This is so good! One of my favorites of yours, I really feel what you’re saying. You are incredibly self-disciplined with your writing, I aspire to what you’ve accomplished with your blog and here on Substack. I always feel like my newsletters need to be “good.” But they’re actually more like your sketchbooks, sometimes one of my musings is worth developing at some point, but mostly they’re just sketches. I need to create a structure so I can do them regularly. Thanks for your thoughts here! And p.s. I really like the portrait below the one you’ve hidden, those are great colors!
Thank you Maya! You are right about the self discipline of writing. I have to be in order to publish *something* every week. Not sure why I can't approach artwork with the same discipline but I'm working on it. I get the pressure of wanting your newsletters to be "good" or maybe the better way to describe it is, "worthy" of being sent out to an audience. Hence the self discipline and a little bit of anxiety to light that fire every week. It's a really strange weekly cycle that guides the week. Hmmm...maybe this is a newsletter in the future.
Yes, please! I want to hear more on this topic! I had an author newsletter that I sent out weekly and then monthly from 2017 until this past September. I think I got sick of the inside of my head…or maybe it was politics or despair or identity crisis, I don’t even know. I want to replicate that regular schedule here on Substack but I don’t know what kept me going for so long. How did I even construct that “container” or framework? I don’t know how I did it and I want to do it again but so much has changed since 2017. Appreciate a future newsletter on how you grapple with the feelings but also the needed structure and craving to be both invisible but “seen.” Ultimate artist’s question!
I don't really know myself, to be honest. I don't plan any sort of content calendar. Most weeks I just fly by the seat of my pant! But even I'm surprised that I've kept it up this long, this consistently. Sometimes I think..how much longer can I go?
"If I stay true to the process, lurking among the spreads of all these ugly drawings will be the quiet beginnings of an idea about to take flight." Yes, that part! I, too, have a hard time putting aside my perfectionistic tendencies and just allowing myself to make a mess (even though I know - I KNOW - that is where the good stuff always comes from). Thanks so much for articulating exactly what I needed to hear this week.
It only took me 54 years to be comfortable with messy! I don't think I knew how to be messy. There's a big leap from those two first drawings to the oil pastel ones in my sketchbook. It's REALLY hard to turn off a type A, perfectionist tendencies!
I am a lover of ugly drawings, in fact it’s all I make I think! There’s such an expressive, human quality to these works that capture so much range in their imperfections. I am so glad to see you share yours and hope you’ll keep exploring further, as it will really push and transform your work 💛
I love your drawings. I wish I can be more free with mine. I'm working on getting there. Now that I think about it, I think being a designer where I obsess over pixels, hex values, and making sure a Figma design library is super organized with components that are built cleanly has made it even more difficult for me to be free with art. I never made that connection. Hmph.
Getting messy with my art was the only way I was able to work out where I wanted to go and what kind of artist I wanted to be. It’s also fun to let your hands do the thinking. The color combos and marks are sometimes surprising and delightful.
I was avoiding color for a long time. I just had this resistance for it. It was just another thing to deal with as I figure out what direction I wanted to go it, but I'm realizing that it's not a great way to approach this struggle. I replied upthread to Carolyn that I actually now realize that working as a designer for so many years had influence over my struggle with allowing myself to get messy. Product design requires so much discipline and organization of files, components, and pixel exactness. Maybe this is why I can start going there, because I'm not designing everyday anymore.
I'm enjoying both the precise pieces and the loose ones. They still reveal your point of view. I identify with the flower as much as the women in your sketchbooks. Keep going.
I can relate to a lot of this. Lately I've been writing longhand as a way to sidestep any editing/critical impulse because it's not as easy to make changes. (And also my cursive is hard to read quickly.) I read a book last year about dealing with your inner critic called "Better Days" by Neal Allen. I found it very helpful. Our culture is generally hostile to art, there's the sense that everything needs to be obviously useful or profitable. So in addition to inner voices you have to overcome critical voices coming from the outside.
I had to look up what longhand meant to remind me 😅. Our culture's relationship to art is so polarizing. On one hand, it is hostile, as you say. On the other, it's valued as important but nobody wants to fund it.
You are the second person to ask me what I’m talking about when I say longhand so maybe it’s totally fallen out of use. I actually had to learn shorthand in high school in the 90s (why??) so I guess that’s why I make a distinction. My kids can’t even read cursive!
