” To grow we need something creative ” In Company board meetings people express this feeling. This is needed even in Drawing.
 Wise people say ” Do not deceived by appearances, look at their inside. ”  One who draws must understand this saying.
There is so much confusion, ambiguity in art students who want to learn drawing/sketching seriously. Many practising artists feel uncertain about their drawing skills. Always they are used to hearing this phrase ‘ Infuse life into your sketches.’
Interesting phrase and a very familiar one too. Not only in drawing, this phrase is used in every field … Business, Industries, Education, Sports, Architecture, Acting, Dance, Music, Fashion and so many.

When companies recruit candidates for jobs, they say ” We want creative brains.”
In Company board meetings they say, ” To grow we need some creative approach. ”
” I need something different. ” Client says to an Interior designer.
” This time I want to do something special.” Hero says to director.
” My designs should be totally unique.” Fashion Designer thinks.

Innocence (Tonal Drawing)  Artist: Magunta Dayakar

‘ Creative brains, Creative approach, Something different, Something special, Totally unique …’
To everyone these are very familiar phrases but most of them are not able to understand their true meaning.
” Infuse life into your sketches ” is also a similar phrase.

In his ‘ Practice and Science of Drawing ‘ Harold Speed says …
” The visible world is to the artist, as it were, a wonderful garment, at times revealing to him the Beyond, the Inner Truth there is in all things. He has a consciousness of some correspondence with something the other side of visible things and dimly felt through them, a “still, small voice” which he is impelled to interpret to man.
It is the expression of this all-pervading inner significance that I think we recognise as beauty, and that prompted Keats to say: “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.”
And hence it is that the love of truth and the love of beauty can exist together in the work of the artist. The search for this inner truth is the search for beauty. ”

I will analyse the essence of these words for the benefit of layman who is not able to understand them truly.
Once again let’s read this quote ” Do not deceived by appearances, look at their inside. ”

In essence this is what Harold speed said. “ … For example, you are meeting a person at some occasion. He is a business man. He talks sweetly, intelligently and his gestures are very refined and his appearance is very posh. You are mesmerised by his presence. In a few months you became close to him. A friend of his. One fine day you invested your hard earned money in his business because he convinced you that it would be a good investment. And you believed you have done a wise thing. Few months passed. Suddenly one day you came to know that his words are not true. He trapped you shrewdly to steal your money. By the time you realised it, it’s already too late. You became helpless.”

Why things happened this way? The reason is simple. You are influenced by his external appearances and acts. There is nothing wrong in getting influenced by something. If we won’t be influenced we are not humans. We will become emotional due to influences but at the same time we should question our influences and emotions. This nature of questioning is the character of a creative person.

Again coming to the matter, what happened in your case? You are influenced by him and you become emotional; so you simply believed him. Then it leads to losing your money. You are deceived by his appearance.
Once again I am saying, getting influenced and becoming emotional due to some influence is not wrong but you have to question the nature of those influences, whether they are genuine or false.
Here the problem lies … Even you don’t know that you have to question your influences! Instead of questioning simply you are carried away by them.

Same thing happens when you start to draw something. Don’t think art and life are two different things. In fact both are one. Whatever happens in life the same would happen in art. Because of your ignorance you don’t know that.

Ignorance! It’s the reason for our failures in art and life. I told you life and art are the same. Many people think art is different from life. They think it’s something different, that it is the outcome of the emotional expression of the artist. This kind of thought itself is another kind of ignorance.

What does it mean … ‘ Emotional expression of an artist? ‘ Is he doing drawing in some kind of emotional state? Is it true? Or false?
The one who is swayed by excitement, ecstasy, elation, for him, how is it possible to think coolly!

With out that state of mind how he will see his subject as a whole? Seeing the thing as a whole … an artist needs that skill. Not only an artist, each and everyone whether they are business men, scientists, actors, musicians, or anyone, who wants to think creatively they need that skill … Seeing it as a whole.’

( To be continued in next week)