I’ve been thinking a lot about how we give ourselves permission. The inner critic is strong, and we have ideas in our heads about what is a ‘good’ drawing. And also, what fear looks like. Slow, careful, diffiult lines, with shoulders hunched, eyes screwed up, and all the while fearing who is looking over our shoulder, to tell us it’s ‘not right’. I’ve been asked throughout my teaching practice, ‘is this what you meant?’ ‘is this a good drawing?’ I’ve built the way I teach in response to this, as well as my own daily experiene of battling the inner critic. When I first started making things as an adult, I heard someone say ‘YOU HAVE TO WRITE ALL THE WORDS TO GET TO THE GOOD ONES’.

So everything is good, everything is part of it. More is more, and trials are good. Yes and yes, and yes some more. I work daily to widen that space of permission, to tell you that you are ok, your way of making marks is great, and I am glad that you are making them, whatever they look like. The result of this is big, free drawings, that guide us back to a time when we thought we could just play, be ourselves, find out, and have fun. And make some magnifient art that we could never make all hunched up like that.

If you’d like to experience some of that permission, Expressive Life Drawing starts 29th May, message me for your place to see what it feels like to be told yes, and yes!