Thanks for sharing your art process. I also read this in parallel to my writing. I often feel pressured when I write. I should write like nobody's reading, at least for the first draft; otherwise, nothing will happen. Thanks for the reminder. It's probably the only way to find our way in art, to grow, and to keep going.
This is true, Rachel. I think it can be applied to most any creative thing. Somewhere along the way I realized that I structured my writing the way you outlined. The first draft is so rough and then it goes through so many edits. And I'm thinking about the quick and messy art as sort of a stream of consciousness-style drawing.
I love what you said here: "Ambiguity isn’t the same as stagnation—it can also be a creative time, even in flux. It’s an opportunity to mess around, be destructive, and fail. "
I didn't grow up having a creative outlet to create freely until I started writing writing. I need to follow what you said to not be afraid of messing around and even letting myself fail.
It’s fascinating to read about this era of your art practice. I have spent years now working through the opposite problem, that of being too ‘free’. I have often felt like I would do anything to be able to put graphite, paint or ink exactly where I want it to go (as you seem to be able to do when you choose to), rather than scattershot, in sloppy errant lines and misshapen shapes, the way I do naturally. I am trying to go more slowly and carefully while also maintaining momentum, which is hard because drawing with control makes all my muscles tense up and I need to take lots of breaks. The thing I share with you, though, is the excitement of coming to know multiple modes of artistic creation and moving among them. I’m so delighted to see your different approaches and I’m grateful to you for sharing them, even when it feels vulnerable.
That is interesting! But here's a question: why do you feel you want more control or to reign in the "sloppy"? What do you hope to get out of it? I know why I want the opposite. Because ultimately, I feel like drawing representatively is more like documentation than true expression—ok, I know that's not really true in general, but that has always been the frustration for me. It's relatively easy for me to draw realistically. So much harder to be more abstract.
Thanks for asking, I had to think about it a bit. I want to draw and paint with more control because I want to build dense and richly expressive worlds in my work. I aspire to that both in my representational work and my abstract work, but especially when I’m making comics and other narrative art. I make a lot of loose and sketchy art that I’m satisfied enough with that I post it on my socials, but I want to have both a loose style and a more finished-looking style. I hope that if I can do that, I will have a range of expression that will keep me motivated as an artist, and also I will get more opportunities to share my art. Perhaps this is not a goal I would have now if I had spent my earlier professional life making visual artifacts (I did that rarely). It is important to me, though.
Thanks for taking the time to answer. I think I understand! And it sounds totally valid and makes a ton of sense. I guess that’s why we keep doing, if our curiosity and motivation holds up. Can’t always say that this was true, considering my long lapses in drawing, but now I am definitely curious to see how expressive my drawings can go.
‘Ambiguity isn’t the same as stagnation…’ I wanna scream it both into the mirror and from the rooftops. We’re so *obsessed* with certainty, aren’t we?! With somehow knowing what can’t really ever be assured, like the ‘quality’ of our art. Oh man… feeling it, Jenna. Thanks so much, as ever.
It's interesting because I'm really uncomfortable with uncertainty. I'm a planner. So all of this (waves arms everywhere) is really unsettling, but because EVERYTHING is uncertain right now, it seems easier to swallow because nothing is in my control. So I've had to reframe what ambiguity means. It's not a bad thing! Just like the name of this newsletter —it's a state of being where things are in flux, and these transitional states can mean that we're more open to change, experimentation, and opportunities.
Same, Jenna! What's really been a game changer for me has been seeing my same predilection for planning and preparation in my 6 yr old. Helping him to work with the unknown, and to get excited by it, has taught me the same and more. And I totally agree with the time promoting a more holistic change in how we think about this stuff... it's really forcing the issue, isn't it?
I think it's a valuable lesson to teach our kids. Sometimes I think we aren't teaching kids enough coping mechanisms because we're so uncomfortable with seeing our kids uncomfortable. Totally a different topic, I know.
Oh man, a topic that hits hard for me. So real, as both a mom and a daughter.
