a cartoon is worth a thousand sensations

01/01/2009
Last year I created another blog (CLICK HERE), where I posted doodles, but I’ve decided to create a page on this blog which I will devote to any interesting doodles I manage to produce. I am not a natural doodler, but I consider it an essential part of the creative process, like doing scales during piano practice, but less boring. I am also a not very productive artist, so in the interests going for quantity vs. quality, I am going to have to include doodles in my regular posts.

This started as an experiment to see if I could draw something every day for a month. My new year’s resolution is the same as last year, and the year before that: be a cartoonist. Sadly, I have quite demanding consulting work I need to do to pay the rent, so I am always looking for ways of becoming more productive, drawing-wise.

Every biography I read of artists I admire says the same thing, that so-and-so started drawing/writing/painting/ etc. from the moment they chewed through the umbilical cord and picked up a brush/mouse/pen. I can honestly say I have always loved drawing, but in practice I’ve done very little of it. I’m too concerned with trying to produce ”perfection”, and get upset when I produce things which I think are “crap”, which is a lot. However, I have somehow managed to retain, in spite of a very mean inner critic, a real enjoyment of drawing. Enough to rekindle, at the age of 44, my childhood dream of being a cartoonist.

This is me trying to practice what I preach as a creativity and innovation consultant, i.e. the 4 rules of creativity:

1. quantity is more important than quality
2. build on other people’s ideas
3. wacky, silly, stupid, crazy, etc. is all good stuff
4. defer judgement

I plan to publish everything I doodle, even the stuff I think think is hideous, not fit for the public eye, no better than the deranged scribblings of a blindfolded chimpanzee, without censoring myself in an effort to develop a more adventurous approach to drawing.

I, personally, have enjoyed looking at the stuff I post, even if at the time I produced it I thought it was horrible. There’s usually something interesting about it which I’d like to re-use. And it has the desired effect of making me want to do more, which is the fundamental point of this blog.

I’d also like to thank from the bottom of my heart all of you who have commented on my posts so far. You can’t imagine how encouraging it is. I wish you all a wonderful 2009!