When you’re making some art you usually need something to make a mark - while drawing or painting. And you need something to make the mark on. You could use pencils ✏️, crayons, pastels, pens ✒️, brushes, watercolour, acrylic, oils and many more… even your fingers 👆! For surface you could use the ground, walls, paper 📄, canvas, bottles 🍾, furniture, clothes… the list is endless. You could draw with your fingers and hands on sand. And that’s exactly what sand sculpture artists do!
When I started drawing every day, I went ahead and bought some expensive art supplies. I loved doodling and drawing stuff, but whatever materials I tried, my drawing output remained potato quality…
And then came the aha moment which each artist has sometime… some early and some late like me. It’s not the quality of the fineliner pen nor is it the weight or cotton percentage in the watercolour paper. The most important art supply is me and you - the artist 🧑🎨.
Here’s some cool graffiti on a dirty wall that shows surface or materials don’t really matter -
There’s an acronym once used among programmers PEBKAC - Wiktionary - “Problem Exists between Keyboard and Chair”. Something to think about…
Why is there a blank canvas? - well because you weren’t there 😉
How do you improve your art? - not using more expensive materials but by practice.
So pick up the drawing implement closest to you and draw on the surface you can find around you. I’ve seen some cool art done on office whiteboards. The more mileage you have under your art belt the better you will draw.
As always, artistically yours,
Abhishek (the art noob)