SunUp Festival Sketch Blog 3 - Zine Making with Beth Duggleby

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about drawing. How does it work? Why do I do it? Is it a ‘good use of time?’ What do I access through drawing, that I can’t through words? I’ve been thinking a lot about making a zine. For ages. In fact I started one but lost sight of how to finish it. Couldn’t work it out. So I left it.

I came to this workshop with a lot of baggage then. A lot of ‘I want answers’

Drawing is mostly a mystery to me. I do it often to remember what a moment, time or event felt like. I am not always good at capturing likeness. I have a 75 fail / 25 hit rate. I often mess up completely. I mean really badly. Like, I can make people look wrong. But I do seem to capture a feeling, dunno, just something about the things and people I draw. Something that isn’t exactly to do with what they look like. Something about emotion comes out in the drawing. Recently, I drew a friend and I made a mess of her face, but she said afterwards that I captured how tired she was feeling at the time. I hadn’t thought about that, when I was drawing, at all. But when I looked back, I could see what she meant. The only certain thing for me is that almost always, drawing is a solo affair for me. I do a thing, take some photos, then later I sit with the photos and think about the thing or the time and draw. It’s a solitary game.

Only not today.

I expect that most people who draw are quite used to sitting with others and doing it. But it was quite strange for me. At first I felt a bit funny. I got a bit overpowered by all the talent in the room. Everyone there was amazing at drawing. I mean really fab. But then Beth did a very simple thing. She just asked us to make a zine of our own portraits. We would do a self portrait to start and then pop around the room and draw each other, in each other’s zines.

A beautifully simple but gorgeous way to encourage us to stop worrying about being good enough. And instead focus on just doing some drawings. As it happens, it was also a beautifully simple way of finishing a zine.

Because I think I hadn’t been able to finish a zine before this session, because I'd been trying to think to hard. Where should the words go? How do I know what to draw and what to write? It’s as if my writing brain has been battling with my drawing brain. And they both approach things so differently. There has been an impasse. The workshop helped me realise that I can let my drawing brain lead the way. Words don’t always have to come first. And also, when I stop worrying about being ‘good enough’ it’s a really lovely way to spend time with other people. There’s something very intimate and kind about it. Weirdly, next time I do a creative writing session, I think I might steal this task and get my writers to write descriptions of each other.

Maybe. We’ll see.

The other thing I loved about the day was realising I was sitting in a room with humans from all over world, ranging in age between 7 or 8 right through to 50s / 60’s. All of us drawing. Together. That had it’s own power. Its own special feeling of connection. It felt like we spun webs of community with our staining ink and bamboo pens, scratching away together. I want to live in a world that’s like this session more often. More and more often. Until one day I’ll look up and the old world will be gone and the new world will be here. Just all of us, together, making stuff and helping each other while we do it.

Anyway, I started and finished a zine. Thank you to Beth for holding such a lovely space and sharing your practice. It was ace.