Putting the Inner Critic up Against the Wall

Dear Sarah - 030

January 30, 2025

Hi Nikki,

I went for a walk with an old friend this morning and took some interesting pictures, one of which was a beautiful stone wall. During said walk, some things that came up in conversation were upsetting to me, and when we got home there was some aggravating work nonsense to deal with.

At that point, I did not want to draw AT ALL. I was off kilter, off balance, antsy, a bit angry. But a deal is a deal, so I sat down to draw the stone wall. Like the owl/mop/pinecone yesterday, I realized that I don't yet have the skill to pull off that much texture, perspective, tone etc. And my mood certainly affected my attitude to my drawing. And possibly my ability.

This is the first time in 30 days that I've thought "You can't do this. You'll never be any good." Oh, hello, my old friend, the inner critic. What's that you say? Give up, put the pencils away? I don't think so. Not this time. I don't have time or energy to deal with you, so why don't you just fuck off? I mean it. And don't just go after Nikki. She's on to you too.

January 30, 2025

Dear Sarah -

First of all, way to go to draw when the last thing you wanted to do was draw. I have also had a couple of days where I was too tired/annoyed/distracted by work to feel like doing much of anything except crawling into bed (via a hot shower - hot showers are a balm). I would not have made it to the end of this month without your daily drawings falling into my inbox. So, thank you, my friend.

Next, though - the wall isn’t half bad! It’s a complicated thing to try to draw - corners and angles, textures, shadows, perspective and yet - there’s no questions it’s a wall and not a doughnut or a penguin or whatever. By which I mean to say, you are being too hard on yourself and if you look at this in the fresh light of a new day you may feel differently.

I love stone walls almost as much as I love windows and doors. Inspired by yours, I took a piece of random texture that my dad had created on heavy card (the light grey piece bottom right) and then did three different rubbings (like we did as kids with coins and crayons) on two types of paper.

Then, I scribbled (literally scribbled with no effort at all to ‘draw’) a vaguely wall-ish texture on a larger sheet of mixed media paper (also rescued from Dad’s studio). I tore the rubbings out and glued the strips down (tip: when you are feeling shitty, tear up paper), and then dabbed a sponge in some watercolour leftovers in an old palette (more Dad inheritance) to create the subtle blue texture at the top (a bit too much water, not enough pigment, but whatever). The foreground was a light brown from a box of oil pastels (maybe also Dad’s, but possibly a garage sale find).

Title? Another Brick in the Old Wall with Maybe a Dead Tree.

Tomorrow is another day. See you then!!