Hello, Andrea, but I'm here. Today I'm going to talk about changing your perspective, if you like, on the beliefs we have around creating artworks. Generally, we're told we need to have a very good idea. If you want to draw an idea of imagination, you have to do a real good idea of what the composition is going to be.
And there's certain places you need to put things in those competitions. And above all, you need to be able to draw really well from real life, from photos or whatever to be able to create this design from your imagination. Well, I would like to say you don't have to draw well in real life whatsoever to create the most amazing artworks. Not long ago, I had gone down the route of, I wanted to improve my art.
I knew I wasn't reaching my full talent, so I went out and I bought a how to sketchbook. And it was a very good sketchbook. It took me through all sorts of things, from drawing circles, straight lines, shading, things you can see, faces and everything. And I kind of thought, if I went from this through this how to sketchbook, from the beginning to the end, by the end of it, I would be able to draw and I'd be getting these amazing creations coming out and I'd be inspired.
And, well, I didn't actually complain that how to draw sketchbook. I think I might have got like, if I'm real generous, I might have got about 20 pages into it, and there was quite a few hundred pages on it. And I just lost interest. And I sort of had this wall with my drawing.
I knew I had talent, and I knew I wasn't reaching that talent. And at the same time, I wanted to reach that talent because I wanted to create a cash write. And out of something I really, really loved, I was an accountant at the time, and I wasn't enjoying it. And I sort of, as I said, I'd reached this wall.
I just couldn't seem to improve. And a bit later on in life, my cash write reduced quite significantly. And so it brought the focus onto my art, much more into focus as the lack of cash write can do with us human beings. And I decided that I was going to approach my sketchbook in a different way, much more like a child.
So I started drawing in the sketchbook at page one. And in the sketchbook, I decided that I wasn't going to worry about the fact I couldn't draw perfect things in real life. I was just going to go and start drawing and see what turned up on the page. And I had to say it wasn't very easy.
My first few pages were not a lot scrolls, lines, a few smiley faces. I had a lot of people who would sort of look at the sketchbook with raised eyebrows when they heard what I was trying to do. And they didn't say anything but the look said it all. There was not that much encouragement.
Anyway, I had decided I was going to approach a sketchbook in a certain way. And like I said, I was going to draw and just see what turned up. And as I was doing that, I was actually making sure I was creating a certain space before I started drawing. Because I was trying to create some way of allowing that inner artist, where everybody talks about it to come through.
I sort of knew that if I could open up a little flow, a little crack, and again, an ooze of something coming out, that the floodgates would open. It was just that I was approaching things in the wrong way. So what I decided was a sketchbook is I would approach the whole of sketchbook from page one to the end in this way. And then I would just say what would come out at the end.
So I didn't allow myself to use an eraser, all this sort of thing. So I didn't edit it, what was coming out. I tried to take myself out of the picture. And I have to admit, not very long into the sketchbook, I started getting quite amazed with things that were turning up on the page.
They were things quite recognisable as birds and fish and stuff like that. And certainly nothing that used to turn up on the page. And by the end of this sketchbook, my relationship to my inner artist, that was completely transformed. I couldn't, when I started drawing, I have no idea when I saw what I'm going to end up with.
So it's a very intriguing process. It's a very peaceful space to be in once you're allowing an artist access to your sketchbook. And what you find out is that you don't have to actually be able to draw anything whatsoever in real life. It doesn't matter if you find drawing a circle incredibly difficult and you just want to use straight lines.
Whatever is best for you, way of drawing, and you're in an artist, we'll just come out on the page and it's really quite extraordinary. Now in Instagram, my Instagram account, creating for nothing, and going through into my Facebook page, Andrea Butler, and I'll taste. He will say I've posted the sketchbook starting at page one, going through the sketchbook, and then where that led me to with my ink pen. You'll say it just completely transformed my art by approaching the way of drawing and through a certain structure that allowed the space to develop for my inner artist to come through.
I'm amazed at what I create, but it's very uniquely me. It's very much a reflection of how I say life. And so I'll talk about that a little bit more in my next podcast. What does my art stand for?
What does it mean? Because for everybody it's different things, but for me it really is creating from nothing. So I'll speak to you again soon. My name is Andrea Butler.