The Art of Surrendering

I want to start with an exercise. I was previously introduced to a book called Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain. There’s this exercise where you focus on the details of each line of a portrait that you are to copy upside down. When you copy the portrait in this way you stop worrying about what it looks like or moreso it’s supposed to look like. You have to shut off the critic and let yourself draw.

My experience. I was confronted with some demons. I immediately found reasons to quit early. The task felt too great. There’s so many fucking lines, I’m never going to finish. Then I also looked ahead. The hands the neck and torso looked like hell. I did walk away. I didn’t come back to it until the next day. I started from the top left and worked down. There was a point I started to cry. Something interesting happened after that moment of grief. It was a little easier. I continued forward. Each insurmountable cluster of detail that seemed too hard brought up grief. Rather than avoid it further I welcomed it. It took about 40 minutes to make the final drawing. And then finally I flipped and thought oh shit. It’s pretty good.

A valuable lesson in letting go and surrendering.