The mistake as a gift

I almost never make preliminary sketches, especially not with line drawings. I really enjoy drawing freely and intuitively, and for me, the raw quality of directness has more value than perfection.
That said, I make a lot of "mistakes" when I draw.

In this drawing, if you look closely, you can see that there is another "mistaken" drawing underneath. You can recognize a face in the area of her right armpit, you can also see some unnecessary lines crossing the wings of the bird in the lower right area – and the only reason why there is so much black in that drawing is that there was a lot to cover up.

What started as a mistake became one of my favorite drawings of that book – I even used it for the cover. Without that mistake, it would have never come into existence.
And as much as I still get irritated when I make a mistake and mess up a drawing, I've also become much more relaxed about mistakes. I don't see them necessarily as something bad.

A mistake rather is something that takes you out of your comfort zone, and it can be a great chance and can lead to interesting things – provided you you don't tear out the page and close the chapter, but use it as a ground to let something else grow out of it. Over the years, that kind of "problem-solving" for me even has become a quite interesting and entertaining aspect of my drawing process – it's almost a bit like a game.
I am convinced that most mistakes can be turned into happy accidents – my work is full of them, and so is my life.

This is a page from my book MEGHALAYA, a sketchbook full of drawings, stories, and poems, made while staying with the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya, North East India. The Khasi are matrilineal and matrilocal, which means that all property belongs to women, and a family inherits the mother’s name.