I notice that many painters avoid the making thumbnails or preliminary drawings and jump right into the painting phase. Now I wonder if they dislike the repetition of drawing. Drawing is a search. I measure the relationship between two points in the original photo and I make a mark in my drawing. I have to go back and forth, multiple times, and I erase frequently. My drawing becomes a record of all the marks I made to accurately capture that relationship.
I am not afraid of repetition in a drawing. I feel like a drawing is how I learn to know my subject. The repetition is how I train myself to see what is really there and to choose how I want to see. Repetition is soothing. It is the quiet confidence building inside of me as I move closer to my painting.
As part of #20For20ArtChallenge2022, I am reading from The Power of Daily Practice: How Creative and Performing Artists (and Everyone Else) Can Finally Meet Their Goals by Eric Maisel, PhD. Part I of the book covers 20 Elements of Practice. In this blog post series 20For20, I write about one Element every day and reflect on how to incorporate the Element into my daily painting practice.