47 little Nuisances in the Life of all Drawing Artists
Being an artist is amazing, truly. There’s so much you can do with it and that it can do for you. Being able to draw or paint makes gift giving easier and it’s relaxing but makes you feel more alive at the same time.
Which is why we’re willing to put up with all of the slightly annoying drawbacks we face on a daily basis:
1. Finding eraser crumbles on the floor for days after an extensive drawing session.
2. Needing ages in the art store to look for the particular grade of pencil you want, because they’re all in disarray. Then realising that the grade you wanted is out of stock.
3. Owning practically no book, letter or any other piece of paper that hasn’t been doodled on.
4. Discovering that drawing isn’t just a matter of getting out there and practising, there’s quite a bit of theory to learn and exercises to do.
5. Being confused that painting artists are ‘painters’ but drawing artists are not ‘drawers’ (or shouldn’t be, it just sounds wrong to be honest).
6. Finishing a drawing and really liking it. Until you look at it again after a few weeks and wonder how you could have not noticed all the things wrong with it.
7. Realising you’ve used 20 different styles in your last 20 drawings and wondering if you’ll ever develop a consistent, unique style.
8. Wanting to do just a quick little sketching practice while dinner is in the oven and ending up with a really nice picture and an inedible, burned mess that once was a lasagne.
9. Needing a special box just to hold all the empty sketchbooks you really plan to use, one day soon.
10. Having to draw anything egg-shaped (like an egg) and realising it’s one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do.
11. Becoming so attached to your materials that you end up with drawers full of pencils too short to reasonably draw with, because you just cannot bring yourself to throw them out. They are a sign of achievement, after all.
12. Linear perspective. I rest my case.
13. Going out for some lovely outdoor sketching but the weather shifting the moment you get to your location and find a good spot.
14. Having only three outfits to wear during a two-week vacation because half of your suitcase space was needed for your art materials. That you'll hardly touch in the end.
15. Removing a finished drawing from a spiral sketchpad and accidentally ripping into the paper.
16. Either spending an obscene amount of money on fixative or getting everything sticky and smelly with hairspray.
17. Accepting that for the rest of your life your hands and the tips of your sleeves will have pencil smudges on them. You’ve made your peace with that.
18. Buying new materials to try out (or making some yourself) but preferring your old, boring go-to medium after all.
19. Accidentally stabbing yourself with a super pointy pencil because you forgot where you put it.
20. Wanting to do some quick sketching exercises but ending up spending all the time you have on one single sketch because you just really wanted it to be perfect.
21. Subconsciously copying other artist’s style after you’ve looked at one too many of their drawings.
22. Really wanting to watch a nice feature film about an artsy topic but realising they all focus on painting, not drawing.
23. Two facing sketchbook pages rubbing off on each other and ruining both drawings, because you’ve forgotten to use fixative. Again.
24. Wanting to show your work to someone but being afraid of judgement.
25. Having a hard time figuring out how to photograph your pencil drawings without the lines getting blurred or practically invisible.
26. Forever finding wood shavings from sharpening your utensils in every pencil case you own.
27. Really wanting to learn some fancy related skills like calligraphy or silk painting but having neither the time nor money to do it all (honestly, there should be weekend retreats where you just get to try out every artsy activity in the book. Someone should get on that).
28. Having a hard time showing the material or texture of objects in a black and white pencil sketch without spending hours on detail.
29. Forgetting to warm up and having your first sketch of the day look like the work of a five-year old.
30. Starting to see everything around you as if it were a potential subject for a sketch. Linear perspective is going to haunt you if you live in the city, let me tell you.
31. Finding pencil marks on furniture and walls and having no idea how they got there.
32. Being afraid of being mocked for your choice of subjects.
33. Being super out of practice after a lazy vacation.
34. Going to the art store for a new eraser and coming out with £30 worth of stuff.
35. Either not being able to think of anything to draw at all or having fifty things you really want to draw at once. There is no middle ground.
36. Starting one drawing but getting side-tracked by another awesome subject. So, you start another drawing, and on and on it goes.
37. Having great ideas for hand-made Christmas presents for your friends but not enough time to make them all.
38. Being a total art material snob and having a favourite brand of pencils, even though deep down you know it really doesn’t matter.
39. Trying to draw big areas with your nice 6B pencil and then realising that it get's oddly shiny and just looks terrible.
40. Starting to collect drawings you like from other artists and realising that it’s almost every single drawing you come across.
41. Wanting to do some artist research but everything is always more focused on their paintings rather than their drawings.
42. Sharpening your pencils the fancy way, with a razor blade and sandpaper, and accidentally breaking off the lead when you’re almost done.
43. Trying to sketch outside and having to deal with rolling paper due to humidity or flying sketchbooks in the wind.
44. Being given drawing utensils as presents that aren’t your favourite brand and not knowing what to do with them (you won’t ever use them, let’s be realistic).
45. Buying fancy new drawing materials, deciding to preserve them for special occasions and ending up never using them at all.
46. Finding a super exciting new drawing technique and telling all your non-artist friends about it for hours only to get a lot of eye-rolls.
47. And lastly: Having to face the fact that the boundaries between drawing, sketching, doodling, scribbling, illustrating and even painting are shadowy and vague. It’s not easy to say where one ends and the other begins, so you end up using one word for all of these.
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