See What Had Happened Was...

I spoke a bit of German but was far from fluent. I’d been a little worried about communication but my grandmother assured me we’d be fine. She did this all the time, after all.

My grandmother left me in the hotel room one morning to sleep in while she went to the nearby bakery to get some pastries for breakfast. When she returned, she looked very flustered. She got me up because she had to get this off her chest. The woman in the bakery… didn’t speak ANY English. In her words, “Not a lick of English! Not one word!” I replied, heavy with sarcasm, “Really? In GERMANY?” She didn’t pick up on my sarcasm at all and just thought I was equally as astonished as her.

Turns out every trip she’d ever taken was with some pre-planned tour group for obnoxious white Americans. Never in all her years of traveling had she just gone into a small local shop and had to interact with a local whose entire business didn’t revolve around serving people like her. It was a genuine surprise to her that a person - especially a white person! - would actually not understand English.

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. 

stereotypical swedish accented host 1:  oh, stop it, you’re too kind

guest: the mushrooms. de-licious

host 1: actually, we picked them ourselves.

guest: oh really?

host 1: yeah, yeah

american: where?

the music falls silent as do the people. a person chokes on their drink. everyone but the guest stare blankly into their food. 

guest: i’m sorry did I say something inappropriate?

host 1: oh no, it’s nothing, it’s nothing

host 2: don’t worry about it, yeah, don’t worry

guest: ah okay, thank god, yeah no i was just wondering where you picked the mushrooms

the party falls silent again

host 2: han var jävligt nyfiken, var han [somebody’s being fucking nosy]

guest: i don’t understand, what’s going on? have i said something inappropriate? i’m just wondering if you have a “spot” like where you pick your mushrooms, like your “mushroom spot”?

host 1, throws utensils down, raises voice and stands up: okay now you’re crossing the line, now you have- nu får du- i have to ask you to leave, please

berries.

berries.

Alexa: “You have 19 items on your shopping list. Here are the five most recent.  Poetry, strawberries, strawberries, strawberries, strawberries.”

*Lady laughs*   

Alexa: “Would you like to hear the next five items?”

Lady: *laughing* “Who ordered this strawberries? (yes please?)” Alexa: “You have 19 items on your shopping list, Here are the five most recent. *cuts*  - the next five items? Lady: “Yes please”

Alexa: “Strawberry yogurt, easy water, jeans, Harry, big tofu. Would you like to hear the next five items?”

Lady: *laughing high pitched* yes!

Alexa: “Big, big, red retreat, milk, berry. Do you want to hear the last four items?”

Lady: “Please yes” *wheezy laughter*

Alexa: “Apple, berry, berry, berries”