The Sketch

There are some amazing works of art. Sculptures, paintings, drawings, architecture. We see the final work (although I have heard it said that art is never finished just abandoned) and rarely think about the "pre" work. The sketches. The innumerable variations and permutations tried out on napkins, scratch pieces of paper and post-its.

These works didn't just happen. There are some artists, the Impressionists come to mind, that based their art around capturing the moment. But even they did prep work.

So what?

Make sure you do the work before the work. That song that you just wrote that flowed out like it was written in the heavens. It's not finished. That spoken word piece needs one more word tweaked. That script is missing something a character, a conflict, one great line.

Don't despair. That's the process. A series of sketches that lead to the final execution of the piece. And then you can finally abandon it.