Green Oasis

Today’s drawing projects were to copy the drawing of a master and then to emulate his style with a different subject.

The first thing that I noticed was that most of the masters’ sketches presented in the book look a little, well, crappy. The proportions of a Matisse sketch, for example, were off quite dramatically (unless the subject was suffering from microcephaly). The background shading on the Degas drawing struck me—an admittedly raw amateur—as amateurish.

I often criticize myself when I try new things and don’t achieve perfection. This keeps me from persisting long enough to get better. It would be better if I kept Scott Adam’s Golden Happiness Ratio in mind. I should allow myself to stop once I’ve reached 80% of perfection because the effort to reach perfection isn’t worth it. Reaching perfection might take twice as long. In other words, 80% of perfection is good enough. If the masters can settle for good enough, then so can I.

So I chose a study of lions by Delacroix because of its sketchiness and because I liked its flowing energy. This is my copy:

It’s a reasonable copy of the original. Here is my emulation of his style using a roe deer as my subject:

I think mine isn’t as free-form as Delacroix’s, but I succeeded in drawing a lot sketchier than usual. It felt empowering.