The Drawing Board #16

Feedback FAQ, Confessions and Perfections: A Reflection

Welcome to my newsletter where I share my personal creative process. I hope to inspire you to pick up a pen, paint brush or spatula and create something spectacular.

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Feedback FAQ

I’m one week into Write of Passage Cohort 10 and I’ve lost track of how much feedback I’ve given as an Editor. These essays were written from every corner of the earth. One moment I’m navigating personal growth amongst a family confronting an unexpected medical diagnosis, the next I’m taken on a ride with a fictional interview with an AI powered self-driving car.

I’ve spent what feels like 48 hours straight, with my eyes glued to my monitor, reading essays, trying to make sense of their ideas, discovering new connections, and writing cohesive reviews for each student. I let them know which parts kept me hooked for more and where reading data copied from wikipedia felt like a chore. I asked them questions, so they could dig deep within their souls and show their readers how they feel. 

It’s been fun! 

My brain is stretched and I haven’t slept much. But I’ve got 4 more weeks to go, and I’m just warming up.

In this week’s TDB, I’m sharing my first ever Write of Passage essay. The prompt for this essay was the same as the essays I edited this past week: What is your most frequently asked question?

Here is how I answered it:

How are your paintings so realistic?

It's the afternoon, the studio is flooded with warm golden light. My portrait of Casper, the Orangutan, is sitting on the easel next to my window. I take in the fresh breeze as lo-fi beats softly fill the space. I stare into Casper's eyes, mixing some paint to match his skin…

Confessions and Perfections: A Reflection

My good friend (and fellow writer/Editor) Sandra’s confession on capturing fleeting ideas has me thinking about my own art and writing. Below is an excerpt from her newsletter, Sunday Candy:

“Whatever I’m quick enough to grasp makes its way into tiny pages the size of my hand, but I never capture it all the way I say it in my head, it is never the same feeling, never the same sound, never the same texture, and I worry that I’ll never do anything inside me justice, but when I see a whizzing hummingbird pass me by, I’m reminded that this is a silly thing to be concerned about.”

As an artist, the images in my head never translate exactly onto the canvas. Sometimes it’s close, other times completely different. Is it a lack of skill, like not perfectly mixing paint colors? I’m still learning what it means to be an artist. Or maybe I’m not able to hold onto the image long enough for it to fully make its way onto the canvas.

I wonder if the images are constantly evolving as I wildly slap my brush around. Every brush stroke is a response to what I see in my head. Then the image in my head reacts to each brush stroke. The cycle continues over and over. Adapt, respond. Adapt, respond… It’s like there’s a conversation between the canvas and my mind as I paint. And the final painting is where I (we?) end the conversation. 

“With each brush stroke, Casper and I talk to each other in some telepathic kind of way.  Captivated by the expression of who I'm painting, I study their face and apply it to the canvas.  There’s an active exchange - the nose is a little too far from the mouth, the curve of his cheek needs to round out, his eye color needs a bit more warmth. The painting tells me what it needs and I do it, over and over, until it's done.”

When I wrote my FAQ essay, my priority was to capture faces with calculated precision. The  mission was simple: match face. Essentially I became a human photocopy machine. 

But experimenting with impressionism lately feels like having an intellectual conversation. Not only do I have to hold the image I want to paint in my mind, I have to imagine it with expressive brushstrokes and bright colors. It’s like I have to Photoshop the image in my mind, bump the noise, blur, and color saturation to the max, then translate it onto the canvas. The cycle now has an added step: adapt, Photoshop, respond. Adapt, Photoshop, respond. 

I’m trying to perfect a painting that’s not supposed to be perfect. I can already imagine my  art teacher, who’s constantly telling me to be more free, shaking her head at the thought of this. 

Maybe being more free will take longer than I thought.

Thank you Sandra for inspiring me to reflect on my painting process this week! AND for being my GO-TO collaborator, editor, and co-writer at the very last hour of writing this. It’s one of the perks of having brilliant creative/writing/art friends. 

I got to return the favor, earlier this week, and collaborated with Sandra on a playlist for her latest issue of Sunday Candy. She asked me to start the playlist, and the only constraint was that I had to do it in 30 minutes. She loved the direction, cut some of my stuff, and added some of her stuff. 

I also made the playlist cover! I found an image of some peonies, grunge-ified it, and hand-wrote Sandra’s title. The final playlist is filled with hearty tunes by Paul McCartney, Lou Reed, and Stevie Nicks. I’ve been listening to this playlist everyday while painting. And you can too in the link below. Enjoy:

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Thanks for reading!

Happy Creating, Elizabeth 🎨