The Experience of Drawing

Based on last week’s interviews, I created a graph visualising the current experience of drawing process for amateur artists.

• Finding time is a big problem – and even though there might be small windows of time that would give the person an opportunity to draw, they don’t necessarily realise that they could use the time to draw.
• Having supplies is not a problem, although certain media needs a special environment – painting for example requires enough space and preparations and is not something that can be done on the go.
• Idea – ”what I want to draw today?” – or the lack of it, can be something that stops the process entirely and keeps the person from drawing at all. On the contrary, sometimes having a good idea can raise the interest to draw and create excitement for the process.
• Getting started is easier with an existing idea, whereas with no ideas it can be really difficult.
• Sketching is part of the process that people seem to enjoy the most, and all of the interviewees also doodle for fun anyway, even if they don’t count is as properly ”drawing”.
• Finding reference material is difficult, as it’s hard to describe the visual assets required for a specific scenario. The interviews and the survey revealed that most people prefer blog-post like quick tutorials over books or videos, as it’s much quicker to scroll through a blog post. Less time spent trying to find references means more time for drawing.
• Finishing the piece can either be fun if the person has a flow going, or it can be daunting and feel unachievable.
• People like sharing their work, showing their ideas and emotions to others as well as getting feedback.
  

My goals for this project are:

• Support individual artist’s drawing practise, both immediately and in long-term.
• Get the user to engage with the process of drawing. Possibly through scheduling, maybe including notifications.
• Keep the user engaged throughout the process, by taking into account their personal interests, style, long-term goals, and by allowing them to choose between lighter and more challenging prompts.
• Make the user see the value of their own work, by making sure that the moment of ending the drawing process is positive. Congratulate the user for drawing, no matter how small or insignificant their piece of work might seem to them.