Not making it beautiful.
Making an encounter.

Who hasn't known this moment? You put the pen to paper. A line appears. Perhaps a second. And suddenly the mind speaks up: "What is this supposed to be?" "Is it good enough?" "Is this even art?"

Before the image is allowed to emerge, the comparison begins. The gaze moves from the paper into the head. An encounter becomes a judgement.

And yet there are two fundamentally different ways of making. Neither is better than the other. Both have their place.

The first way: making as execution

Sometimes the image already exists in our imagination. We know what is supposed to emerge. We compare, correct, discard and improve. The drawing follows an inner idea.

This way is indispensable. It trains our craft, our eye and our ability to make something consciously. Without it there would be no architecture, no illustration and no masterfully executed drawings.

Here we approach a goal.

The second way: making as response

But there is another way. Here drawing does not begin with an idea — it begins with an encounter. A line appears. It demands a response. The next line answers it. Slowly something begins to take shape that had no name before.

The image is not produced. It is not searched for either. It is nurtured. Not because we know what it will become. But because we are willing to respond to what is showing itself right now.

Allowing yourself to be touched

Perhaps drawing begins exactly there. Not with an idea. But with the willingness to be touched — by the material, by a line, by a movement, by a mood, by something that cannot yet be explained.

Every drawing then becomes a response to this encounter.

What becomes of mistakes

As long as we follow a fixed idea, mistakes serve an important purpose. They show us where we have not yet reached our goal.

But when drawing becomes an open encounter, the meaning of mistake shifts too. A line is no longer wrong. It simply changes the situation. It demands a new response. From an apparent error, a direction suddenly emerges that was not visible before. Not because everything is right. But because the image is still speaking.

Two ways — one shared purpose

The first way trains our craft. The second trains our receptiveness. The first helps us make visible what we already know. The second nurtures something we do not yet know.

Both ways belong together. Those who follow only the result easily lose the pleasure of being surprised. Those who follow only chance forgo possibilities that craft opens up. Only together do both unfold their full strength.

Perhaps we do not draw in order to produce images. Perhaps we do not draw in order to express ourselves either. Perhaps we draw because every encounter demands a response. And sometimes that response consists of nothing more than a single line.

What this means for the question of when a painting is finished, I explore in another article.