Moving Forward

An influential professor recently pointed out to me that Etch-a-sketch is all about the process. I couldn't agree more; especially with this particular toy, as erasing is not an option and restarting is so unavoidable and unexpected at times.
Etch-a-sketching is a daunting and tedious task. As I have said, anyone can be a Pro at Etch-a-sketch, but you have to love the process. Unbelievable amounts of time must be dedicated without attachment and emotion, as the unpredictable stylist is easily strewn off-course, the toy can be dropped (erasing the picture completely usually), and pictures rarely end up appearing as you had originally planned.
As they say, it's not the achievement, it's the climb that grants success and feelings of accomplishment. Leaning from mistakes, overcoming unexpected problems, and adapting are all crucial parts of Etch-a-sketch: the same as any challenging undertaking. You must love the process and all the flaws that undoubtedly will occur, learning and adapting from them.

Getting started

To begin an etch-a-sketch, I usually start by just drawing lines and shapes. Eventually something will catch your eye and spark an idea. From there you can restart with a specific design or subject in mind. It's important to begin with broad strokes, etch-a-sketch's look pretty bad usually so it takes a lot of refining, adaptation, and patience to get something you will be happy with.
Now say you've decided to draw a bird. Most people would start by drawing the outline of the bird. This will be very difficult because of the erratic movements of the stylist. So your outline looks bad: this is ok at this point in your drawing. Continue re-defining the outline of the object and it will look more like a sketch than a definite drawing, thus allowing the object to show through the mistakes.
In this image, you can see that almost no lines are a single-line thick. I continued re-tracing the person in the image til I had a shape of a person. This works a couple ways, it allows for a more accurate shape, and it also looks like shading. For filling in your drawing whether it be an Indian or a bird, using tiny squiggles allows you to better control what areas are blacked-out and also creates a shading effect in your etch-a-sketch.
Most importantly, spend time with your etch-a-sketch. Nobody will be a pro right off the bat, it takes a lot of practice and dedication. Once you start to get the hang of how the stylist moves, you can use it's unique style of drawing to create a different style of art than is possible with anything other than an Etch-a-sketch.

How it works

To become an Etch-a-Sketch pro you have to understand how the toy works.

It is simply a hollow box filled with aluminum powder. Inside is a vertical and horizontal pulley system. At the intersection of these pulleys is a stylus. When you turn the knobs, they pull on the pulleys and move the stylus. The stylus scrapes clear a tiny path on the screen and the darkness inside the toy contrasts against the white powder coating the screen. If enough time is spent moving the stylus in a systematic clearing path, the screen can be cleaned enough to see inside the toy.

Its important to realize the distinction between normal drawing materials and the Etch-a-Sketch: Pencils, pens, paint and everything else uses addition to function. That is they add material such as paint or ink to the surface being marked. The ETch-a-Sketch, however, uses the removal of material to make marks.
This distinction creats some unusual advantages as well as some rare problems. The trick to mastering thses advantages is playing around with the toy and learn to spot tricks and shortcuts in your sketches. It all comes with time.

Etch-a-sketchPRO project

This project is product of my creative advertising class; we had to pick a trait of ourselves and describe how it applied to Bruce Mau's "An Incomplete Manifesto for growth." My trait was my etch-a-sketch ability.

This blog and corresponding facebook group are dedicated to teaching anyone how to be an etch-a-sketch pro. This amazing toy is unappreciated and for good reason, drawings usually look terrible. With practice though anyone can master etch-a-sketch. I have only had mine since January and am still learning as well.

I'll continue to draw and post so stay tuned.