So I’ve decided that I actually am really enjoying making these doodles or drawings or whatever they are- it’s sort of meditative and calming to just start moving the pen and see what happens and I want to do more of it. I think I’ve harbored a lot of bad ideas about drawing- that it should look like something and not just be random marks. And that’s why I’ve tended to think that I hate drawing and am not good at it- it is simultaneously boring and frustrating for me to do realistic drawings; because I already know what it’s supposed to look like I don’t even want to bother because there’s no surprise or evolution in it, and also I’m not very good at making things look realistic and the less it looks like what it’s supposed to look like the more annoying it is, even if I’m not even all that interested in making something that looks like something. What a mess. So I bought myself this gorgeous book and I’m just going to start drawing or doodling or making marks or whatever and see what happens. No collaging, no painting, no cutting pages up. I’ll post photos as I go.

I think I don’t draw much (particularly people!) because I get fixated on whether or not it looks “right.” Whereas with my digital collage and mixed media collage work I’m better able to just let things happen and have fun and enjoy the process. I think that’s why I don’t really do printmaking anymore. I double-majored in Painting and Printmaking, but I think I found both mediums individually kind of frustrating. Printmaking is difficult to do in that kind of go with the flow, see what happens, change course midstream kind of way. It requires planning, sketching things out, having more than a vague idea in advance…which just doesn’t work that well for me. The dread Inner Perfectionist starts screaming and it’s all downhill from there. (Also why although I am ABLE to draw and paint in a realistic manner I hardly ever do so).

I actually recently gave away all my wood/linoleum carving tools to a coworker who said he used to like to do woodblock printing. It felt kind of nice to admit that I’m most likely not going to do that particular medium ever again. I even bought a few new linoleum blocks and ink a few years ago, but it just never happened. And that’s ok.  It feels better to have those things in the hands of someone who might actually use them than taking up space in my (tiny) studio, a reminder of yet another project I never got around to.