If I have a motto it’s this: Shut Up and Draw.
We allow so much interference in our creative process. Certain artists have techniques of cutting through all that and get their arm moving. Once that happens, magic can take place. Here are two cases in point. One, John Hendrix, who recently had his Star Wars painting written up. It is his portrait of the film from memory. I call this technique the Hendrix Scroll. Take what you know and go. Don’t worry about design, draughtsmanship, calligraphy. Those things find their own way in a looser form. John makes it happen. If you can do this you will be looser for the work to come. The point is movement that allows the door to open to the unknown, unexpected and truly exciting. It happens. Trust me.
Example two is Michel Gondrry, director and artist behind the new film about Noam Chomsky: “Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?”
Here is his sketch of Amy Goodman at Democracy Now. Notice how he is not concerned about likeness or design. He just goes, knowing that the act of drawing will make magic happen. And it does.
That is his attitude behind the whole Chomsky film as a matter of fact. The Democracy Now interview is below.
