Drawing faces, finding one’s style

That was about the most exciting thing about drawing this week. I’ve been focusing on faces more often. Pleasingly, I liked the second better than the first, and the third better than the second.

I got so fed up with my own style  that I decided I needed to do something very different and started using pencils only, no charcoal sticks, no broad edges (with the middle drawing, above). All shading done in scribbles and lines laid close together. That helped. I was getting down in the dumps.

It’s a tough issue, this matter of style. For a long time, I felt the same way about my voice as a writer. I just didn’t like it, didn’t feel at home with it, was even embarrassed by it. Over time and many, many weekly deadlines, I grew, or grew into, into a voice that feels authentic and that I usually like. How much of that is development of my writing ability and how much might be better called growth of the soul? Isn’t it essentially about being comfortable with who I am?

If so, am I not comfortable with who I am as an artist? I don’t think that’s it. I think that I have a vision in my mind that I’m not able to realize on paper yet. But how to get from inner vision to charcoal-and-paper reality isn’t just a matter of technical prowess, either. Ira Glass, in advice beautifully illustrated by Gavin Aung Than of Zen Pencils, says it’s mostly about already having good taste–knowing what “good” looks like–and making a huge volume of work, i.e., gradually honing your craft. In the meantime, you keep making things that disappoint you. I think that’s true, and also that there’s something more about the process that isn’t expressed in what he says, but I can’t put my finger on it. Anyway, here are some more disappointments along the way to what I hope will be work that matches my vision.