Sunday, June 10, 2007

Zonig out while drawing.

Following is an excerpt from Tom's mad blog. I recently realized something about life drawing, that is quite related to what he has said here. go ahead and read it.


Q: A friend of mine who does the party caricatures for a living told me “zones out” a lot while drawing a big crowd. He said that he gets in a rythm of drawing where he’s so comfortable and routine he goes on automatic pilot to the point where he’s actually floated above himself watching himself draw and entertain for a couple subjects. My friend says it happens almost every gig. Sometimes its out of boredom too. Its very surreal. He said watching himself draw and talk was freaky. He doesn’t do drugs and has a couple beers to unwind only after the gig. Have you ever zoned out?

A: This is a very real phenomenon. Drawing live caricatures is a mentally and physically draining thing to do, especially in a theme park. It is an exercise in endurance.

I was drawing circles as a warm up yesterday, at the portfolio workshop class, and I guess I was being just too enthusiastic about it. I started doing it really fast! The paper almost caught fire, and the graphite was melting! And my right arm got really tired. Then, when I was drawing, it was like I wasn't even telling my hand to do it. It was moving on its own. Ofcourse I'm not a pro and didn't end up making beautiful pictures, they were just scribbles of 5 to 30 second gestures. And I would have been in the complete zoned out state by the end of the 7th hour, had I not been given a break during which I went and hogged KFC popcorn chicken.

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