the evolution of an idea
T h e E v o lu t i o n o f a n I d e a
Creating could be summed up as having a plan accompanied by a willingness to depart from it. Most people think that an artist’s vision must be clear and fully formed before he or she begins to draw. Not only is this rarely the case, it is actually based on a misunderstanding about how creativity works. Creativity is an open dialogue between you, the artist, and the particular piece you are executing. The lines you put down on paper often tell you what to do next. Each stage feeds the one that follows. You start with an idea—some sort of thought or vision about what you’re going to do. It can be something quite simple. Once you’ve drawn a few lines, your image begins to speak back to you. You get new ideas. You may begin to modify your original vision, or you may think of a more vivid way to capture it. In
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I like to start with loose, tangled sketches or little iconic figures. If it’s a subject I’ve drawn a lot, like these monkeys, I make an effort to draw them in some new way—some new angle or position. If I can think of something, I like to add some new element, such as the unicycle.
either case, the original concept is only a starting place. You surrender to the process, and therefore you never know exactly what you’re going to draw until you draw it. So what qualifies as an idea? In its broadest meaning, an idea is any thought that gets your pencil moving. Another definition is combining two elements in a novel way. This definition gets to the real power of ideas. Ideas are about creating relationships— about linking things in a fresh way. Your idea can be about anything, but it seems to work best when it’s about two things. As the dancer Twyla Tharp puts it, “you don’t have a really good idea until you combine two little ideas.”
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The first sketch leads to a simple idea—a monkey on a bicycle.
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Continuing to play with the idea, I silhouette the figure.