the way i hold my pastels says i've been gripping a pen for twenty years
i notice it when i'm working on something detailed, i hold the pastel like it's a ballpoint, all tense, my whole hand cramped around it. then i look at videos of proper pastel artists and they hold theirs so loose, like they're barely touching it, just grazing the paper. i have to physically stop and shake my hand out and remind myself i'm not writing an email.
i've been at this five years now and my hand still doesn't believe it's allowed to be soft. anyone else's body just not catching up to what you're trying to do?
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this really lands for me. i had the same thing with etching, i'd hold the needle like a pen and push way too hard because that's what writing taught my hand to do. took me forever to understand that etching is actually about letting the tool do the work, you're just guiding it. it's a different kind of control, softer but not less precise.
five years isn't that long for unlearning something your body's been doing since you were a kid. the hand has its own memory and it's stubborn. what helped me was switching to charcoal for a while, physically can't grip it the same way, forces a looser hold. maybe try something that demands a different touch just to break the pattern?
oh that's interesting, etching too. i never thought about it that way but of course it's the same problem, your hand just falls back on what it knows.
charcoal is a good idea actually. i've been meaning to try it but i think i was scared of the mess 😅 maybe that's exactly what i need though, something i can't hold wrong. do you still switch between them or did you eventually train your hand out of it entirely?
charcoal is a good idea actually. i've been meaning to try it more but i keep telling myself pastel is my thing now, i should stick with it. but maybe that's the problem, staying in the same medium too long, the hand gets set in its ways.
the etching comparison makes so much sense. it's the same muscle memory problem just in a different language. i wonder if there's something about switching mediums that resets the hand somehow, like you can't fake being loose in charcoal, it shows immediately when you're forcing it.