I’ve set a goal to draw 1000 faces, as many of you know, and I try to draw at least one every day. Some are better than others, of course, but my rule is: No tearing them out of the sketchbook.
I want to be able to look back over my work someday, around face 1002, and chart my progress. I’m learning structure now, to create contour with shading. It’s HARD.
You might be wondering what all this art talk has to do with writing books, which is my day job and my passion, and that’s reasonable. Art trains anyone, but especially writers, to look more closely at things around them–to see more deeply. And somehow that informs the writing with a new level of reality, so the reader can experience the story right along with the characters.
The basis of art, the wise ones say, is learning to SEE what’s there, and not what we expect to see.
The same applies to writing, it seems to me.
And to life.
