Tracing the Truth
- Eric Wieringa
- Jun 8
- 4 min read
Fear rarely introduces itself honestly.
It doesn’t stride into the studio wearing a black cloak and shouting warnings. (If only it were that considerate)
Instead, it slips in disguised as logic.
As research.
As professionalism.
As preparation.
As a perfectly reasonable decision to reorganize your sock drawer.
Fear is subtle like that.
But fear has one unmistakable trait:
It always steers you toward the version of yourself that requires the least amount of resistance.
For a short time, that force manifested in my life in a very specific way.
Tracing.
Technique or Temptation
Tracing is a common technique in illustration. It involves taking a reference photo, adjusting it to scale, then using a projector, carbon paper, or light box to transfer the image onto a surface, before filling in the lines like a paint by number.
Tracing gets a bad reputation.
Among artists, it’s sometimes spoken about in hushed tones, as though it's some kind of cardinal sin; grounds for immediate expulsion from the guild, eternal banishment to Illustrator Hell.
Let me be clear:
You are not morally corrupt if you’ve ever traced a photograph.
There are legitimate reasons to use the technique. Design problems. Tight deadlines. Certain kinds of illustration work. Transfer processes have existed for centuries in one form or another.
Tracing isn't necessarily bad unless it's replacing what shouldn't be replaced…
Your ability to draw.
When the technique becomes a substitute for skill, the end result is often artwork that appears stiff and flat. A single-lens camera does not see the way human eyes do, binocular vision creates depth, shifting perspective and subtle distortions that photography can't quite capture.
But the deeper problem isn’t optical, the real issue is that when artists rely too heavily on tracing they become a slave to the reference instead of the conductor of their work.
The photograph begins making decisions that belong to the artist.
What matters.
What gets simplified.
What gets ignored.
And when we stop looking closely enough to discover our own answers, we slowly lose contact with the authentic voice within us.
Not because using a reference is wrong.
But because we ignore our own unique way of seeing the world.
As a general rule:
Technique serves you when it expands your options. It becomes a temptation when it shrinks them, when it turns into the only way you know how to solve complex problems, or excuses you from growth.
Carbon Copy Life
For a season, tracing became my crutch.
When I entered undergraduate school, I was surrounded by artists who, in my eyes, were effortlessly more skilled than I was.
Suddenly the room was full of people whose draftsmanship felt impeccable. Who blocked in figures with confidance. Who seemed to sense proportion instinctively.
I felt exposed.
I knew how to draw.
I just didn’t trust myself in the presence of watching eyes.
So I found a procedure that created the appearance of mastery.
Tracing let me manage the appearance of proficiency while avoiding the slow, determined work of actually becoming competent.
I could defend the practice easily, efficient, strategic, historically justifiable.
But underneath those explanations was something simpler and more honest:
I was afraid.
Tracing became my unspoken agreement with fear. An arrangement in which I carried the private knowledge of being a fraud in exchange for staying hidden.
And the truth is, those traced pieces were never especially good.
Perhaps my peers were convinced.
But to a professional eye, they lacked the genuine marks that come from a human being.
Eventually, I honed my drawing skills. I outgrew my need for the technique, and little by little, my own artistic point of view began to reveal itself.
I realized:
I wasn’t just tracing photographs.
I was tracing the truth of my life.
I had the good fortune of having professors and mentors who created environments where risk was not punished but cultivated, where exposure was part of the curriculum, where gimmicks were gently stripped away in favor of authenticity and earned confidence.
Slowly, I began to ask better questions.
Was my reliance on this technique helping me grow, or was it turning me into a spectator in my own life?
Did I want to live a carbon copy version of the person I wanted to become?
A paint-by-number existence?
Or was there something original trying to be born beneath all that careful imitation?
For You, the Artist
Let me ask you something.
Where has your identity become tangled with your outcomes?
Where does a bad drawing feel like a verdict instead of a data point?
What are you doing in the studio, (or any area of life) not because it leads to growth, but because it protects how you appear?
Because here is the subtle danger:
• When your worth rides on results, risk feels irresponsible.
• When reputation becomes central, curiosity shrinks.
• When you borrow certainty, your own never develops.
• When safety replaces exploration, transformation stalls.
Confidence does not come from perfect draftsmanship.
It comes from staying in contact with what you cannot yet do.
From the vulnerability of being real.
Not from talent or technique, but from drawing where no outline saves you.
So ask yourself:
Are you living comfortably within the empty contours of a projected self-image?
or are you willing to step beyond the boundaries of your limitations?
To risk being wrong.
To risk being different.
To risk discovering that the most beautiful parts of life exist beyond the lines you've drawn for yourself.
If this essay resonated with you, perhaps you're sensing that your creative journey is asking something more of you.
The Painted Path Studio is a mentoring program designed to help artists navigate uncertainty, deepen their creative practice, and reconnect with the voice that first called them to create.
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