I know you've seen half of these before... but I just wanted to share them with you in the context that I think of them within; as a sketchbook. A series of pages bound together not only with thread and glue; but bound within the confines of time... The sketchbook tracks my progression. It tracks how my ideas on how to draw evolve. If it was not for the serial nature of the drawings: if I simply jumped at random through the pages... I believe my evolution over the course of the book would have been completely different.
And... at the same time; because of it's bound nature... I can't edit out the drawings that I think are failures. There is just as much failure as success in every one of my books... In fact judging by the number of pages I've posted... I fail twice times as much as I succeed. So... looking at art from the simple spot of statistics: There is a high statistical likelihood that I will fail every time I start drawing. And it isn't even that I have 1 page every three drawings that I feel I succeed within; I have 1 drawing every three pages that I feel succeeds. And given that on average I do 5 drawings per page.... 1 in 15 drawings succeed in my opinion. And even that is at a fairly generous level. And these days... the fact that I fail so much is almost empowering. I mean... Here I am, mediocre at best, and I turn the page to start fresh; even after every disastrous and demeaning failure.
To put it simply:
If at first you don't succeed:
try, try again.
Love,
Ed
2 comments:
you cant have your successful drawings without your failures.
I think, as an artist, you really need to build up a tough skin and realize that you really never will get to the point where you like everything you're putting down. especially if you're your own worse critic.
To me, knowing that you're going to make a mistake almost every time you put pencil to paper is liberating. It means you can make mistakes, almost intentionally, just to learn from them.
Sometimes what you're going for isn't as good as what you get.
That last line is exactly how I feel.
Thanks Jay. Very eloquently put.
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