Meet: the squiggly men
I've been asked a few times the story behind my squiggly men -- a couple more times since I've launched my site. So here I am to tell you a little bit about them.
There was no dramatic birth of the squiggly men, it was actually a practice for me to commit to my lines. I used to have this habit of drawing a lot of short lines instead of drawing just one long one and this led to a lot of erasing and re-doing. This also lead to a bad habit of not finishing an entire idea; what I mean by this is, usually in drawing, it's better to get a light sketch of the entire drawing to see composition and correct anatomy. What I used to do was get really detailed in one spot and then get around 70-80% done and notice that it's not perspectively or anatomically correct. But I would be too hesitant to erase it so I would just leave all these unfinished pieces. So just like how when you were a child, the first thing you would draw are stick figures, these are like my kind of stick figures.
The squiggly men were first meant to be practice figures. Something to doodle with ink to get adjusted to the feeling of permanency. However, as I doodled around, they slowly began to personify certain moments of my life. Especially during my dark times. Some moments are recalled, man, why did I act like that and try to be like everyone else. Others happened in real time and in those moments I was really thankful to my squiggly men. I felt like I had a companion through it all. When there are feelings without explanation or words to tie them to; the squiggly men were able to speak on my behalf. When I felt like I was going insane in the dead of night from insomnia or when I was on a crowded subway feeling apathetic. I felt like I didn’t need them to be perfectly drawn because that was never their intention. They were my own personal support group.
This is why I never believe people when they tell me that they can’t draw. Of course they can. They just don’t think that it’s good compared to others. A lot of people misinterpret traditional art to be the only true form of art, but art has always been subjective. I believe that as long as you can convey your point across to your viewers, be it an emotion, a narrative, a question, you have done what any artist aims to do. So pull out your dusty box of crayons or doodle in your free time when you're waiting for that 15 second ad on Youtube to finish. Stop thinking, "I can do that" and just do it.
xx, oj
