“But I can’t draw…”

Leonardo da Vinci, drawing of an embryo in a womb, from his notebooks

I regularly hear people who are creative, and who want to engage in art-making, struggle with the idea that they don’t know how to draw, or can’t draw, or are bad at drawing.

This feeling often stems from childhood when the kids who were labelled “artistic” were those talented few who were able to draw people and objects realistically, seemingly without effort. Ergo, if you weren’t one of those gifted souls, you weren’t, and could never be, an artist. Presumably, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Picasso were born with golden pencils in their hands, and the rest of us are destined to be chumps bumbling around with two left feet.

Thankfully, the world of art making is a much wider field than hyper-realism. If you want to capture an exact likeness of a subject, you have the option of taking a photograph.

Drawing, now, can be an exploration of mark making, gesture and expression. Release yourself from the pressure of having to reproduce what you see in front of you. Instead, think about how you feel. Make marks that express those feelings. Use pens, pencils, chalk, charcoal, brushes, or a stick you find at the beach. Draw on paper or draw in the sand.

(One of the magical things about making art is that there aren’t any rules that can’t be broken).

For inspiration, here are four highly-regarded contemporary artists from different parts of the world whose drawing and painting practices are untethered to figurative representation. Click on the links to explore more of their fascinating work, and then get drawing!

Landon Mackenzie, based in Vancouver, BC, Canada