One of the most profound advantages of having started my family in my 40s, I’ve been able to catch myself in many of those moments, though only because I understand how and why my own mom used to pull me from even the threat of discomfort… reckon we could go deeeeep, Jenna. Have you written on this?
in bits and pieces in various essays. I don't think I've written an essay focusing on this (oh god, my fear of repeating myself grows deeper everyday). I'm still working out all my complicated feelings and maybe regret over because despite the fact that my kids are in college, I'm still struggling with this.
Whenever I point out the trillionth time my husband repeats the same story he says ‘well… it’s still true!’ Used to drive me bonkers, I’ve now officially co-opted. 🙌🏻
This piece really resonated with me. I didn’t get to take art classes until 2016/2017. I LOVED them. I took two non-credit courses at the local community college.
I found that when I TRIED for a certain thing, my results were not great. When I was loose, I was amazed at the results.
As a recovering perfectionist, loose feels dangerous. But, I’m also doing EMDR therapy right now, so perhaps my next target could be allowing the loosening…
Thank you for sparking this thought process for me. I love your drawings!
Had to look up what EMDR therapy was - that sounds interesting. Perfectionism is about control and that's why loose feels dangerous. But it's so interesting how much harm it can do and long it takes to unravel.
"I use these mediums because I can’t easily erase the mistakes I want to fix. Instead, I layer more marks and add gestural lines to cover the ones I dislike, allowing the drawing to evolve into something entirely different from where it began." - this is the basic tenet of existence, life! 🤝 You put it beautifully.
Thanks Rene. I am very slooooooowly finding my way.
This is so good! One of my favorites of yours, I really feel what you’re saying. You are incredibly self-disciplined with your writing, I aspire to what you’ve accomplished with your blog and here on Substack. I always feel like my newsletters need to be “good.” But they’re actually more like your sketchbooks, sometimes one of my musings is worth developing at some point, but mostly they’re just sketches. I need to create a structure so I can do them regularly. Thanks for your thoughts here! And p.s. I really like the portrait below the one you’ve hidden, those are great colors!
Same! Her column is always on point and so well developed. Something I aspire to as well.
🥹 Aw shucks...thanks.
Thank you Maya! You are right about the self discipline of writing. I have to be in order to publish *something* every week. Not sure why I can't approach artwork with the same discipline but I'm working on it. I get the pressure of wanting your newsletters to be "good" or maybe the better way to describe it is, "worthy" of being sent out to an audience. Hence the self discipline and a little bit of anxiety to light that fire every week. It's a really strange weekly cycle that guides the week. Hmmm...maybe this is a newsletter in the future.
Yes, please! I want to hear more on this topic! I had an author newsletter that I sent out weekly and then monthly from 2017 until this past September. I think I got sick of the inside of my head…or maybe it was politics or despair or identity crisis, I don’t even know. I want to replicate that regular schedule here on Substack but I don’t know what kept me going for so long. How did I even construct that “container” or framework? I don’t know how I did it and I want to do it again but so much has changed since 2017. Appreciate a future newsletter on how you grapple with the feelings but also the needed structure and craving to be both invisible but “seen.” Ultimate artist’s question!
I don't really know myself, to be honest. I don't plan any sort of content calendar. Most weeks I just fly by the seat of my pant! But even I'm surprised that I've kept it up this long, this consistently. Sometimes I think..how much longer can I go?
"If I stay true to the process, lurking among the spreads of all these ugly drawings will be the quiet beginnings of an idea about to take flight." Yes, that part! I, too, have a hard time putting aside my perfectionistic tendencies and just allowing myself to make a mess (even though I know - I KNOW - that is where the good stuff always comes from). Thanks so much for articulating exactly what I needed to hear this week.
It only took me 54 years to be comfortable with messy! I don't think I knew how to be messy. There's a big leap from those two first drawings to the oil pastel ones in my sketchbook. It's REALLY hard to turn off a type A, perfectionist tendencies!
So hard, right!? I’m still on my way to being comfortable with messy, but I’m getting there!
I am a lover of ugly drawings, in fact it’s all I make I think! There’s such an expressive, human quality to these works that capture so much range in their imperfections. I am so glad to see you share yours and hope you’ll keep exploring further, as it will really push and transform your work 💛
I love your drawings. I wish I can be more free with mine. I'm working on getting there. Now that I think about it, I think being a designer where I obsess over pixels, hex values, and making sure a Figma design library is super organized with components that are built cleanly has made it even more difficult for me to be free with art. I never made that connection. Hmph.
