Enjoying Ugly
Inspired by falling off my skateboard.
You will need:
Paper
Pencil or pen
Post-It Notes
A will to make something ugly
Instructions:
To start, go to a skatepark and fracture both your elbows.
Kidding!Think of a few things you are not good at.
Now write a few lines about something going wrong while you’re doing that thing. It can be factual, or just an example of the kind of thing that would go wrong. This is not a script, just a starting point.
When you start your comic, you may use your dominant hand to write with, but you are NOT ALLOWED to use it when you draw. You must use your ugly hand.
As you work on your comic, see if you can use the crummy drawings to reinforce or comment on your narrative. Embrace the wonkiness, make it purposeful. Try to enjoy the ugly.
Example:
Thoughts:
This exercise is an odd one because I came up with it after I made the comic. The exercise was reverse engineered. I did fracture one elbow skating, and I’m seeing a doctor later this week to find out if I fractured both. The first thing I did after it happened, was to see if I could still draw with my right hand (I can), and the second thing I did was to make the comic about not being able to draw with my right hand.
Drawing is a record of movement, and we can feel the history of that movement when we look at a drawing. You can feel when an image is made out of anger, or over a long period of time, or if its made in a naive way. Beautiful drawings impact the tone of a comic, creating atmosphere and subtext, but with a little love, “ugly drawings” can do that just as effectively.
And they don’t take nearly as long to make.
If you’re interested in having new exercises and comics sent to your inbox…
you can sign up for that here.