A stranger's question about my process actually made me stop

I was showing my latest piece at a small pop-up gallery in Austin and this older guy asked why I spend 2 days on the sketch phase when I could just paint over mistakes digitally. It hit different because I realized I've been treating the undo button like a safety net instead of a tool, and now I'm trying to decide if I should keep the messy sketch phases or lean into faster, rougher starts.

2 comments

2 Comments

williams.luna7h ago

That thing about the undo button being a safety net instead of a tool really got me. I do the same thing with my watercolor sketches, I'll sit there erasing and redrawing the same line for an hour when I could just let it be messy and move on. Last month I forced myself to do a quick 10 minute sketch for a piece and it turned out way more alive than anything I spent two days perfecting. Now I'm starting to think the messy phase has its own kind of energy that gets lost when you overthink it. I say keep some of that mess, it might be what makes your work feel like yours.

craig.parker7h ago

Man, I once spent a whole afternoon fussing over a doodle of a coffee cup that ended up looking worse than the napkin sketch I did in ten seconds.