"´Wounds´ Studies" by Scott E. ´Sven´ Johnson

Anyway, I scanned in a small fraction of the study sketches I made when I was working on 'Wounds.' And when I say 'small fraction,' I mean like 4 or 5 percent of them. If I had had more artistic experience, I might have already known how to draw on a dark background, or what clouds really look like, or why my women look like men with breasts, or how skirts wrinkle. I might have been able to draw something decent in only half an eternity, instead of a whole one. But only if I had already put in 100 etermities worth of prior practice.

Now you know why I have so few finished drawings in my gallery. Yes, I'm a perfectionist, and yes that gets in the way of my productivity, but I am convinvced that my perfectionism slowly improves my drawing skill (which still has a long way to go) and the quality of the drawings I actually finish.

I am convinced, however, that no matter how good of an artist you are, you still have to make about a billion study sketches in order to draw anything decent. Every drawing is different, every drawing has new combinations of elements and things you've never tried before. I put this drawing up so that people could see some of the work involved: how an artist tries out different ideas, some of which aren't very good. If at first you don't succeed, you're normal.

I upped the contrast on this and uploaded the image again to make it a little more readable. It's awfully wide for the screen, I know, but this is actually one drawing where it's not that important to see the whole thing at once. There really isn't a whole thing; it's just a collection of bits and pieces.