Play & Book Excerpts
The Path of Drawiing
(Monacelli Press)
© Patricia Watwood
“What does it mean, say the words, that the earth is so beautiful?
And what shall I do about it?”
—Mary Oliver
And what shall I do about it?”
—Mary Oliver
EXCERPT
Introduction
Today, many of us are learning that mindfulness can improve our lives by alleviating stress, anxiety, and depression and building resilience for experiencing joy in the present moment. Mindfulness is cultivating awareness of our thoughts and feelings as they unfold, so that we can understand our responses without being governed by them. The goal is a state of calmness and clarity toward the tumult of the mind. Our technological society constantly clamors for our attention, commodifies our anxiety, and invites our comparisons with others’ lives. While contemplative practices like meditation and journaling work well for some, others find the idea of sitting totally still for twenty minutes more like torture than relaxation.
You might prefer to work through your hands in a visual, nonverbal way. This book is intended to teach you how to use drawing as a practice of mindfulness and inspire you to keep it as a habit. With consistent engagement, you can build healthy mental space for new ideas or get lost in a creative world. Drawing can clear your head, calm your nerves, give you joy, and help you reconnect with your inner voice. The demonstrations and exercises presented here will also serve as stepping-stones to your becoming a better observer while you learn the concepts of drawing in a realist style.
Where do creative ideas in art come from? How do we cultivate our imaginations? Even experienced artists can struggle when asked to engage their imaginations in visual work. This book describes some ways that I use drawing to refine and develop a creative idea from inkling to fruition. I’ll share strategies I’ve developed to cultivate imagination and nurture inspiration. After many ups and downs, I’ve learned that the biggest challenges to a life in the arts are not technical, but emotional. I’ll share what I’ve learned about overcoming obstacles to creating your best and most personal work. I hope this book will continue to reorient you should you find yourself a bit lost in your creative field.
I have been writing this book in the middle of the global coronavirus pandemic. I hear artists asking, “Can you focus?” and “Are you getting work done?” Even in a normal period, we must at times range through rugged emotional terrain. I’ve dealt with depression and periods of professional frustration. I’ve come to think of depression as the opposite of creativity. We like to imagine an ideal state of creative flow: Inspiration! Clarity! Passion and energy! I’ve experienced that graceful and exuberant space once in a blue moon. I think that if artists required that emotional state for successful creative work, there would be very little art to look at in galleries and museums.
So how do artists persist without ebullient enthusiasm and creative bolts of lightning? How do we heal our troubled hearts to coax out focus and concentration? Instead of expecting a constant flow of inspiration, I have learned to navigate common emotional challenges such as wavering self-confidence and fear of imperfection. I follow a creative pathway and trudge along in fine weather and foul.
Introduction
Today, many of us are learning that mindfulness can improve our lives by alleviating stress, anxiety, and depression and building resilience for experiencing joy in the present moment. Mindfulness is cultivating awareness of our thoughts and feelings as they unfold, so that we can understand our responses without being governed by them. The goal is a state of calmness and clarity toward the tumult of the mind. Our technological society constantly clamors for our attention, commodifies our anxiety, and invites our comparisons with others’ lives. While contemplative practices like meditation and journaling work well for some, others find the idea of sitting totally still for twenty minutes more like torture than relaxation.
You might prefer to work through your hands in a visual, nonverbal way. This book is intended to teach you how to use drawing as a practice of mindfulness and inspire you to keep it as a habit. With consistent engagement, you can build healthy mental space for new ideas or get lost in a creative world. Drawing can clear your head, calm your nerves, give you joy, and help you reconnect with your inner voice. The demonstrations and exercises presented here will also serve as stepping-stones to your becoming a better observer while you learn the concepts of drawing in a realist style.
Where do creative ideas in art come from? How do we cultivate our imaginations? Even experienced artists can struggle when asked to engage their imaginations in visual work. This book describes some ways that I use drawing to refine and develop a creative idea from inkling to fruition. I’ll share strategies I’ve developed to cultivate imagination and nurture inspiration. After many ups and downs, I’ve learned that the biggest challenges to a life in the arts are not technical, but emotional. I’ll share what I’ve learned about overcoming obstacles to creating your best and most personal work. I hope this book will continue to reorient you should you find yourself a bit lost in your creative field.
