Permission to suck

I was twenty years old when I drew this for a close friend of mine. I had NEVER took any drawing classes before. I didn't know anything about anatomy or proportion or anything like that. I had the reference and the pencil and I just did it.

Twenty years later I worked for a group of nice Canadian engineers and I did this for one of my bosses. It was meant to convey his temper and business skills and he and his peers thought it suited him perfectly. Still, no drawing or art classes of any kind. It was just sheer innate talent. I mean, having no instruction at all and pulling something like that must have its merit.

It's worth to notice here that I copied from references I was given. However, whenever I tried to draw something from imagination, it was absolutely awful. I've improved through centuries but still one can tell the difference between those things I've done by copying references and things I've done out of my imagination (like my dwarves). There's a huge gap there. Well, may be they are not TOO bad, but they could be much better than this.

Anyway, it's been difficult to get some drawing theory from A to Z because when I started drawing, I dove in at Q or something like that, and it did look fairly good.

Now that I'm trying to start from A, it looks terrible and I have a problem with it. However, I've come to understand that I do need to start from A and go all the way through, in the order it is meant to be, so I can start doing cool things that are completely mine. Things that I didn't copy on the most part from some other picture. I know I am good a copying. Not that it matters but in my early years I even considered making a career out of forgery of classic masterpieces. Instead of the Thomas Crown affair, it would be the Father Dragon affair, hahahaha.

Anyway, I want to do things right but in order to do that, I am beginning to understand I have to give myself permission to royally suck, with capital letters, like this.



Presumably, they are 30 second quick gesture drawings. If you don't know what Gesture is, you can take a look at this video by Proko (which by the way, is great!). Yet, I look at my attempts and all I can think is "I suck, I suck, I suck". Odd enough, for the first time there is another voice in my head that answers "so what? so what? so what?" Here I am looking at my messy lines and honestly not caring that much that they are uuugly. I've cared too much for centuries, and I think it was that excessive caring that scared me away of way too many starts in the past.  I am not getting any younger and it is really sad and terrible to get to old age with regrets.  It is a million times better to give oneself permission to suck, in order to try something, that going to the grave with the regrets of what you didn't try out of fear or shame or what people will say if...

I'm giving myself permission to suck and I'm gonna brag about how much I suck by posting my ugly drawings here, just for a change. Why not? It's my cave and I am a fire dragon. How many are willing to tell a fire dragon he can't post ugly drawings in his cave? Besides, for some mysterious reason, these ugly drawings make me feel very good about myself. That alone makes them GRREAT drawings, don't you think?

Dragon Hugs!