Getting messy with my art was the only way I was able to work out where I wanted to go and what kind of artist I wanted to be. It’s also fun to let your hands do the thinking. The color combos and marks are sometimes surprising and delightful.
I was avoiding color for a long time. I just had this resistance for it. It was just another thing to deal with as I figure out what direction I wanted to go it, but I'm realizing that it's not a great way to approach this struggle. I replied upthread to Carolyn that I actually now realize that working as a designer for so many years had influence over my struggle with allowing myself to get messy. Product design requires so much discipline and organization of files, components, and pixel exactness. Maybe this is why I can start going there, because I'm not designing everyday anymore.
Yes color is something I had to work out through experimentation, just working it out on the paper is really helpful. I am still not great with color!
Color is HARD. Also, I think your color sensibilities are great.
thank you!
I'm enjoying both the precise pieces and the loose ones. They still reveal your point of view. I identify with the flower as much as the women in your sketchbooks. Keep going.
Thanks angelique. Definitely some split personality in drawing styles there. At some point, perhaps they'll merge.
I can relate to a lot of this. Lately I've been writing longhand as a way to sidestep any editing/critical impulse because it's not as easy to make changes. (And also my cursive is hard to read quickly.) I read a book last year about dealing with your inner critic called "Better Days" by Neal Allen. I found it very helpful. Our culture is generally hostile to art, there's the sense that everything needs to be obviously useful or profitable. So in addition to inner voices you have to overcome critical voices coming from the outside.
I had to look up what longhand meant to remind me 😅. Our culture's relationship to art is so polarizing. On one hand, it is hostile, as you say. On the other, it's valued as important but nobody wants to fund it.
You are the second person to ask me what I’m talking about when I say longhand so maybe it’s totally fallen out of use. I actually had to learn shorthand in high school in the 90s (why??) so I guess that’s why I make a distinction. My kids can’t even read cursive!
Thanks for sharing your art process. I also read this in parallel to my writing. I often feel pressured when I write. I should write like nobody's reading, at least for the first draft; otherwise, nothing will happen. Thanks for the reminder. It's probably the only way to find our way in art, to grow, and to keep going.
This is true, Rachel. I think it can be applied to most any creative thing. Somewhere along the way I realized that I structured my writing the way you outlined. The first draft is so rough and then it goes through so many edits. And I'm thinking about the quick and messy art as sort of a stream of consciousness-style drawing.
For stream of consciousness I write in my journal with my messy handwriting :)
I love what you said here: "Ambiguity isn’t the same as stagnation—it can also be a creative time, even in flux. It’s an opportunity to mess around, be destructive, and fail. "
I didn't grow up having a creative outlet to create freely until I started writing writing. I need to follow what you said to not be afraid of messing around and even letting myself fail.
I love that for you! How writing, as an adult, has become your creative outlet.
It’s fascinating to read about this era of your art practice. I have spent years now working through the opposite problem, that of being too ‘free’. I have often felt like I would do anything to be able to put graphite, paint or ink exactly where I want it to go (as you seem to be able to do when you choose to), rather than scattershot, in sloppy errant lines and misshapen shapes, the way I do naturally. I am trying to go more slowly and carefully while also maintaining momentum, which is hard because drawing with control makes all my muscles tense up and I need to take lots of breaks. The thing I share with you, though, is the excitement of coming to know multiple modes of artistic creation and moving among them. I’m so delighted to see your different approaches and I’m grateful to you for sharing them, even when it feels vulnerable.
That is interesting! But here's a question: why do you feel you want more control or to reign in the "sloppy"? What do you hope to get out of it? I know why I want the opposite. Because ultimately, I feel like drawing representatively is more like documentation than true expression—ok, I know that's not really true in general, but that has always been the frustration for me. It's relatively easy for me to draw realistically. So much harder to be more abstract.
Thanks for asking, I had to think about it a bit. I want to draw and paint with more control because I want to build dense and richly expressive worlds in my work. I aspire to that both in my representational work and my abstract work, but especially when I’m making comics and other narrative art. I make a lot of loose and sketchy art that I’m satisfied enough with that I post it on my socials, but I want to have both a loose style and a more finished-looking style. I hope that if I can do that, I will have a range of expression that will keep me motivated as an artist, and also I will get more opportunities to share my art. Perhaps this is not a goal I would have now if I had spent my earlier professional life making visual artifacts (I did that rarely). It is important to me, though.
