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Everything worth doing is worth doing badly. I wish I drew well. I don’t. But what I don’t lack in skill, I own in stubbornness. I am willing to keep doing something badly a very long time if I wish to do something well.

I’ve been revisiting my drawing skills as I’ve been starting new work. I’ve needed a fish in the next piece and spent some time this week. It sent me back to my books and my drawing board to struggle with the dirty d word again.

My drawing surface is an iron on pull off pellon product called Totally Stable. It shows up at sewing stores everywhere. The iron on part is like a freezer paper with a softer drawable, tear-away hand.

I wish it were possible to just draw free motion. I can sketch but it helps if there’s a drawing to start from. The hardest thing for me is that I can’t draw smooth lines. I rough things out, and then scratch all over them and then I trace and retrace over and over again. Is that wrong?

It may be but it doesn’t matter much. It’s just the best I can do. I’m deeply dyslexic. It’s not a problem, it’s just a condition. Really, it’s it’s own gift. A different way of looking at things.

When I moved my studio over, I found some french curves I’d bought a while back. I didn’t quite get the use of them. I kept trying to. I just couldn’t quite get it. I didn’t see how the shapes fit around the drawings. Dyslexic.

I have a light table. It helps to have illumination. Even from beneath.

So I got out my rulers and took my drawings and smoothed them. I turned the plastic templates over and over around the lines and found they did fit in if I was working just in small areas at a time. Using the curves, I outlined the drawing cleaning it, smoothing it out. At first I thought I was cheating. And then I realized I wouldn’t have blinked if I was using a ruler for straight lines instead of soft curves,

It fell apart when I went to do his scales. I didn’t have a template that fit that. So I have shaky scales.

Then I realized he was heading the wrong way. More dyslexia. But this is the good part. The directions just are different for me. I mix them up but I can get there in a heartbeat.

I pulled out my light table, flopped over my drawing and traced it the other direction.

I don’t do this for myself, but for the blog, I zoned the drawing in color, so you can see where I’m going. The fish up above is the same kind of bass, but in another quilt. Just so you can get the idea.

Of course the question is whether smoothed out drawings are better? Is there something stronger in a rough edge. Or have I just made my drawing more defined? I need to sew it out to know.

For you, I hope you grab any tool you need without embarrassment or shame and use it to do what you dream. It’s not cheating. It’s working with what we’ve got.