Grid Patience

Whenever I post or show my grid drawings, someone is bound to say sooner or later that I must be a very patient person. Well...I am, but only when it comes to grid drawings or patterns! It is a total mystery to me how I can hardly bring up the effort to do a simple sketch from life in say fifteen minutes, but have no problem at all spending hours on a page in one of my grid or pattern books.

I can think of no other reason than that it is meditative. It calms my mind, stills my busy thoughts. Regular drawing (like with my current morning portraits) always makes me a little restless. Maybe because it has to be something. My patterns and grids don't have to be anything, just colour and shapes. Maybe I draw them the way other people colour in adult colouring books.

In the end the why of it doesn't really matter. It's just what I love to do and when you love to do something you make time for it.

Here are some grid drawings from my Moleskine XL squared soft cover book:

Still, all these drawings are an exercise in patience, even for someone who loves doing them. Some are spread out over the course of a week in different sessions of a little time here and there, some I can do in a day in a big session of several hours, but in any case they take time, escpecially the bigger ones like these and to me they are worth it.

Hope you are spending your precious time doing something you love and wishing you a wonderful and artsy weekend!