how to draw lessons 2 through to 999999999999999

There are artists who do it ‘for attention’ as they say. What we now call narcissist supply. They create nothing, steal ruthlessly, copy a technique and practice it till they are perfect. A chimpanzee could do it. What we call cookie-cutter art, seen one seen them all. Great artists steal said Picasso. He stole many techniques. I now believe he was a famous narcissist with the hand-eye coordination of a safecracker.

Typically, overvaluing undervaluing dumping smearing his women as he went along. Devastated, a number of them suicided. His biographer, Patrick O’Brian, my fav writer, said Shakespear was the same type of art thief, stealing from a guy whose name escapes me. These creatures never develop their own voice, they bore too easily to sustain the effort and they deeply fear losing their supply of attention from a fickle audience because they don’t believe their own lies about themselves. I never tire of reading O’Brian’s voice develop through his 20 book Aubrey-Maturin series. Or viewing Rembrandt’s feathers. Or listening to Paul Simon.

I used to feel that hand-eye coordination is genetic, (my uncle was a famous Canadian safecracker) and I sought and gained entry into a Christian conservative art school where you had to prove you have the hand-eye of an Olympic athlete, so as to create realistic and/or modernist works. Rule dependant fascist art. Talent is god-given and a right of passage. You are special.

Ya. No.

In rational reality, if you love doing something you develop a high tolerance of frustration and gain skills through practice. Not everyone can be a genius and mostly no one is really good at anything. Genius tends to burn out and quit at the point where they have to work hard for further development. The rest of us can be satisfied with something if it satisfies us to make the attempt endure frustration and then we have occasional success.

The narcissist profs at art school taught that your work must be shown or it wasn’t art. What they meant was the purpose of art is narcissist supply: admiration of friends, family, colleagues, the public.

Then there are the artists who research and study taking the next step from what has been researched and studied. You never hear of them, they don’t need that. You have to seek them out and study them and their work. They show for the purposes of professional peer review. They hardly ever know what others think of their work, they don’t require validation. They teach because it's a professional responsibility to recognize talent and nurture it. They take their responsibilities seriously.

They draw (make marks) because they love to draw.

They are the real deal.

And like Paul Simon’s songs, their work changes develops and evolves. A record of a human experience.