How To Be Cool About Drawing a High School Bike Rack

The other night I posted this image over on Twitter, saying, “Filed under ‘cruel things I am doing to myself on a Friday night.’”

This casual quip touches on a topic about which I have strong opinions, despite my recent attempts to have fewer strong opinions, because I read some advice that said that having fewer strong opinions would make me happier.

I was in the process of pencilling the pages in which Alexandra Nichols learns about the miseries that Regency England has in store for her as a young lady. I started off with thumbnails that looked like this:

…real simple. A basic little montage effect. Little snapshots increase in number as the pages progress.

Then I thought, “what if each montage picture window was a panel on period-appropriate wallpaper?”

“Aha, clever stuff, TC, the elaborate, ornate, decorative quality of the wallpaper will enhance the idea of Alexandra being consumed by all that Regency expectation. Look at you, art school paying off.”

I dove in head-first and pencilled-out four increasingly-intricate pages.

Was it time-consuming? Yes.

Did I hate it? Was it “cruel?” No.

But that’s the joke among people who draw things in black outlines on white paper. Chain-link fences, bicycles, crowd scenes, brick walls, ships’ rigging, tile roofs, waves on the ocean, vines, books on shelves, etc. etc. etc. Auuughhh, the torture; ouughhh, the agony. They’re intricate, repetitive, or difficult-to-get-right subjects that can sap an artist’s time and enthusiasm.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but it if you are an artist and you’ve got yourself into a situation where you absolutely have to draw every brick on the wall *and you hate it,* consider: you might be doing it wrong. A kinder way to say it might be, your subconscious is telling you that what you're doing is unneccessary.

In order to keep myself from being angry at the thing I am drawing, I try to always ask: what is the importance of the object I am drawing? What is its role in this composition?

Does the chain-link fence represent something important, like a cold, harsh separation of two characters or settings?

Are the fully-detailed brick walls and tile roofs necessary because they add an appealing textural element to the composition?

Do you have to draw a hundred bikes at a high-school bike rack because the quality of that many different bikes en masse tells us something about the character of the student body?

Does the texture of hundreds and hundreds of repeated books on a shelf reflect an important aspect of the character who owns them?

These all seem like ideas I could use to convince myself to draw a tonne of intricate things and feel okay about all the time it would involve.

In the case of the intricate wallpaper decoration, I told myself, “the intricacy of the wallpaper represents traditional feminine associations of decoration/nesting/care-of-home, as well as being period- and culture-appropriate for the type of society by which Alexandra is being consumed.” Also, this lady stuff is news to Alexandra, but will not be to many readers, so it’s my job to make it as interesting as possible, visually and otherwise.

And so drawing all the intricate floral swirls and neo-classical ornaments was not a cruel task. It felt necessary, and it was a novel challenge, so… can I say I enjoyed it? You know what? I kind-of did.

I think it’s a mistake to throw a bunch of bikes into a composition just because, ohh, “schools have bike racks,” or, "they'd be there in real life." It’s a mistake to draw a comic with a bunch of horse-drawn carriages unless the qualities of carriage travel are appealing and relevant to the story. It’s a mistake to add in a chain-link fence unless really, really necessary.

Most importantly, in almost every circumstance, I think it’s borderline irresponsible to draw every brick or roofing shingle. But that's a personal pet peeve I try to keep to myself, because as mentioned above, I’m trying to find more peace and happiness by maintaining many fewer strongly-held opinions. But there it is.

How do we get around drawing all those details? Some solutions include:

• Investing in techniques of suggestion. Please don’t draw every brick; learn some techniques to convincingly suggest a wall of bricks. Please don’t draw every crowd member; learn some techniques to trick the reader into thinking they’re looking at a massive crowd, without having to outline every single individual. You’re not Martin Handford.
• Re-compose. Don’t draw the whole bike rack unless you have to. Reframe your drawing so as to suggest the presence of many bikes while only having to draw two.
• Ask yourself (or the writer): does this story or sequence really have to take place at a bike shop? Why? No, really: why? Don’t fight me on this. Really ask. Can it be set literally anywhere else? The answer might be “no,” but you gotta ask.
• Don’t try to brute-force it. Instead of actually drawing two hundred bikes, can you draw twelve, then use digital shortcuts to multiply them? Instead of trying to draw a character behind a chain-link fence, can you just draw the chain-link fence on a separate sheet and comp it into your scene later? (This is not cheating. There is no cheating in art, and simultaneously, all art is cheating.) (Remember to keep line width and quality compatible between elements, please.)
• Learn to enjoy it. I don’t love drawing horses. But horses will be important to the characters in my story, as more than just background decoration (I have avoided all horse-based background decoration), so I will figure it out. Same with sailing ships. I hate drawing rigging, but I like the effect when the image all comes together; c’est la vie. We all want to be happy. See if you can learn the skill of finding enjoyment where you did not expect it.

Here’s an idea, I don’t know if it’s right or not: if the essential act of making marks on paper (or on a digital image) is misery-inducing, do something different. If the work is drudgery, that will be apparent in the artwork. Not blatantly, maybe—most people won’t see it—but it’ll be there. I know, there are deadlines, and you’re not being paid enough, certainly. That makes it a challenge. 

I'm working on this for myself, too. This is at least as much a note-to-self as it is a suggestion for anyone who might be reading it.

However, I do still reserve the right to make jokes about drawing bicycles and chain-link fences. We must—must!—remain able to bond over low-stakes gripes.

Update: roughs ("pencils") are half-way done!

Coming soon:

I can’t believe I haven’t posted about my favourite—surprisingly succinct!—cheat sheet for useful principles to apply to all processes of making things. I must remember to do that. I think about it often; it is one of the most meaningful resources I have ever stumbled upon. I love sharing it with people, hoping that it might leave as deep a mark on at least one other person as it has on me.