times to leave a position without jumping into a similar one, as the demand for labor was extremely high. But also, with that experience, I feel more permission to walk away from any future positions that no longer feel good to me without fear of that space between roles in working for other people. There were a lot of things that were really great during that time off; having complete control over my time made me feel like I was living forever. I studied subjects which I would not have had the mental energy to focus on before. I was able to take a few trips that I had not scheduled around a vacation calendar. My biggest shift was learning to sit with myself and un-tie my sense of self worth to how productive I am or what my output is. When I decided I wanted to work on a team again, I was very deliberate about choosing the next place to work.