I have learned that you often need a little help starting the creative process. There can be a sort of inertia to overcome. Steven Pressfield calls it Resistance.
To me it is often just the seemingly insurmountable question of where to begin. Jane advises her students to copy with abandon in the interests of learning - not of course, to pass off these copies as one's own, but to start somewhere. To draw something.
If I am drawing faces, then I can't help but start with Jane Davenport. I am loving her book... this one...
One of the things that troubles me is having all my faces turn out the same. Often quite pretty, but with something of a vacant stare. And once you get used to drawing a particular angle or pose it is very easy to get stuck in a rut.
So today I started out with a face and a bit of a body from the early part of Jane's book. It's quite a surprise how far away you can get from your original inspiration source. This particular page gave me a nice face shape to start with. Braids - I liked those. And a lovely languid pose. But by the time I was done choosing marker colours without thinking too much she turned out with a completely different feeling about her compared to the girl on Jane's page.
What a relief that a little bit of ourselves can't help but ooze out - even when we start from the very same point as somebody else.
