Recently, there was a thread on a webcomics board I participate in: Post your old art and your recent work, to show how far you’ve come. I dug up some old B&W stuff from 2000; one regular on the forum commented that he really liked it and asked if I’ve ever thought of playing around with that medium again.

I replied that “…mostly I kinda feel like relying on outlines is just too damn easy; after all the time I’ve spent wrapping my head around ways to create a well-defined image with only a handful of colors it feels like cheating.”

And I kept on thinking of this moment from The Planiverse. It’s a book about a 2D world with 2D physics somewhat modelled on our own; at one point the main character encounters a Great Artist, and they discuss his work. At the time, Dar Jisbo is working on highly abstract art, and despairs of ever making a piece that doesn’t look like anything at all – it’s really hard to do this when you’re working for a 1-dimensional retina.

Na did her very best to shake Dar Jisbo from his despondent mood, ending by suggesting that he paint Yendred’s portrait.

[Dar Jisbo said] “You, dear one, closer are and far more beautiful. Allow me what little of my conventional skill remains to demonstrate.”

Taking a small pad of paper, Dar Jisbo studied his subject carefully and then, beginning at the top of the paper, skipped his pen lightly and confidently along its surface from top to bottom. The whole operation took about ten seconds. At the end, he detached the paper and handed it to Na, who cocked her head to examine it. Yendred leaned eagerly over her, the better to view the portrait.

“It perfect is! What skill! Why you more pictures like this do not create?”
“It too easy is.”

(Yes, all of the dialogue Yoda-mode in is. It’s somewhere between annoying and charmingly alienating. Yendred is the main character; Na is showing him around where he meets Dar Jisbo, and Dar Jisbo is the artist.)

I suspect this is probably an adaptation of a koan; it has the shape of one. Whatever its source, though, this is the version that stays with me, and bubbles up every time I think about what it’s like to be an artist.

“These drawings of yours with conventional lines are wonderful! Why don’t you do more like them?”
“It too easy is.”