Beginner notes

Why Your First Drawing Does Not Need to Look Perfect

The first drawing of a mug on a given day is a placement test. Where does the oval sit. How tall is the body. Does the handle reach the cup twice. If you judge that test by whether it could be framed, you will stop during the oval. The oval was never supposed to be the portrait. It was supposed to tell you the width of the cup before you cared about the highlight.

Perfect, for a beginner sketch, usually means "no visible search." People want the line to arrive sure of itself. Sure lines come from having drawn the unsure ones already, sometimes on the same page, sometimes on the page you throw out. A cloud with three uneven bumps is allowed to show a ghost of the fourth bump you erased. That ghost is the record of a choice. Viewers who draw will recognize it. Viewers who do not will mostly see a cloud, if the bottom is flat and the outline is the darkest thing on the page.

I have ruined more sketches by cleaning them too soon than by leaving them rough. Cleaning too soon means darkening a door that is too wide, then discovering the wall has no wall left, then adding shading so the proportion error looks atmospheric. Rough is more honest and easier to fix. Leave the house in light lines until the roof peak is centered and the door has margins. Then darken. The perfect version, if you still want that word, is the second pass. The first pass is the measuring.

There is a difference between imperfect and unfinished, and it is worth keeping. Imperfect means the circle leans and the leaf is a bit large and the drawing still reads as an apple. Unfinished means you have a stem and no fruit, because you disliked the circle and abandoned it. Readers of the page, including you tomorrow, can enjoy a leaning apple. They cannot read a stem floating over blank paper. Finish the shape you started. You can redraw it better on the next page in the same ten minutes. Two apples, one clumsy and one clearer, teach more than one apple you refused to close.

Comparison is the usual way the first drawing gets called a failure. You hold it next to a printed strawberry with studio lighting and decide yours is childish. Yours was a soft triangle, a cap of leaves, and some dashes. That was the assignment. The printed one had a photographer. Different jobs. If you need a comparison, use the previous sketch you made of the same thing. Is the rim more oval than last time. Are the ears on the circle instead of inside it. Those are the changes that count. A contest with a stranger's finished illustration is a contest you set up in order to stop.

Some errors should be fixed, and "it does not need to be perfect" is not a pass for all of them. A beak on the wrong side of the head is a construction error. Fix it while the lines are light. A handle that does not touch the mug is the same kind of error. A slightly wobbly ellipse is not. Wobble is what a hand does. If you chase every wobble, you will sand the drawing down into timid little strokes. Correct the relationships. Leave the slight shake in the line. The shake is not the problem you think it is when you are sitting twelve inches from the paper.

Time changes the verdict too. A five-minute star is not a failed engraving. It is a star you drew before the kettle boiled, or before you talked yourself into a street scene. Judge it as a five-minute star. Did it have five points. Did you finish. If yes, it worked. The house can take longer and still be imperfect: a window a little high, a chimney a little thick. If someone can tell it is a house without your narration, the first drawing did its job.

You can redraw. That option sits there the whole time, and it removes the need for the first try to carry your reputation. Reputation is heavy for a cactus. Draw the cactus. Look at the arms. If they match too neatly, change one on the next sketch, not by apologizing for this one. The page you already made can stay a page you already made. The next one gets the correction. That is how a stack of ordinary drawings turns into a hand that knows where to put an oval without a speech.