Breaking free with loose line drawing

How making art helped me be more forgiving of myself

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After my “Boa Tarde, Portugal collection” was launched, I needed to deflate.

It was an intense eight weeks of detailed line drawing with painting, then the marketing. I gave a lot of myself. And I needed a short break. I need to do nothing with my fine-liner pen! (Nor social media.)

about the Boa Tarde, Portugal collection

After a week or so, pen in hand, I returned to the drawing table. Picking up cues from a mini course taken a while back, on continuous line drawing for self-care, my lines went “unstructured”.

Ignoring my inner voice to stay safe in my comfort zone, and following my intuition, I drew and painted like I’ve never done before—loose, adventurous, almost with a sense of abandonment of “what I knew”.

It felt good.

Here’s the first fruit from my foray into loose line drawing.

Street scene in Lisbon, Portugal.

I was trying to use up my acrylic gouache paint after a painting, so, this painting is duotone. This was my first attempt at continuous line drawing for architecture, I never thought it could be done. This is fun! I'm looking forward to exploring a more loose style of line art.

And the next.

Urban landscape in Porto, Portugal.

Porto urban landscape with the iconic Dom Luís I Bridge where the metro and pedestrians cross from Porto to Gaia and vice versa. Also, people struggling to climb the many steep staircase found in the historical city centre, hee hee.

And the next.

Nature landscape with the Douro train along the Duoro Valley, Portugal

With each artwork, I ventured beyond my usual boundaries of not making mistakes (no delete button with non-digital art!) and stepped into a freer environment, where I learnt to let the lines and water lead, as I lead them across the paper.

I noticed how hesitant, tentative, critical, and doubtful I was at the beginning of each artwork. “This is ugly. Urgh, you can’t draw. Just give up! Stick to what you know”, my inner critic lambasted.

Thankfully, encouraged by the gentle nudges I picked up from other artists: forgive yourself for your mistakes. Be brave and inventive—I kept going. In doing so, I kept liberating myself. And my art.

Once I learnt to push through the unformed beginnings and the mistakes, to be patient to let the art piece develop, and to trust the process, I was pleasantly surprised at the results.

Beyond the technical skills, these are essential elements in creating art. Be kinder, forgive yourself, be brave and inventive, try new things, experiment, and enjoy the process and journey. Works for living life too.

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💖
Melinda / We are back in Portugal!

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