Why I stopped doing the EDiM

Forgive me followers for I have sinned. It has been 23 days since my last post. I feel bad about it; I really do but I had to do some soul searching about this whole drawing thing and my reasons for wanting to take part in the EDiM challenge.

Let me explain.

Day 9 came along and I was fully prepared to get on with it but the challenge wasn't in the drawing but in finding the prop to draw. Draw an interesting label was way more stressful than what it appears to be.

I scoured the house searching for this Holy Grail of props. Sometimes with the intent of looking and sometimes without even thinking about it as I went about my day. And that's when I realized that there was a problem.

In trying so hard to find a prop to draw from, I suddenly realized that this was all too stressful. The hunt for a daily prop was distracting me from the challenge itself. What was supposed to be something so simple turned into a nightmare.

I eventually found an excellent subject to draw from (a bottle of champagne wrapped from top to bottom in traditional Dutch blue and white labeling which was ironically made in South Africa, my mother had given me as a souvenir from her trip to Holland) but with all of the spontaneous creative energy sucked out of me looking for this ONE item, I never did draw the bottle or the label at all.

After that, I was silently dreading day 10 and day eleven and so on. The challenge became too challenging. And I thought I was the only one who felt this way but it wasn't until a few days ago that I read a blog post from Liz Steel addressing the same thing called Why Bother? Pushing Yourself for a challenge.

Having done the challenges before, she knew that they were going to be hard to complete because of the pressure "the list" creates. Liz also mentioned in the post that she likes to take the time to think about each and every one of her sketches. In the first eight days of the challenge, I soon discovered that I am much like her.

I have to feel an attachment to something or find something interesting and how it relates to me and my life in order to take the time to sketch it.

Some would argue that the list is merely a guideline to get a person into a habit of daily sketching and I was thinking too much about the challenge. Maybe they're right; after-all  I am just starting up again after many years of not doing anything drawing or sketching related so I should just put on my big boy pants and get it done.

I could do that but then I wouldn't enjoy it and would probably stop drawing entirely if I'm not having fun while I'm doing it. Besides, isn't that the whole purpose of the challenge from a very fundamental viewpoint; to have fun? I think it is. The sketching is merely a bi-product of my experience at that exact moment.

For now, I'll admit defeat. The challenge got the better of me. Bu I learned something about myself and how I approach drawing and for that, I take away far more than what I produced. That lesson proved to be far more valuable than any prompt would have taught me.