How Much Time Goes Into a Single Drawing
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of comments asking how long a drawing takes me, and what goes through my mind while I work.
I’m genuinely grateful that people are curious. But this is a hard question to answer.
When I keep it simple, I say this. The charcoal is in my hand for five to ten hours. But before that there’s the time spent imagining the piece, and the thinking that happens along the way, and the time it takes to decide it’s finished. Add all of that up, and it comes to far more.
Should I just count the hours of actual work? But even when I’m not drawing, I’m thinking about what to draw next, so to me that’s part of the work too. And all the trial and error, all the practice it took to be able to draw like this, that’s in there as well, carried inside a single piece. So I can’t really answer with a number.
In that sense, it really is a difficult question.
But I don’t want to brush it off and tell people to just figure it out for themselves. So I thought I’d try to put it into words, as best I can. That’s why I’m writing this.
Right now, the time I can give to drawing is limited. I don’t make my living from art alone. I work at a restaurant, I help out with a friend’s work, and I find time to draw in between. So the wish to make more time for it, to do this on a larger scale, is something I carry with me always.
Recently I’ve started taking commissions. This turned out to be a bigger shift than I expected. When I take a commission, I end up drawing subjects I would never have chosen myself. And in doing so, I find ideas and ways of expression that weren’t in me before. I think about the person who asked, about the subject, about myself. And I find I can face the drawing more deeply than usual. I’ve only recently come to understand that widening who I draw is also a way of widening myself.
And when I let a drawing go, I feel like I’m handing over a part of myself along with it. So when someone takes one of my drawings into their life, or when I draw someone new through a commission, it isn’t simply a transaction to me. It’s my work moving on to what comes next.
What I’m about to write is the flow of how I make a single piece, and what I’m thinking along the way.
Honestly, this probably means very little to anyone who isn’t at least a little curious about me. It might just be a waste of your time. That’s the kind of thing it is.
Still, if you are curious.
Writing down how I work means letting someone look inside me, and that’s a little embarrassing. It isn’t something I want to show to just anyone. Not that I want to hide it. I think I’d rather open it, quietly, only to the people who step closer.
Making something, sitting with it, getting past it. I’d be glad if you could touch a part of that with me.
