Draw!

Honestly, the only reason I was motivated to get a smart phone was to try the sketching aps available.

Pasture at dusk, digital sketch on iPhone 4S with “Brushes”

My old dumbphone worked fine as, you know, a phone. Texting’s nice but… why? And if I want to take pictures (which I do a lot!) I have a really good camera for that. But what I didn’t have was a device that let me make two-inch paintings on the fly. Any new or different way to make an image is fair game. The fun is not just exploring a new medium, it’s discovering how the new medium will make me see differently. When I take pictures with a camera, I see photographically. When I paint, I see painterly. When I sketch, I see pencilly. Or something. How might I see when schmooshing pixels about on a tiny touch screen?

Flowers on dining table, digital sketch

I love to sketch. Sketching’s about paying attention to what’s in front of me at the moment. I have to notice things to distill what I’m seeing into a few lines and tones. I have to figure out what to leave out and still put down the essence of what I’m seeing. And I have to pay attention to what’s going on inside me, as well. I have to quiet those tendencies to jump my attention elsewhere. I have to be present to the moment, as the esoterics say.

I’ve sat in a corner at gatherings and sketched and concerned people have asked me to come join the party—as if I was only marginally there. I’ve sat on a bench somewhere sketching and people have said I was disengaged. Really, it’s the opposite. I’m very engaged. I’m totally there.

Watching the music, digital sketch

It’s becoming epidemic that people will whip out a smart phone at the drop of a hat to “record the event”. Or even more curious, turn that little plastic lens on themselves and record their grinning mugs in front of whatever. Okay, I do that, too. But are we really engaging with the world around us, really seeing the things in front of us at the moment?  Or are we just grabbing a quick souvenir so we can check off “been there, done that” and move on? People, places, things get objectified. See that? Snap! Another trophy for my social media wall.

But when I take a few minutes to draw what’s in front of me, I take in more than a quick snap ever will. I’m mind-recording a 360° of the moment. When I look at that sketch later, no matter how crude, I can recall details of sight, scent, feeling, even thoughts and emotions going on at the time. Take the guitar player above: not a great sketch of not a great musician. But the beads of sweat on his forehead tell me he’s working hard. Rain’s beating down outside and the little auditorium we’ve been shuffled into because of the weather smells musty. The little folding chairs we sit on are wobbly and uncomfortable.  None of that’s in the picture. But all of it is recorded.

There’s a great article on The Philosophers’ Mail that takes this up.

“…drawing can teach us to see: to notice properly rather than gaze absentmindedly. In the process of recreating with our own hand what lies before our eyes, we naturally move from a position of observing beauty in a loose way to one where we acquire a deep understanding of its parts.”

Backyard in winter, digital sketch

The article references John Ruskin, the mid-19^th C English art critic. With the advent of photography, Ruskin noticed people were losing their ability to observe. Before photography, everyone drew whether they thought they had talent or not. It was a practical necessity. The effects the rapidly increasing pace of life brought through industrialization distressed Ruskin. He wrote,

“No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than men could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace.”

To be truly human, he said, “…is not at all in going, but in being.”

So how cool is it, now that we’re moving out of that industrial age, I have a little device that I can use “all in going” and, at the touch of an ap, allows me to settle into a corner and just be?

digital sketch with “Brushes” on iPhone 4S