Thread by @GailSimone

Okay, I posted a bit about a problem I see often in artist samples. But this story works for any problem you might have in your drawing, at least a little bit.

So if you have a weakness in your storytelling/cartooning, maybe listen up. It's about Charles Schulz. 1/

Now, by most measures, he was likely the most successful American cartoonist in terms of connecting with an audience, and there's no question that his writing was unique. But his art was tremendously appealing, even during the many sad strips. 2/

Now, Charles Schulz was born to make a comic strip. Two days after birth, an uncle named him 'Sparky' after a popular comics page horse. All he wanted to do from childhood was 'draw funny pictures.'

But not everything came easy, and being a strip artist was BIG then. 3/

And he knew he wasn't going to have some of the educational breaks others might get. He had to make HIMSELF a great cartoonist.

So that's what he set out to do, in a way that has always fascinated me. 4/

He had cheap art notebooks, and he would take some pencils and go to the park, or some other public place.

There he would draw whatever was in front of him. A baseball mitt, a tree, a sleeping cat, whatever.

BUT.

5/

He would draw that thing.

Then he would draw it again.

Then he would draw it again.

Same session, same object.

Always three times.

6/

So when people saw his notebooks, it's endless pages of threes. Three trees, three identical rocks, three abandoned shoes.

Over and over, pages and pages of three drawings.

7/

When asked why, he said (I'm paraphrasing) that the first one was to learn how to draw it, and by the third drawing, he KNEW how to draw that object forever. Whether it was an apple, a baseball mitt, or a human ear, by the third time, he KNEW.

8/

I believe it's the same thing with all comics art. If you can't draw a building, if you can't draw perspective, if human activity comes off stiff, whatever...I think what Schulz was doing was filling in the gaps, filling his toolbox to bursting. Teaching himself the world. 9/

I'm not an artist. But we do a similar thing in comics all the time as scripters, we learn how to compose a page, we learn how to unveil a reveal, we learn how to communicate as succinctly as possible, through repetition and focus. 10/

It seems very elegant to me. Can't draw a building? Draw the same building three times.

It's not a cure-all. But I bet by that third time, you have learned a lot and you RETAIN it because it's so immediate.

11/

Anyway, everyone works differently, and I know artists will point to sketchbooks where the have drawn a THOUSAND buildings. But part of what Schulz was doing was more than rendering, it was finding the ESSENCE of whatever he drew. 12/

Just something to think about. If you look at Schulz and love Snoopy, or admire the Red Baron storylines, or Lucy's perfect fussbudget-ism, think of stacks and stacks of notebooks with three of everything in them.

13/

Just something to think about. It always impressed the hell out of me, I must say!

It's a lesson I use a lot.

Good luck!

#ComicsSchool #Addendum