Art Fear #2 - “My book would be full of stick figures”
Let’s pretend for a moment that you want to travel, but you don’t, because you don’t know the place you want to travel to very well. You watch other people travel. They seem to know what they are doing. SO you just stay at home, dreaming of what it would be like to travel.
Being creative is a lot like that. You're interested in art, you look at good design and illustration and the cute drawings your friends make and think, “I wish I could do that.” You dream and dream of being able to be an “artist.”Well folks, we are here to tell you, it’s OK to fill your sketchbook with stick figures. It’s OK to use it as a testing ground. It’s OK to mess up and erase and to try dipping it into coffee because you heard that would make it look “vintage.”
Art can be many things, but it also can be personal. It doesn’t have to mean something so grand. You don’t have to create to change the world. You can draw anything you want, have it mean nothing, but have fun doing it. Just like you wouldn’t keep yourself from traveling because you don’t know “how to be in a new city,” you shouldn’t stop yourself from being creative.
The Sketchbook Project was born out of the idea that anyone could do it! That does mean we have our share of books filled with stick figures, but who cares! If that’s what you feel comfortable with, start there. Before you know it you will be drawing more and more complicated things, or you will just be playing hang man by yourself.
Things you can be without any prior training: an artist, a creative thinker, a poet, a traveller.
Things you CANNOT be without prior training: Brain surgeon. 🤷🏻♂️