I have been writing this book in the middle of the global coronavirus pandemic. I hear artists asking, “Can you focus?” and “Are you getting work done?” Even in a normal period, we must at times range through rugged emotional terrain. I’ve dealt with depression and periods of professional frustration. I’ve come to think of depression as the opposite of creativity. We like to imagine an ideal state of creative flow: Inspiration! Clarity! Passion and energy! I’ve experienced that graceful and exuberant space once in a blue moon. I think that if artists required that emotional state for successful creative work, there would be very little art to look at in galleries and museums.
So how do artists persist without ebullient enthusiasm and creative bolts of lightning? How do we heal our troubled hearts to coax out focus and concentration? Instead of expecting a constant flow of inspiration, I have learned to navigate common emotional challenges such as wavering self-confidence and fear of imperfection. I follow a creative pathway and trudge along in fine weather and foul.
Patricia Watwood, Annunciation Lily, 2021, graphite and white pastel on watercolor paper, 12 x 9 inches (23 x 30 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Can you devote thirty minutes a day to your creative growth? Or two hours a week? The projects in this book are designed to be manageable in a short period of time. They should fit into your day and bring creative thinking to every aspect of your life, grounding you in a practice that helps you feel calmer, more patient, and open to observing the joys of the world around you.
What do you do each day that creates happiness in your life? Too often, even though we enjoy making art, we allow life to get in the way of those precious hours. I’m inviting you to reframe your art hobby as a practice of wellness. I hope to encourage you to claim that time and prioritize creative joy in your days and weeks.
Art and Resilience
The young climate revolutionary Greta Thunberg states, “Hope is something that you create, with your actions.” She declares that hope is not a passive position, a thing you simply “have” or “don’t have.” Feeling hopeful is not a by-product of a sunny disposition. Instead, it is earned through tenacity and work. Think of hope as a renewable resource rather than a finite asset. Did Emily Dickinson worry that her tune wasn’t good enough or she couldn’t find the right word? If so, I’m glad she kept singing anyway, perennially encouraging us to do the same.
What do you do each day that creates happiness in your life? Too often, even though we enjoy making art, we allow life to get in the way of those precious hours. I’m inviting you to reframe your art hobby as a practice of wellness. I hope to encourage you to claim that time and prioritize creative joy in your days and weeks.
Art and Resilience
The young climate revolutionary Greta Thunberg states, “Hope is something that you create, with your actions.” She declares that hope is not a passive position, a thing you simply “have” or “don’t have.” Feeling hopeful is not a by-product of a sunny disposition. Instead, it is earned through tenacity and work. Think of hope as a renewable resource rather than a finite asset. Did Emily Dickinson worry that her tune wasn’t good enough or she couldn’t find the right word? If so, I’m glad she kept singing anyway, perennially encouraging us to do the same.
Alexey Steele, Mrs. O’Neal (from the Love My Neighbor series), 2016, sepia on Fabriano paper, 30 x 22 inches (76 x 56 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
After the years of pandemic, many of us are well acquainted with a miasma of fear and anxiety that makes it hard to move. Fear makes hope very difficult and drains our energy. Cynicism kicks in, and hope looks naïve and saccharine. When fear threatens to overwhelm, deregulate, paralyze, how shall we become wholehearted?
Shame researcher Brené Brown identifies key characteristics of wholehearted people: vulnerability, patience, open-mindedness, intuition, visualization, and imagination. My eye leaped at her last quality: creativity. She urges us to dive into creativity and reject comparison of the self to others. Brown’s list overlaps remarkably with the qualities needed for artists. Her blunt conclusion is that “without vulnerability, there can be no creativity.” To be wholehearted, we must accept vulnerability and uncertainty, instead of barring them at the door.
Can we use the creative process to develop the very resilience we need to thrive? How shall we gather up our vulnerability and fear and step forward into greater wellness? If you want to awaken every day and be a positive force, you must adopt a system to retain your equilibrium and faith.
“Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?” —Lao Tzu
A Practice of Wellness
Art is a mechanism of hope. Engaging with and experiencing art is a lively well of renewal. Drawing takes so many different parts of your mind: eye-and-hand coordination, visual-spatial thought, and refining of complexity into simplicity. Mindful drawing creates a focused quiet that blocks out stray thoughts and distractions, restores calm, brings you happiness, and centers the mind. The very characteristics we wish to gain—patience, open-mindedness, and imagination—are developed while we learn to draw.
Creativity is not a panacea, but for an investment of $4 on pencils and eraser and $10 for a sketchbook, I believe that drawing is a pathway to wholeness, self-knowledge, and the resilience that comes from creative daring. Drawing can be a meaningful practice in developing your best self. This path begins by picking up a pencil.
Shame researcher Brené Brown identifies key characteristics of wholehearted people: vulnerability, patience, open-mindedness, intuition, visualization, and imagination. My eye leaped at her last quality: creativity. She urges us to dive into creativity and reject comparison of the self to others. Brown’s list overlaps remarkably with the qualities needed for artists. Her blunt conclusion is that “without vulnerability, there can be no creativity.” To be wholehearted, we must accept vulnerability and uncertainty, instead of barring them at the door.
Can we use the creative process to develop the very resilience we need to thrive? How shall we gather up our vulnerability and fear and step forward into greater wellness? If you want to awaken every day and be a positive force, you must adopt a system to retain your equilibrium and faith.
“Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?” —Lao Tzu
A Practice of Wellness
Art is a mechanism of hope. Engaging with and experiencing art is a lively well of renewal. Drawing takes so many different parts of your mind: eye-and-hand coordination, visual-spatial thought, and refining of complexity into simplicity. Mindful drawing creates a focused quiet that blocks out stray thoughts and distractions, restores calm, brings you happiness, and centers the mind. The very characteristics we wish to gain—patience, open-mindedness, and imagination—are developed while we learn to draw.
Creativity is not a panacea, but for an investment of $4 on pencils and eraser and $10 for a sketchbook, I believe that drawing is a pathway to wholeness, self-knowledge, and the resilience that comes from creative daring. Drawing can be a meaningful practice in developing your best self. This path begins by picking up a pencil.
Mary Reilly, Shoreline,Staten Island, 2011, graphite pencil on paper, 23.5 x 18 inches, (60 x 46 cm). Collection of Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University.
Courtesy of the artist.
Courtesy of the artist.
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Patricia Watwood is a visual artist known for her realist drawings, oil paintings, and portraits. A leading figure in the contemporary figurative art movement, she has exhibited at the Beijing World Art Museum, the European Museum of Modern Art, and the Butler Institute of American Art, and her work is held in public and private collections around the world. Her commissioned portraits hang in institutions such as St. Louis City Hall, Washington University, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Art Museums.
Patricia earned her M.F.A. with honors from the New York Academy of Art and was a founding member of the Water Street Atelier. She is a Signature Member of the Portrait Society of America and has been named a Living Master by the Art Renewal Center. She is the current First Vice President of the Salmagundi Club of New York City. Patricia has produced video courses with Streamline Art Video and the streaming platforms Craftsy.com and Terracotta.org. She has served as a professor of drawing at New York Academy of Art and has written for and been featured in American Artist and Fine Art Connoisseur, among other publications. |
Patricia in her Studio
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UPCOMING EVENTS:
December 14, 2022
Patricia Watwood: The Path of Drawing Talk and Book Signing Salmagundi Club Thomas Moran Gallery 47 Fifth Avenue, New York City Presentation on the themes of her first book, The Path of Drawing. This book guides readers to cultivate a creative habit, learn skills in realistic drawing, and develop confidence in one’s individual voice. Focusing on aspects of mindfulness that are particularly relevant to creative individuals, she discusses overcoming blocks and dealing with emotional challenges to accomplishing work. Patricia shares her process for building a personal sourcebook of inspiration and illustrates how artists use drawing as a vehicle for exploring ideas. December 12-23, 2022 Patricia Watwood: The Path of Drawing Exhibit Salmagundi Club Thomas Moran Gallery 47 Fifth Avenue, New York City Exhibition hours: Monday – Friday | 1:00 PM – 6:00 PM; Saturday – Sunday | 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM Free and Open to the Public. An exhibition and sale of drawings from The Path of Drawing and related works on paper. |
