This is a 4-minute free-hand doodle in pen and ink on white drawing paper. I drew it fast. I actually put less planning and thought into creating it than the clown president has put into tariffs and trade wars.
I confess to rarely doing things without a plan and considerable preparation. It is as much a teacher thing as it is an artist thing. But it is not really a clown thing. Clown things tend to be spontaneous, unrehearsed, improvised, and free-flowing.
I think, though, that my doodle, though done fast and directly from the idea machine to paper, shows how my constant preparing and work on careful planning leads to certain features of talent and skill showing through.
I believe I have revealed before that as a writer and an artist I am a formalist. I believe in the rules and proper forms. I know the proper forms and the rules very well. And therefore, I feel qualified to break the rules whenever necessary.
And clowns must break the rules. You have push outside the borders. You have to twist things at unnatural angles. You have to turn things upside down. You have to portray a clown with only the face and hands.
Of course you can see a definite difference in quality between clowns. The Cheeto-head who runs our country does not exhibit practiced skill when he free-hands it and tweets his comedy on Twitter. He creates mainly chaos. Robin Williams, on the other hand, rapid fires incredible lines off the top of his head. But he can do that because he has practiced brewing gallons of funny foam up in his insane brain and grabbing off the amazing lines that fizz out of his brain and tosses them out to create comedy.
Chaos is easy to create. Comedy, especially thoughtful comedy, is hard.
So, I will continue to do clown stuff. And I will continue to doodle. But I will also continue to plan and practice, because clown stuff is seriously important, and has to be done correctly.
