Don't Forget About The Love

Lately I've been in a real rut with my cafe sketching.  The last week or so nothing seems to come out right.  I see people, I draw them, but then I don't like what comes out on the page.  Something is missing and I know I've gone through periods like this before but they don't get easier.  I always continue drawing day after day until some mysterious switch gets flicked back on and I enjoy it again.  Today while trudging through an episode of "i don't feel like drawing" mornings I felt especially desperate.  It's not just that everything I drew seemed ugly, it also seemed foreign.  Like someone else had drawn the faces on my page.  Nothing about them had any part of me in them.  Then I kind of realized that that was it.  That was my problem.  I had become disconnected with the people I was drawing and the feelings it could bring out in me.  When I am "in the zone" I am unusually completely smitten and in love with the people I am drawing.  The way there hair falls, the degree of which there nose turns up, the lopsided way they smile or talk.  So I decided to start loving them again. I looked up at a person and allowed myself to be completely charmed by them.  Their double chin that formed when they smiled, how short their hair was that it curled right under their ears.  When I allowed myself to delight in this I found myself in love again and once again I was reflected in my drawings.  It was actually amazing the immediate difference I saw.  I was no longer rushing through drawing, nor was I over thinking things in my head.  I took my time, lingering over the drawing and adding little touches here and there.  Because I wanted to, because that's what I love to do.
The thing I really took away from this was just.... you have to love what you are doing.  No matter what it is.  You have to feel love and feel connected so that your natural inclinations are to spend time, connect and love the details of what you are doing.  Whether you are an artist or anything else.  If you love what you do you will love the things you do.

Failure Challenge POST 2

A sketch I did purely out of my head.   It is something about love.