pencil skeches in sketchbook

Pencil Sketches and Writing Struggles

It has been a few weeks since I made my last post. I had hoped to write another post shortly after, but the following week, I experienced serious brain fog and sleepiness, which made it difficult to concentrate. This and the fear of not knowing how to write well caused me to feel insecure and rewrite the post many times. Despite all of that, I am happy I was able to draw some pencil sketches.

One bad idea.

As the first cloudy week of the season came, I felt the urge to be more productive and creative. There were so many things I wished I could do during the day. For example, meditate, continue my art studies, do some sketching, illustrate, write for the blog, learn about marketing, prepare healthy food, clean the flat, and so on. But I felt there was not enough time. So, I decided to try waking up earlier to get a head start on my day. However, this plan turned out to be a complete disaster. I felt sleepy and confused throughout the day for about a week. I struggled to focus on tasks that required concentration and could only manage to complete basic ones.
Since the new schedule disrupted my daily life and made me feel left behind for being unable to be productive, I decided to return to my old sleeping routine. After a few days of my old routine and decent sleep, I felt full of energy and could think clearly again.

The discomfort of writing.

During moments when the fog in my mind cleared, and I was not drawing, I tried working on my next blog post. But it was so challenging. I’ve never studied writing, and expressing my true thoughts and feelings is sometimes quite tricky. Overall, I felt like I had to be able to write the next great fiction novel. And that expectation for myself was crippling. However, I found a way to overcome this. If I don’t have a natural talent for writing, then I have to learn to write. The best way to do this is by writing more.

Pencil sketches for the soul

Despite feeling fatigued at times, I still managed to do some drawing. I have mainly focused on facial anatomy studies during the past few weeks because I was too tired to take on anything new and complicated. As I have been drawing faces the whole summer, and to make learning more fun, I wanted to add more fantasy to some of my sketches. I have always loved the idea of blending human features and organic plant material. These kinds of drawings always look so creative and magical. So I have wanted to draw these for the longest time. However, my sketches turned out differently than I expected, as it was challenging to visualize what I wanted to achieve. I also lacked knowledge of the different kinds of plants to make the images more interesting. But that’s okay. Studies are not meant to be perfect so that we can focus on the learning process. And what I learned is to add some plant studies to my schedule 😀
All these head studies are made without reference. I feel like I’ve made good progress in drawing faces and understanding how to make them look normal from different angles. To achieve this, I’ve been using the Reilly Method. If you’re interested, I will create a post about it soon. I hope it will be as helpful to you as it was to me.
sketches of eyes and ears
charcoal pencil drawing
Finally, I am so happy to feel energized and inspired again; hence, in the coming weeks, I want to increase the variety of my drawings. Which means starting a new chapter in the anatomy study and pushing myself out of my comfort zone by trying to make more detailed illustrations.
Additionally, I need to practice creative writing or start a diary to get more comfortable writing. I want to feel more relaxed when writing the upcoming blog posts.
 
Ugh. Wish me luck, and have a wonderful week!
Mari
mari.pakkas@gmail.com
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