A drawing a day

Fundamental to life is breathing: without breath there is no life. The most basic meditation technique is to focus merely on your own breath. Breathe in...breathe out, remembering that you are alive in this moment.

The creative life is no different. The whole purpose of creativity is that it keeps moving, flowing: breathe in, breathe out. Aspiring authors are encouraged to read widely, and to write something each day. Musicians to listen to music, and to play each day. Visual artists need to look closely, which means they need to draw.

David asked us whether we were drawing each day. I said that I was getting ideas for designs down, but just drawing things that I see? No, I wasn't. "So you're downloading but not uploading", he replied, "be careful of that". He explained that observational drawing trains the eye and the hand, and it builds a bank of images in the back of the head. These can lie dormant, perhaps not popping up in your designs until years later, but to build a bank of them is essential for the designer.

At the moment, we are focused on the basics of furniture making - getting things straight, square and flush. But David is encouraging us to play a longer game. There will come a time, we are assured, when our skills are developed. But will we have the rich pool of ideas and images - that creative primordial soup - upon which to draw? Will our work have an enticing, organic quality - designs that are not that far removed from the natural world and the wood we work with? Will we keep developing, changing, innovating; or will we keep on rehashing the same tired old concepts?

David has lived a life of creativity, consistently pushing the boundaries of what is possible in furniture making, so he is one to listen to. He encouraged us to do a drawing a day. It needn't be much - between five and twenty minutes drawing common household objects is fine. But a drawing a day is essential.

I began on Saturday, and looking at my efforts over the last three days, I really need to keep practicing! However, the purpose here is not to produce a 'good' drawing each day. It is the process that is important. Take a household object, look at it carefully, draw it. Look and draw; breathe in, breathe out.  

Who needs meditation.

-sh