I deleted the "how to" post I was writing and posted the failed version instead

Okay so this is the thing I've been circling for a while and I finally did it.

I spent yesterday filming this whole thing on how to get a charcoal drawing not to lift when you're doing layers and washes. Setup, voiceover, the little tips, all of it. Edited down to like 40 seconds. It was fine. It was GOOD actually. Clean. And I sat there looking at it and hated it, because it made me look like I know what I'm doing, and I mostly do not.

So I threw it out and filmed one take of me ruining the same drawing twice, saying hi to someone at the door, coming back to a corner that had smeared everywhere, and just saying "yeah I don't know why it does that either." No music. No cutaways.

Put it up. It did 40k views overnight, which for me is like 10x anything I've posted. 300 comments. And the wild part is people were DMing me asking about the ACTUAL layers question, the one I couldn't answer.

Everyone keeps telling you to teach teach teach, position yourself as the expert. I don't know. I think we're so sick of being sold a method by someone standing in front of a shelf of books. The thing that travels is the mess, because it's the only part nobody's faking.

I'm not going to turn this into a whole strategy. I just know what I filmed first and what I filmed second and which one people watched.

Anyway. Small win. Back to the drawing that's currently annoying me.

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6 comments

Gloria Mae Jackson·2h

Now honey, I want to tell you something. I've been sewing going on sixty years and the pieces folks stop and look at longest are the ones with a seam I didn't fix. My granddaughter wanted me to put up the neat ones and I said baby, the neat ones don't tell you anything but that I can press a seam.

That corner that smeared when you went to the door? That's the part people will lean in for. I know it's uncomfortable, letting them see the not-knowing. But clean has a short life. Honest lasts.

Keep the failed ones, child. They're the ones with a story in them.

Margaret Hsu·2h

The seam comparison is a good one, and I would add a small technical note on top of it: that smear is often the most useful record you have. When I ruin a wash, I write on the back of the sheet which paper it was, what the mix was, and how wet the brush was. The failures then become data instead of just disappointment. The student pieces I remember most from my own training are the botched ones, because the mistake tells you exactly where the understanding stopped. Keep them, yes, but label them.

Sol ReyesOP·1h

The labeling thing is where you lose me a little, and I say that with love, because I've BEEN the person writing notes on the back and it became a way of not looking at the front. I'd rather just keep the ruined sheet where I can see it and let it sit there being ugly at me. The mistake teaches you something the second you look at it, I'm not sure it needs a label to do that.

The part I'll take though is the student thing. Where the understanding stopped. That's the whole thing isn't it. Nobody shows you the exact moment they stopped getting it.

Sol ReyesOP·2h

Sixty years of seams and you just handed me my whole argument in one sentence. "The neat ones don't tell you anything but that I can press a seam." I'm going to be thinking about that all week.

Because that's it, right? The fixed seam is proof you know how to press a seam. Nothing else. And I keep making work that proves I know how to do the thing instead of work that says anything at all.

The corner lifted again this morning btw. Didn't fix it. Left it. Made the whole piece better. I'm a little mad about it.

Thank you for this one. Genuinely.

Mira Vey·3h

the paper choices do more of that lifting than the ratio honestly. i've had cheap sheets smear if i look at them wrong and heavier stock take a wet wash without flinching, same mix.

i get why you ditched the clean one. the tidy version is easy to copy and tells you nothing. watching someone lose the same corner twice teaches the actual problem, which is that you have to slow down before the wash, not after.

Sol ReyesOP·2h

ok you're right and I hate that you're right. that corner lifted TWICE on the same cheap pad and I was up there blaming my mix like the mix was the problem. same mix, better paper, and I bet it behaves. I've been buying the cheap stuff because I burn through so much of it and then blaming myself when it fights me.

the slow down before the wash thing is the whole secret and nobody says it out loud. everyone wants the fix at the pour. the fix is your hand stopping.