La page blanche

[spqrblues]

At the Angoulême comics festival, I was having a late business meeting with someone in a pub that prides itself on serving American beer (Bud) and burgers (I don't know what it was, but I had a weird allergic reaction to it later; let's blame the Bearnaise sauce). The bartender brought around a big sketchbook, asked if we were artists, and quite charmingly asked us to add our own sketches to the many pages by other comic artists in it. My dinner companion zipped through a funny drawing of a duck. I stared and stared at the page in a panic. I drew one thing, then covered it with another, then tried to fix it with colours as I eventually managed to sort-of draw the Library soldier with a bag of comics. The barkeep came back for the sketchbook, and maybe it was his crushing sneer of disdain when he looked at my page that brought on the allergic reaction. (I didn't take a pic of the drawing. I consider it to non-exist.)

Expecting something like his reaction is why I freeze when faced by a blank page.

I have dozens of blank notepads, some large, some small, and one that's barely as large as my thumb. I can't resist acquiring them and I love getting them as gifts. Hardcover, softcover, perfect bound, wire bound, cream paper, ivory, icy white paper, rough and toothy, smooth as glass, blank, lined, graph, French-ruled, and dotted. Every time I draw in one I feel like I'm ruining it with bad, sloppy, juvenile scribbling, an ill-conceived mess of a doodle, terrible garbage. If I tear it out, I'm frustrated by how the perfect little sketchbook is no longer perfect. This was stopping me from using any of these sketchbooks at all. I'll ruin them!

So, I've decided, if everything I draw is garbage, why not just treat it that way? Draw any sort of trash on a page, no matter how horrible it looks, then tear it out and throw it away. Go into the notebook knowing it's going to be consumed, not filed away for later appreciation; don't feel bad about tearing the pages out and never seeing them again. No need to be paralysed by how I can't elegantly fill a Moleskine or what-have-you like so many other people manage to do. Draw something, anything, then toss it immediately.

Dare to use a blank page. Draw without fear, because it doesn't matter if the notebook is trashed. That's the point.

Then destroy the evidence.



The evidence

Comments

[kit-the-brave.livejournal.com]

Sneer of disdain? DUDE, YOU ARE A BARTENDER IN A FRENCH BAR THAT SERVES BUDWEISER. YOU ARE THROWING STONES IN A GLASS CONDOMINIUM.

Guess I told him, huh? Needless to say, I love your drawings. But I know the feeling of not wanting to ruin the awesome potential of blank books by writing something in them that will not turn out to be nearly as cool as the imaginary writing I pictured myself doing when I bought the book in the first place. *sigh* You inspire me! Maybe I'll crack open one of my cool blank books myself. :)

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

I'm sure this would work for writing, too. Forge ahead and fill a physical page. Start and stop, write and rewrite, or go stream of consciousness, or try some dialogue, or a description, or the beginning of a new story, or a journal entry, or whatever. Then toss it. So what if the lovely book has a page ripped out. Rip out another.

If the bar hadn't included a big sign on the front calling itself an "American Lounge" (maybe this is just meant to describe a style of architecture or service??), I probably wouldn't even have noticed the beer list, but, really...?

[kit-the-brave.livejournal.com]

I think I would go for the Corona in this situation!

OK, I'll do it. Blank book for the win! Um... after I mop the floor.

I have really clean floors when I'm writing.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

I understand that some people vacuum the cat while writing. But the cat usually complains.

OK, now. Floor clean? Cat tidy? Pick up that blank book! :D

[corvideye.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen this stuff? "Magic paper" or "brushstroke paper"

http://www.amazon.com/ART-ADVANTAGE-0299-02-Advantage-Brushstroke/dp/B0027ACAZO

You paint on it with a brush dipped in water, which creates dark slate-grey marks on the light grey surface. As the water evaporates, the marks disappear, leaving a blank sheet again. It's very freeing. Someone thought of making more money by gluing it to a board and calling it the Buddhaboard, but the unmounted paper is much cheaper. You might enjoy it...

I have the same anxiety about bound sketchbooks, that I can't remove something without mangling it. I always get spirals for that reason. Whatever gets the marks on the page...

Oh, and the French are professionally disdainful... don't take it personally!

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

It's like an Etch-a-Sketch without having to tweedle little knobs!

Brushstroke paper sounds very freeing (and apparently comes in red and green, too :D )

I was even having anxiety about using up the spiral-bound and perforated sketchbooks! It was time for an intervention. But today I'm looking at some drawings from late last night I haven't ripped out of the book yet, and I'm thinking, "hmm, that didn't turn out so great"...but instead of wanting to hide the oh-noes-totally-ruined notebook under a box at the back of the closet so I don't have to face the next blank page, I don't feel upset about it. I'll try again or try something different on the next page.

If I can maintain this, I might actually end up with some pages I like :)

[rasphigi.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about journals/writing. Luckily the internet is pretty well-adapted for spewing out words and then not having to look at them again unless desired (she writes on Livejournal....)

