Which, erm, wasn't texture. But that's not important.
What was important was that I was drawing something that had an interesting texture on paper that definitely didn't. I'd decided that I wasn't in the mood to waste drawing paper or get out a sketchbook today, so I just grabbed a scrap piece of photocopier paper and used that instead.
Man, I hate drawing on photocopier paper. It's so... boring. Boring is the only word I can really use for it. No tooth; no real feel to it. I guess I'm a little bit of a paper snob, but I can't imagine using that stuff on a regular basis.
Just like I can't imagine doodling regularly with a ballpoint pen or an HB pencil.
Oh sure, I've done it. Everybody's done it. If you're any sort of doodler at all, you'll doodle with anything on hand. My problem, I guess, is that since -- oh, let's say since junior high -- I've had either the good fortune or the misfortune to find out that there's a very big difference between drawing with office supplies and drawing with art supplies.
The second option feels sooo much better.
Feel is a huge thing for me when I'm attempting to make art. It's probably one of the big reasons that I'll never be a painter. Painting is too far removed from the feel of the paper, the feel of the pencil, and the feel of the pen. Good paper is interesting. It should make you want to use it (I've mentioned before that I have a perfectly good field sketchbook that never gets used because the paper is so, so boring). A good, soft pencil? Is lush. Makes you want to get in there with your hands and do some smudging. I can vividly remember the first time I used a 2B pencil; it was a real WOW moment. Like finding out that there's more to chocolate than Dairy Milk, really. The feel was so much more inviting than the school pencils I'd grown up with. And when I discovered that there were even softer pencils out there? Well, it led to several years worth of me up to my elbows in graphite smudges and vinyl erasers, trying to do as much with toning as I possibly could.
I'm sort of past that stage now, but I still have my toned-paper moments now and then.
I could say the same sort of thing about trying out sketching pens as opposed to ballpoints, but the fact is that I've never, ever liked doodling with ballpoint pens. I know that there are plenty of good artists out there who make fantastic pieces with nothing but ballpoints, but to me a ballpoint feels sterile.
Missing the texture again, you see.
I guess I need interesting textures to keep things interesting, in the end. Shouldn't be a surprise for an olf with a short attention span, I suppose, but if nothing else it's furnished me with a blog post at the end of a largely blogless week (I was busy. Sorry about that).
And that's a good thing, since I likely won't be around at all for the next couple of days.
You're getting used to that by now though, right?
Yeah, I figured. See you in a day or two.
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