I admit that when it comes to my drawing and paintings, I futz. A lot. I want to get the colors and shading just right, the curves and angles absolutely perfect. When it comes to drawing blobby organic forms, perhaps the angles and curves don’t matter that much; After all, no one would know the difference, since the shapes aren’t recognizable as anything but themselves.
But it matters to me.
I have a bad habit of saying “Okay, I’m done with this part.” and then going back to tweak some more. I have even sometimes made more work for myself when my revision ends up worse than the last version. Today, however, it was worth it. I declared myself done with my sketch before continuing to rework multiple times, but I’m glad that I did. I pushed myself, and the drawing came out better because of it. Take a look at this shape that I reworked after declaring it done twice:
The first version was fine, good enough.
However, I knew that it could be better.
The second version was better, more sinuous, better curves, cleaner lines. I declared it done, and it certainly could have been.
But it didn’t feel quite right with the composition as a whole. It was too busy, too complex. So I kept going.
And the third version? This version made a big difference to me. I was finally done for good this time.
The old saying proves true again: The third time really is the charm.
PS – Can you tell which sketch from my last blog post this shape is based on?