I know out there that there are some of you who have the same irrational fears as me – I always believe that I could now draw. We are not talking about Michael Angelo's masterpieces here but just the basic drawing. I guess this is also the reason why I tend to steer away from fun activities like art jamming. But today I had happened to stumble on a TED Talk video, which empowered me with confidence that I can do anything, not just art, so stick with me on this and be rewarded soon enough with a newfound confidence that if you dare to dream, you can achieve.

Believing is the key

As impossible as it sounds, you have to first admit that you can do it, that drawing is not an impossible feat out of grasp. Be willing to give yourself a chance to succeed at this and then everything would become much easier. The irrational fear that has long taken root in our hearts, we have to find a way to remove it, only then can we move forward.

In the Ted Talk, Graham Shaw teaches us how easy it is to draw cute cartoons in just under a minute. It is a simple step by step process for these type of face cartoons which once you get the gist of it, just a little tweak, you have a whole new cartoon. You start with the eyes, which can be as simple as drawing quotation marks, then the mouth with a horizontal alphabet T. Proceed to the ear, half a semi-circle and a line in it, and for the hair to start off you could draw 4 spikes (lines). Then give his face shape by tracing out the jawline and the neck, a circle for his shirt and 2 lines by the side for the shoulder and viola. You got a really nice looking drawing.

And moving on in his presentation, he demonstrates as well other easy forms of the same genre of the cartoon that is just modifying it by a tiny weeny bit only. By the end of the presentation, he would have taught you 6 cartoons in 10 minutes and the formulae to recreate it. Nose, eyes, mouth, ear, hair, jawline, neck and shirt. And for a nose there are many ways of doing it, mix and match it differently with the other parts for a new cartoon. Easy enough for you yet? I know it is for me, finally.

More than just about drawing

This might apply to drawing, painting or anything artistic, but it is also a very good life principle that you can adopt. Don’t be dejected and give up on something because you seem just plain bad at it. The world is at our disposal, or rather Google is, just do a bit of homework/ research and you could possibly find the solution to your obstacles easily. So the next time you think you are bad and something and want to give up, think again. If you can draw, you can do anything. Don’t forget that. Here is the link for the Ted Talk video.