Day 8. Delicious Delights
Who doesn't delight in good food??
Hey, GUT peeps!
You’ve drawn every day for ten minutes a day for OVER A WEEK.
YOU. ARE. AMAZING.
I’m thrilled to see GUT member’s excitement about this week’s theme: Delights.
Check out the stupendous selection of yesterday’s “Delightful Objects” drawings at the bottom of this dispatch. Four out of, what, nearly 1,000 drawings?? The art share in the GUT chat is OFF THE CHART. If you’re having issues locating it or sharing your work, there is a link at the bottom of this dispatch, and you can always check out the GUT FAQ if substack leaves you stumped. Also, if you are a GUT member and haven’t introduced yourself to the group yet, you can do that here. If you already said hi, maybe pop back in and welcome some new people who recently joined? ❤️
Today, we turn our attention and see out our delights in something we all experience daily, need to survive, relish in, and often take for granted: FOOD.
Cooking & Drawing
If you know my work, you probably know I had the DELIGHT to collaborate with Samin Nosrat on Salt Fat Acid Heat. It was a joy to do, despite having zero idea how to cook when we first began. Samin and I worked together for years to create Salt Fat Acid Heat. As she cooked, I drew over her shoulder. Through that process I discovered how much drawing and cooking have in common. Mainly, these themes: Do it with love! Learn by doing! Make mistakes! Fail Bravely!
Let me (and Julia Child) explain.
Do it with Love! I mentioned this one yesterday: You’ve probably heard the expression “cook with love.” When people cook with love and care, we taste it in the food they make. (And we can taste it when people don’t!) The same goes for drawing. I believe when people make a drawing (or painting or any art really) with love and care and delight, we can FEEL it. Energy we put in = energy that comes out.
Learn by doing! and Make Mistakes! In drawing as in cooking. But why listen to me talk about this when you could listen to JULIA CHILD herself?
As she says after she botches the flip:
“The only way you learn how to flip things is just to flip them.”
As in drawing. The only way to learn to draw is to draw.
Also, on mistakes:
“Anytime anything like this happens, you haven’t lost anything because you can always turn this into something else.”
As in drawing. We can always turn drawing mistakes into something else.
Have the courage to make mistakes, to turn them into something else, to not take ourselves so seriously. And just to DO IT.
Fail Bravely! Failing is the only way to learn.
As Julia says in the video above (I edited it a little):
“…if you have a Fear of Failure you’re never going to learn how to cook. Cooking is one failure after another. That’s how you learn. You’ve got to have what the French call “Je m’en foutisme”, or “I don’t care what happens.” The sky can fall, and omelettes can go all over the stove. “I’m going to learn!”… If you’re not going to be ready to fail, you’re not going to learn how to cook.”
“Je M’en Foutisme!!”
In cooking. As in drawing. As in life.
Do it with love! Learn by doing! Make mistakes! Fail Bravely!
Now, let’s bring those lessons to bear on today’s drawing.
Day 8. Delight: FOOD
Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Today, you are drawing a FOOD that brings you delight.
For inspiration, let’s look at Maira Kalman a little more. She’s painted many delightful foods in her time, and I can’t get enough of them. Here are a few more for kicks. These are from her fabulous book Cake.
And here is an excerpt from Cake titled “My Life in Three Cakes” published in The New Yorker.
Again, I share her paintings with you not to tell you what to do or how to do it, but to give you the sense of DELIGHT that can exist in a drawing or painting when we bring that feeling to our work. When we draw with delight, people can feel it.
So let’s do this. So, just like yesterday, your delight can be a food item, produce, or dish that is meaningful to you, or that you think is delightful in some way. Maybe it’s a bright orange cauliflower or a red radish. Or perhaps it’s a bowl of cereal you love to have every morning - or your morning coffee! (That’s mine!) Or maybe it’s a family recipe you want to share. Whatever food (or beverage) brings you real, true DELIGHT. Let’s focus on it through drawing (and writing a little if you want to, too.)
Here’s mine. One of the few daily rituals I have, that I’ve maintained for decades. While the specifics may change, the routine stays the same. These days it’s Sightglass Ethiopian coffee, black. Often sipped while writing a to do list for the day ahead. Or, these days, drawing again. :)
Here are our instructions for today, and the link to the community chat: