Say it with your chest.
And a limit of 3 simple lines.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The 1-minute timer went off, I pulled my nose and Apple pencil away from my iPad to see just a circle on two shoulders, and the start of a torso.
Where the heck did the time go?! I immediately thought as I scrolled for a new pose to draw–maybe that last one was too complicated?
I tried again and again, still ending my 1-minute sketches unfinished.
I know the instructor of this Skillshare class has been painting and drawing for years and years and years, but I can’t seem to shake getting too focused on making sure what I drew conveyed the poses exactly.
So let’s talk about the woes of keeping things simple.
It’s not hard to give in to simplicity when we experience how fast it is to remove the pilling on your favorite sweater with a fabric shaver instead of your fingers.
Or the time I learned I could cut the mess and time it takes me to fix frozen beef and broccoli on the stovetop in half by dumping it straight into the air fryer (and it comes out exactly the same!).
But when your identity (voluntarily or not) is based on how detailed and excessive your need to be perfectly conveyed is, it’s a different story.
I remember my mom telling me how she admired me being a perfectionist, but that it was–indeed–to a fault.
She loved how passionate I was about getting something exactly right, but it delays my progression of that same thing. And that flaw glared at me while I was trying to do a Skillshare class on illustrating your own self-portrait. I caught myself–over and over–trying to perfect the look when that’s not what it was about.
I used to (and maybe still do?) have a habit of overexplaining myself. Feeling it necessary to go on and on with too much rambling and not enough curt certainty to my words.
The same–I realize–happens in my art. My writing (I’m sure you’re seeing an edited version but the first draft was at the start of five pages. Arial 13.), and now my drawings.
Most recently when I was trying to create a simplified self-portrait sketch, I took over 20 minutes to lightly sketch a head, eyes, nose, and shoulders… The instructor was keeping it simple. I wasn’t.
I convinced myself that the practice of doing things simply just wasn’t for me. I took too much time trying to perfect just the sketch, let alone the final piece. I’m someone who—someday—wants to create simple 4-panel (or even 1-panel!) comics that tell a story.
A few days after that, I realized this is where I need to be uncomfortably stretched.
Speaking with fewer words. Not feeling a need to explain myself in mass detail whether written, verbally, or visually is a challenge of mine I’m now willing to take on.
Confident people say what they mean, and mean what they say. My pencil and brush strokes can do similarly in practice. I can stop myself from pressing the “undo” button or grabbing an eraser. I can place down lines confidently and keep going.
Even if there’s times when I need to sit back to curate the words for what I need to say before I say it, so be it.
But when it comes to play, I should move much more freely than I do. I see myself wanting to perfect everything, and it’s exhausting!
(I have found one exception for perfectionism during play, specifically: mini “Lego” set builds! It’s SO fun for me, and exhausting! The concentration it takes me to double/triple/quadruple check that I’m placing the tiiiiny blocks in the right direction and space is taxing, because when I mess up the placement of a block, I have to take a pointed metal nail file to try and pry it lose so I can try again.)
It’s been a minute since I’ve been challenged in a way that rewards growth if I overcome it. But sometimes you just can’t be like “this is just who I am!!” Sometimes, it’s good to break this identity we hold over ourselves so we can become more flexible with life, and our expectations of it.
I want to draw more simply for a reason. I want to focus on being able to tell a lot of stories so I can keep a daily sketch journal, or share concepts with my community through the visuals I create. To do so, I need to simplify. And I know it’s possible.
I’ve seen so many artists who convey meaning with their more simplified-looking work1:
I have expanders2 that help me realize what’s possible for me, too.3
When was the last time you were coaxed to get out of your comfort zone? Did you do it? Was it worth it?
And did it involve keeping things simple?
Let me know in the comments.
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And even then, it took practice to make many of even the simplest illustrations muscle memory. (And still! It’s not a simple line of work, even when the illustrations look simple.)
An expander is a person who you admire, that lets you know that what you desire in life is possible!
I’m gonna be honest, me finding the names of artists I love on IG made me go through a slew of people I started to compare myself to. It hurts, it sucks, and I’m still working on finding value in my life worth sharing. It’s been a rocky road lately, to tell the truth.