Holding Onto the Handmade

I understand there’s a need for businesses and creatives to find what works for them in this new world of AI, and I do think there needs to be an element of embracing change and finding more efficient ways of working.

However, amongst the flood of perfection and automation, I also think people are being drawn back to a slower way of living and creating.

Creating with my physical hands has always felt the most authentic to me. I’ve never used a drawing tablet or Procreate. I prefer to put pen to paper first and then use my digital tools. I love the physical process of actually making something. Drawing it out. Sketching concepts with a physical pencil. Carving a print from lino. Painting a texture onto watercolour paper and experimenting with different effects.

There is beauty in making mistakes and discovering new and exciting visuals through this slower, and probably far less productive, way of working.

I think this is how artists develop their own style. It’s how we experiment, discover fresh ideas and stumble across things we may never have intentionally set out to create.

I worry that if we don’t continue to innovate and make things by hand, we risk losing our ability to create things that feel genuinely new and exciting.

I want to keep making mistakes. I want to keep discovering things by accident. I want to keep putting pen to paper, even if there is a quicker and more productive way to do it.

This way of working feels natural to me.

Because if we lose the ability to create things with our own hands, perhaps we lose a little of what grounds us all.

Our humanity.

ES x