Pencil Drawing Timelapse
When I was little I wanted to be able to draw as well as my older brother James. He was always drawing comic book covers in perfect detail. He had a drafting table in his room with an overhead lamp and he would sit for hours and get lost in his work. It was so cool.
I tried to do what he did but it never looked the same. My drawings weren’t horrible but they weren’t good enough to show my friends either.
For years I’ve picked up a pencil here and there and made a sketch, gotten close to portraying something, and then walked away because I couldn’t quite get it. I do the same thing with the guitar.
But recently, meditation has made it evident to me that I need to develop some real skills. I need a craft that I can master, something that will take considerable time and effort. Because it’s in that process I will understand what it means to be truly skillful.
I bought a book, Pencil Drawing – by Gene Franks. Then I bought 2 pencils, one soft and one hard, as well as a charcoal pencil, a sharpener, and an eraser. I also bought a simple sketch book with smooth white paper.
I went home and read the intro, followed the steps, and started drawing. I finished 5 sketches within 24 hours and wanted to do more. What struck me was the impact of simple techniques like creating scale, marking lines, and using different pencils to add shading. In reality, drawing is just a simple math equation consisting of proportions, shapes, and relationships. Once you understand the rules you can produce good work.
I’ve got a long way to go but I already feel infinitely better about my skills. Maybe I will be able to rival my brother one day. I hope he is still drawing.
I couldn’t help but notice the relationship between drawing and being an entrepreneur. The finished product looks so dreamy and off limits, whether it be a well-constructed brand or a pencil portrait of a beautiful woman. But you can strip it down layer by layer and see that it is just a carefully orchestrated set of iterations – each step building onto the next until it’s so thick with content and form that no one can identify each piece’s individuality.
To be successful we have to look past the finished product and see the steps it takes to get there.
Here is a video of my latest drawing – my friend Beryl posed nude for me.
Pencil Drawing from kale & cigarettes on Vimeo.
*
Kirk Hensler is the creator of ‘Organizing Inspiration – How to bring your brilliant ideas to the world,’ a course for entrepreneurs and creatives to identify their brand, create a work process, and implement an intuitive working schedule.
