You Can Draw

A Flurry of Excitement by Roger Ebert

...and probably better than I can," says film critic Roger Ebert* in his online journal on February 25, 2011.  Roger reveals the mind-altering experience of his unique world of drawing, brought to his attention by a therapist he met over 30 years ago.
 

Words of wisdom fall from his mouth: "I published a book about Cannes that was illustrated with my deeply flawed sketches -- but they were perfect, you see, because they recorded faithfully whatever I drew at that time and that place. That was the thing no one told me about...
By sitting somewhere and sketching something, I was forced to really look at it, again and again, and ask my mind to translate its essence through my fingers onto the paper. The subject of my drawing was fixed permanently in my memory...in sketching it I preserved it. I had observed it."

 

"I found this was a benefit that rendered the quality of my drawings irrelevant. Whether they were good or bad had nothing to do with their most valuable asset: They were a means of experiencing a place or a moment more deeply. The practice had another merit. It dropped me out of time. I would begin a sketch or watercolor and fall into a waking reverie. Words left my mind. A zone of concentration formed. I didn't think a tree or a window. I didn't think deliberately at all. My eyes saw and my fingers moved and the drawing happened. Conscious thought was what I had to escape, so I wouldn't think, Wait! This doesn't look anything like that tree! or I wish I knew how to draw a tree! I began to understand why Annette said finish every drawing you start. By abandoning perfectionism you liberate yourself to draw your way. And nobody else can draw the way you do."

*(thanks to e.truver for telling me about this!)