"Dear readers,
Drawing is fun. People who hope to become professional illustrators study special techniques and in due course get better at drawing. However, often as they make progress with their technique they lose their spirits which is the most important thing in illustrating. This is no good. Drawing technically well alone means nothing. Unfortunately, spirits cannot be taught. That is the problem. Obviously, professionals need to draw well or they'll be laughingstocks. In that respect, amateurs can be more easygoing because they don't need to concern themselves with technique. They can simply enjoy drawing for themselves what they see and feel without worrying about the opinion of others. For professionals this is not the case. They have to show off their skill to the world, which keeps them from seeming relaxed. In point of fact, an old man who hasn't drawn since childhood may draw primitive illustrations which moves the viewer deeply. Heta-uma (Bad-nice) illustrations fascinate me because of this kind of inversion of value.
You should believe your talent as an unskillful illustrator is equal to another's skillful talent. I hope this book will be a bible for such readers.
Please enjoy this book as you draw with your family and friends.
Love, peace, happiness,
Terry Johnson"
Drawing is fun. People who hope to become professional illustrators study special techniques and in due course get better at drawing. However, often as they make progress with their technique they lose their spirits which is the most important thing in illustrating. This is no good. Drawing technically well alone means nothing. Unfortunately, spirits cannot be taught. That is the problem. Obviously, professionals need to draw well or they'll be laughingstocks. In that respect, amateurs can be more easygoing because they don't need to concern themselves with technique. They can simply enjoy drawing for themselves what they see and feel without worrying about the opinion of others. For professionals this is not the case. They have to show off their skill to the world, which keeps them from seeming relaxed. In point of fact, an old man who hasn't drawn since childhood may draw primitive illustrations which moves the viewer deeply. Heta-uma (Bad-nice) illustrations fascinate me because of this kind of inversion of value.
You should believe your talent as an unskillful illustrator is equal to another's skillful talent. I hope this book will be a bible for such readers.
Please enjoy this book as you draw with your family and friends.
Love, peace, happiness,
Terry Johnson"
"Because it matters to YOU. Because it makes you happy."
if there's one thing i wish i could've told myself from the very start, is that art doesn't need to be good. you don't need to be good at it. because in truth, you never will be. and this is not a bad thing. All art needs is to be important to you, for it to come from a personal desire to translate the world and what you love as you see it. to take what you love and control your thoughts for just a little while and have it immortalized forever. over time i'm trying to teach myself that the process and release that comes from drawing is what makes the drawing good and not the result. I mean, look at at all this - none of it is by canons nowhere near skilled. simplistic lines of code barely holding eachother together, constructed under weird symmetry and colors that please a little sick mind. a colorful, unique little sick mind - just like yours, no? and all of these flaws do not make it - us - any less special. in fact, de gustibus non disputandum est, but i do have a dislike for the perfect. the pretentious, the desired, the palatable. instead i'm fascinated by the bad. the simple, the homemade, the unskilled. it comes from a desire to simply make what you know and love without needing to show off. art is like this to me - being is like this to me: As long as it matters to you, as long as it makes you happy. i implore you to make and create as you know best and as you enjoy without letting an invisible audience ruin it for you!