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

But I don't have to worry about any ripped-out drawings of Hello Kitty dancing with Twilight Sparkle turning up during a google search during a job interview.

...I hope...

Maybe I should try a fireplace instead of a trash bin :D

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Are you sure that was a sneer of disdain? If so, he's a jerk and an idiot. And choosing Budweiser as the representative beer of America is... just perpetuating the perception that America has awful beers.

There are comics with mediocre-to-awful artwork that I read anyway because the story is well-written. Yours has both great artwork and great writing. I don't know what you do in your day job, but I sure liked your library soldier.

In any event, I'm glad you've found a means to get past your block.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I was already so beaten up by that blank page, the bartender pushed me right over the edge. He seemed to like the duck just fine. Maybe he expected me to draw something more girly, not a hulking solder with stubble.

Why, my actual day job is to rampage through libraries in spiked boots and a helmet (okay, maybe not really...).

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Ugh You drew a Non-Asterix Roman soldier in a French sketchbook. That explains it :P

*sarcasm*

Sorry you couldn't be perfect like Mr. Bartender. I think being offered a chance to draw a doodle in a sketchbook in a foreign bar pretty F-ing cool beans and he ought to be grateful you did anything.

Shrug it off and don't take it personally. You're work is totally awesome.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

Fooey. I thought Romans would be all the rage now. He'll be sorry he sneered when I'm FAMOUS and I'm a special artist guest of the festival and he asks me to sign a copy of my FAMOUS book and I'll be all "NOT UNTIL YOU GET BETTER BEER."

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I have the same sort of problem with the staring-at-blank-page/plate/canvas sort of deal.

I think -all- artists, and really, all creative-types suffer this to a greater or lesser degree.

But once you make that first mark, you get involved and then you have the "better" problem to solve is when to say "Done" :D
(and maybe even better problem is "what do I title this?!")

The fact that you just bit-lip and drew -something- I think is a huge step in the right direction.
Maybe you need some doodle time, to just do little doodles and goofy things...something like "connect the dots" or "connect the hatch marks"

I have a small hunch that Mr. Dick-Unappreciative-Bartender would have snubbed Picasso if he waltzed in and drew a stick figure or a smiley face.
I get the sense this guy would be unimpressed with anything.

But moving on and forgetting him >HINT< I'd say don't throw away your sketches and things you think are trash. Maybe stuff them into a corner of a bookshelf or a drawer
and not look at them for a long time....But then my inner New Englander might be talking here and mistakenly turn you into a pack-rat and not throw out anything.
Eeeeep! Well, can't wait to see your next post of awesome drawings, even if it's silly doodles. It is such a rare treat and treasure to go to an art museum / show and see
an artist's long-unseen doodle or one-off that somehow survived. I am really liking this new trend with some art shows where they take X-Ray and Spectrographic imagery
to show the prelim drawing and Mistakes and Corrections because that just adds so much more depth to the conversation and examination of art we call 'masterpieces'
and I think it helps bring the artist down to a more human level and say "aaha! So they made mistakes and corrections, too! And this is how they did their prelim work! And it doesn't
look as mystical as it did before, something I could possibly do...Oh, wait, I DO do this sort of stuff! YAY! I'm sorta like this Artist! WOOO! I Win!"

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

The torn-out sketches were in an otherwise clean and empty wastebasket, so I rescued them. But I won't obsess over them; I'll just stick them in a folder. Out of sight, out of mind. If my drawings of eyes without faces and faces without eyes and feet without bodies can inspire some other blocked artist, who am I to stand in the way? I am definitely already a pack rat :)

More doodles will be done, definitely. I'll try not to get myself into an obsessive circle of drawing the same thing over and over with different pens (feet in sandals)...

[corvideye.livejournal.com]

I recently went to an exhibit of old master drawings from the 17th-18th centuries. They were exquisite drawings, yet it was also lovely to see that artist's sketches pretty much look like artist's sketches, in any time ... playing with ideas, practicing, preparing, working out problems. My favorite was a picture of an annunciation scene, very beautifully executed, but in the margin the artist kept drawing this one foreshortened foot over and over, the same exact struggle we've all gone through with some pesky foot or hand that won't come out quite right... It gave me a sense of process connection that the highly polished final paintings of that era don't necessarily give, because they are so inaccessibly perfect.

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I totally agree and I love seeing marginal (hah) drawings and the like. It's really great knowing master artists 'doodled in their notebooks' too.

What exhibit on 17-18th cen. master drawings, where and for how long? Do you have a link?

[shadefell.livejournal.com]

I draw on the backs of envelopes and misprinted computer paper and stuff. Sometimes I find I work out a decent gag comic layout and keep it, or nail a pose or something, but most of them just get tossed. They're literally drawn on trash which makes it a bit easier to recycle them.