Marcel Winatschek

The Girls I Couldn’t Draw

I spent a lot of time as a kid copying Sailor Moon from the manga. Page after page, trying to get her face right, the way she moved, her whole look. It never worked. Eyes too big, hands weird, legs that wouldn’t sit right. After a couple years of getting nowhere I just stopped.

Everyone tries this, I think. You see something beautiful and you want to make it yourself, so you try. Most people fail. The ones who don’t—the ones who keep at it and actually get good—are making things like what Karina Yashagina makes.

She’s from Kazan, in southwest Russia. Mostly she draws girls, pretty ones, rendered with this confident line work and no fussiness. Sometimes cats or vegetables, but mostly girls. The proportions are right. The faces have depth. The color is simple and sure. It’s the work of someone who knows what she’s doing.

I’m not sure what separates the people who stick with something from the ones who give up. Stubbornness maybe. Or the ability to imagine yourself being good at a thing. I couldn’t imagine that. It felt easier to quit.