Thanks for taking the time to answer. I think I understand! And it sounds totally valid and makes a ton of sense. I guess that’s why we keep doing, if our curiosity and motivation holds up. Can’t always say that this was true, considering my long lapses in drawing, but now I am definitely curious to see how expressive my drawings can go.
Me, too!
Love the chrysanthemums, so elegant and detailed and wow the use of positive and negative space
Thanks Amy! I love Chrysanthemums and how intricate they are. One of my favorite flowers to draw.
‘Ambiguity isn’t the same as stagnation…’ I wanna scream it both into the mirror and from the rooftops. We’re so *obsessed* with certainty, aren’t we?! With somehow knowing what can’t really ever be assured, like the ‘quality’ of our art. Oh man… feeling it, Jenna. Thanks so much, as ever.
It's interesting because I'm really uncomfortable with uncertainty. I'm a planner. So all of this (waves arms everywhere) is really unsettling, but because EVERYTHING is uncertain right now, it seems easier to swallow because nothing is in my control. So I've had to reframe what ambiguity means. It's not a bad thing! Just like the name of this newsletter —it's a state of being where things are in flux, and these transitional states can mean that we're more open to change, experimentation, and opportunities.
Same, Jenna! What's really been a game changer for me has been seeing my same predilection for planning and preparation in my 6 yr old. Helping him to work with the unknown, and to get excited by it, has taught me the same and more. And I totally agree with the time promoting a more holistic change in how we think about this stuff... it's really forcing the issue, isn't it?
I think it's a valuable lesson to teach our kids. Sometimes I think we aren't teaching kids enough coping mechanisms because we're so uncomfortable with seeing our kids uncomfortable. Totally a different topic, I know.
Oh man, a topic that hits hard for me. So real, as both a mom and a daughter.
One of the most profound advantages of having started my family in my 40s, I’ve been able to catch myself in many of those moments, though only because I understand how and why my own mom used to pull me from even the threat of discomfort… reckon we could go deeeeep, Jenna. Have you written on this?
in bits and pieces in various essays. I don't think I've written an essay focusing on this (oh god, my fear of repeating myself grows deeper everyday). I'm still working out all my complicated feelings and maybe regret over because despite the fact that my kids are in college, I'm still struggling with this.
Whenever I point out the trillionth time my husband repeats the same story he says ‘well… it’s still true!’ Used to drive me bonkers, I’ve now officially co-opted. 🙌🏻
This piece really resonated with me. I didn’t get to take art classes until 2016/2017. I LOVED them. I took two non-credit courses at the local community college.
I found that when I TRIED for a certain thing, my results were not great. When I was loose, I was amazed at the results.
As a recovering perfectionist, loose feels dangerous. But, I’m also doing EMDR therapy right now, so perhaps my next target could be allowing the loosening…
Thank you for sparking this thought process for me. I love your drawings!
Had to look up what EMDR therapy was - that sounds interesting. Perfectionism is about control and that's why loose feels dangerous. But it's so interesting how much harm it can do and long it takes to unravel.
I’ve only been doing EMDR for 3 months and it’s already been life changing. It’s all about neuroplasticity and creating new neural pathways.
Having grown up with a mother who thrived on ultimate control, unlearning has been… an experience.
I bet. Also just made me panic a little about whether or not I'm doing that to my kids 🫠 🫨
You’re doing your best. The very fact that you think about it is a good sign. It was my mother’s only way of being.
Such a thoughtful meditation on creativity. That line about quieting the editor really stuck with me—it's something I’ll carry into my own work.
Thanks for reading, Anton
"We all have a junk drawer; mine just happens to be perched on the couch." - Same! 😂 Best out in the open were we can keep an eye on it.
😂
"I use these mediums because I can’t easily erase the mistakes I want to fix. Instead, I layer more marks and add gestural lines to cover the ones I dislike, allowing the drawing to evolve into something entirely different from where it began." - this is the basic tenet of existence, life! 🤝 You put it beautifully.
Thanks so much for reading, Paul!