What's really useful about the Brushes app for iPad is that it allows playback of the entire drawing process, from start to finish and in this way, my constant revisions and changes of mind become apparent.
Drawing is not like tightrope-walking. It is not something that will result in a broken neck if you don't do it properly. Unlike the tightrope, there is no line out there, waiting for you to make a slip; the line is something you create as you go along. You find out where it needs to go and put it there, and how you do this is a process of discovery.
We're not used to this idea, of course. Our school days and working life may have convinced us that everything we do is a kind of test (as Ken Robinson would say, there's one answer and it's at the back, but we're not allowed to look). Someone, a teacher, an employer, a loved one, is expecting the right answer from you and you'd better perform. The white paper, or the empty touch screen, however, is expecting nothing. It is a risk-free zone in which you may experiment with one mark after another. When you look at drawing in this way, your love/hate relationship with your eraser will come to a merciful end. That eraser, whether palpable or digital, is not for correcting mistakes, because there are no mistakes any more; only lines of discovery; signs along the path that may read, 'This way, not that.'
Change your mind. Do it again, differently. That's creativity.
