Just draw

When you’re in the process of finding your style as an artist, (or new style as is my case) you go through a period of experimentation, trying out whatever art materials you can get your hands on, trawling through Pinterest for inspiration, analysing the techniques of your favourite illustrators. But there comes a point when you have to stop. You have to draw a line under all of that and just draw.

Several years ago I was working on a series of prints that I still sell now in my Etsy shop. They depict various animals grouped according to either taxonomic classifications or their location. The species names are given in a key at the bottom of the print in the style of a traditional natural history illustration or field guide. I also have a collection of animal alphabet designs, one for each letter, that can be customised with a child’s name.

I’ve just done some quick maths and there must be over 500 animals across those prints. At the time that I was creating these pictures, I had already found a style in which I worked. I didn’t need to overthink or question what I was doing when I sat down to draw because I had a process: Get to know the animal through sketching, draw it in a fairly static pose (these were meant to resemble field guides), transfer the drawing to watercolour paper, ink in the line work, paint with watercolours, add finishing touches in graphite, scan, digitally cut out the animal, adjust the levels of the image, add it to the final composition. It’s a lengthy process for each animal but I had a production line in place so that there would be days where I might paint ten animals at a time.

Some of the hundreds of species I painted for this collection

And guess what, my drawings got better. I wasn’t striving for that improvement or giving any thought to my style. It was just the inevitable result of repeating an action 500 times. The materials and techniques didn’t change, I just got better at applying them. And I realised recently, that’s what’s missing from my current drawing practice. Without the constraints that were imposed by working towards a finished product, I’m free to treat every drawing as an opportunity for experimentation and there’s no real progress. What I need right now is iteration.

An early minnow and a more recent pike

I don’t have time to draw ten animals a day at the moment, or probably even one a day. But one animal a week seems achievable. So every Friday I will share a finished animal drawing here on Substack. As I want to hone my rendering techniques, I’m not going to worry too much about including things like environments or narrative to these illustrations. For now, just drawing an animal is good enough. I’ll be using Procreate and trying to avoid too much experimentation.

And if I fail to produce an animal (or very valid excuse) every Friday, you are fully entitled to send me a snarky message.

Here’s this week’s, based on my own dog, Bill. Not perfect, but done.