E.J.Grimm

Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential. 

So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’ 

1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust! 

2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:

a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it! 

In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support. 

I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose

b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me! 

c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface

d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)

e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them

f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics. 

g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper. 

h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more. 

And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc. 

This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah. 

Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks. 

https://youtu.be/NBE-RTFkXDk

i am not a monster

spiders are the victims of much scrutiny and fear mongering simply for existing as arachnids.

i myself used to have a severe form of arachnophobia. it was to the point that even looking at this finished piece would give me horrific anxiety (not to mention tactile hallucinations of spiders under my skin) but upon learning more about these creatures i came to discover that they are not only — for the most part — harmless, they are also integral parts of the ecosystems they exist in.

i am on the schizo spectrum (a spectrum which is also demonized a lot by media and society as a whole), and this idea of spiders being seen as these dangerous and scary creatures when in actuality most of the time they are harmless is heavily relatable as a person who has been assumed to be dangerous simply for existing with a diagnosis of psychosis.

The Wandering Wizard

this piece came to me in a dream; in the dream i was silently and invisibly following the Wandering Wizard as they wandered through a forest, ultimately aiming to (eventually) get to a mountain of amethyst

the Wandering Wizard spoke to other fantastical creatures of the concept of Whimsy and how important it is to add a bit of Whimsy wherever your adventures take you so to not lose touch of magic in the world

life can get boring, but taking menial tasks and romanticizing them with a bit of imagination can make life just a bit more exciting

i.e. i’m not “picking up my prescriptions from the pharmacy”, i’m embarking on a journey to obtain pills of health from the wise sage at the apothecary so as to ease the suffering of the curses the gods bestowed upon me (mental illness+chronic illness)

gender transition as an act of creation of oneself is a sacred thing to experience.

this piece, referencing the biblical theology of the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden, aims to compare transitioning to taking bites out of said Forbidden Fruit, thus taking part in creation of oneself.

for many pre-transition trans people, transitioning, coming out, or even just admitting to yourself that you’re trans can feel a lot like taking a bite out of the Forbidden Fruit (this to mean that many of us grew up fearing Someone’s wrath if we dared to be queer or trans in any way; be it by God, family, friends, strangers, politicians, or someone of some sort of authority.)

taking the first bite of the Forbidden Fruit can be a scary thing; who is going to support you creating yourself and who is going to leave you behind or worse, simply for existing as yourself?

creating yourself is something that takes years of effort and hard work (especially as a trans person), but the payoff is worth every second of doubt or questioning whether or not you should’ve just left the fruit alone.

once the knowledge of how sweet the so-called “Forbidden” fruit is comes to light, it can seem next to impossible to go back to how things were before you began becoming yourself.

take myself for example; if i hadn’t faced the fear of the “Forbidden” i would have likely either continued to be miserable as my assigned gender, not knowing how content and at peace with myself i could be, or i would have not continued at all.

transitioning can save lives (i know because it saved mine.) creating yourself, no matter what that looks like can save lives.

i am not a monster

spiders are the victims of much scrutiny and fear mongering simply for existing as arachnids.

i myself used to have a severe form of arachnophobia. it was to the point that even looking at this finished piece would give me horrific anxiety (not to mention tactile hallucinations of spiders under my skin) but upon learning more about these creatures i came to discover that they are not only — for the most part — harmless, they are also integral parts of the ecosystems they exist in.

i am on the schizo spectrum (a spectrum which is also demonized a lot by media and society as a whole), and this idea of spiders being seen as these dangerous and scary creatures when in actuality most of the time they are harmless is heavily relatable as a person who has been assumed to be dangerous simply for existing with a diagnosis of psychosis.

My mum made me this needle felted dragon!! He turned out so cool!! and I wanted to share him with you, hes actually huge.