The books I’ve been reading about drawing all say use a pencil and draw from the inside out.

I’ve found that useful for learning proportions and starting to learn body positioning.

But I’ve found that drawing with a brush pen and drawing whatever feature you wish to draw first is very freeing.

With a pencil I have this compulsion to go back and refine, erase, redo, while the lines get darker, heavier, and more rigid with every pass.

With a brush pen you get what you your hand sees. There is no erasing, no redoing. You create from whatever appears.
I’ve found that the expressions are more fluid and the personality of the drawing so much more apparent with one pass brush drawing.

I wonder how this applies to life. I’ve always been a planner, a practicer, a potential stuck in the mud type.
I’m not spontaneous, nor a procrastinator.
I like order, and chaos in its place so I know where to find it when i want it and how to avoid it if needed.

I think maybe the brush pen is the contained chaos. The desired end result is known, the general method of operation is known, it’s just the specific parts of the whole that are still unknown.

Maybe using the brush pen is good for me; maybe breaking away from the “everyone says” rules is good for my psyche. Of course its possible that it’s not but what the hell, no one has any idea what’s going on anyway.