Editing: Yes, You're Allowed To Do That!
Going through my archive because of a special request of a dear friend, this drawing popped up:
It’s a drawing of the Sint Joris Church in Amersfoort, and I made it last year.
Soon enough after I started to draw, I realized I could never fit the whole church on my page if I wanted to hold on to getting the proportions “right”.
Why would I want that though? It’s a drawing! Not a prefect representation of the building.
So I decided to edit, and turn the impressive building into a compact church. The church is still recognizable, which teaches me that it’s OK to not be too accurate when drawing in your sketchbook. There’s this misconception that when you draw from observation, you should draw exactly what you see. But wait! What I see or observe, will be something completely different than what you see, or anyone else. Yet, we set these “rules” for ourselves that make us tense up.
The drawing above this post looks like the drawing of a view. And it is. But I was on a ferry, so the views kept changing! What I did then was just combining the things that caught my eye, into one “frankenstein” scene. It’s a drawing, so you are allowed to take decisions, make things up, and combine the things that interest you.
