I try to take more pictures with my phone now. Not because I got my current model exactly for its cameras nor is it for the sake of having more ‘memories’. Truthfully, the idea of having ‘a lot of memories’ to keep still feels overwhelming. My comfort zone is when everything is neat and tidy with the rest of the space, well, spacious. I do not know how my workaholic tendencies and inability to not to anything fits with my preference for emptiness.
Now that I think about it, perhaps they do not really contradict anyway.
I like taking more pictures now because I realised that when I feel overwhelmed with everything else, drawing works as the remedy, but drawing with a reference that is. I am usually not fond of working with a reference. The idea of the perfect image to follow frustrates me sometimes—painting with an image in mind is enough pressure and I had thought for the longest time that actually seeing the photo in tangible reality would simply make it worse.
Apparently, that’s not the case. Working with pencils have been teaching me that.
The logic behind might be the same reason why I have been painting exclusively for a while now. I started with pencils and pens, making squiggly lines that followed an invisible sketch born out of my wildest imaginations. What I made back then were not ‘skilful’ but I loved them anyway, so why did I ever feel unworthy of using pens and pencils with a seeming lack of skill?
Paint seemed to be a more forgiving medium, as much as it is something I can control more… because it has its own life, its own flow. Pencils on the other hand have my force with its every dot.
At least, that was how it seemed.
Turns out paint and coloured graphite are more alike that I had imagined.
