To Be Comfortable, Or Not To Be… That Is the Question:
It’s often said that “comfort is the enemy of progress.”
This is true, but who actually wants to be uncomfortable? Genuinely?
Okay, maybe there are people out there who enjoy being uncomfortable, but I certainly am not one of them. I hate being uncomfortable, so this already doesn’t look too good for me (in terms of making progress).
This reminds me of my days in elementary school when my dad tried to teach me how to play soccer. It always felt so hot outside in the most egregious way possible, and the heat would make me feel soooooooooo uncomfortable. Naturally, I would always run back inside the house when my dad turned his back towards me (I wanted to sit in the nice air-conditioning). My poor brother was the only one out there after I left, and my dad made sure to keep his eye on him to ensure my brother wouldn’t leave, too. I would often peak out the window and see my brother running laps. That’s when I knew… I made the right choice.
But guess what happened overtime. I never got any better at soccer because I hated being uncomfortable, and strangely enough, my brother did get better than me at soccer. He also became MUCH faster than me because he’d run more laps. It seemed almost unfair… but I suppose we both reaped what we sewed.
Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that being uncomfortable is… well, uncomfortable. But accomplishing nothing isn’t very fun either. I suppose we must make a choice. Would you rather accomplish your aspirations while temporarily enduring discomfort, or would you prefer to let your goals permanently remain a distant dream?
I’ve realized that I missed out on so many great opportunities in my youth because I didn’t want to be uncomfortable for a little while. Thankfully, creating art was never one of those mistakes. Sure, I was uncomfortable creating objectively “bad” artwork for a while, but I eventually became better at drawing. Creating artwork now feels more effortless than it did when I started (although this doesn’t always mean it’s easy).
With that being said, I encountered a new aspect of art that made me uncomfortable this week. Typically, I never leave the sketch as the “final” product. However, this current assignment forced me to create “gesture sketches.” Yikes. I’m not very good at that, and I wasn’t enjoying it either. But something unexpected happened as I kept drawing. I gradually became better at sketching. Woah, shocker.
Gradually, I started to enjoy sketching, and I suddenly had a revelation. I realized that I didn’t “hate” gesture drawing. Rather, I hated being “bad” at something. Sometimes, we just need to give ourselves permission to be “bad” at a project so that we can eventually become “great.”
Overall, my gesture drawings aren’t very dynamic. In fact, my gesture drawings lack “gesture,” ironically enough. However, I believe that I will eventually get better at this type of art. But for a little while, I’ll just have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Afterall, progress is not the product of comfort.
Drawing Process
This week, animals were the subject matter that I needed to illustrate. The goal this week was to capture their gesture. However, I don’t usually draw animals (and this is a live drawing class), so this was already a challenge. To adjust to this change of subject matter, I visited a building on my campus that had taxidermies. In hindsight, I needed to better illustrate the movement and energy of the animals rather than capture their details. I have included adjustments to my original drawings in this blog.
