breaking the drawing barrier

One of my weakest skills is drawing. I have tried various approaches in the past but got easily discouraged.

Until now - I found Steven Aimone's book Expressive Drawing which approaches drawing quite differently. It's not about teaching realistic, representative drawing - this is about just playing, building a picture by making patterns, lines and shapes that please you. It's huge fun and suits my way of working very well.

Most importantly, I think, it gives you confidence in actually putting charcoal/pencil to paper because you're not trying to "do it right" - no one can look at this drawing, for example, and say "Well, that looks nothing like a cat with a gladiolus"

And even more fun is something I tried this afternoon - this 'automatic drawing' technique combined with music. I did this while listening to Blondie's "Union City Blues".

and this while listening to Philip Glass' Metamorphosis One.

I really want to be able to get to the stage where I can sit and sketch and capture the essence of something, whether it's the lines of a statue, details of seams or stitching of a garment or the patterns of bark. And now I'm not demonised by the blank page and the fear of imperfection I'm a step closer towards that.