I used to think I couldn’t draw, but now I think drawing is like a muscle if you don’t use it’s not very strong and the more you use it the better it works.
When I was in college, I always got C’s in drawing no matter how much energy I put into the class. This was discouraging for me and I only took the required amount of drawing to graduate art school. I ended up studying photography and printmaking. After college I went on to teach myself how to sew and design patterns for clothing. I did some screen printing on the clothing, but not very much. I spent the next 10 years building up a business, selling hand made clothing designs. Meanwhile I always felt something was missing. I noticed myself spending time on the internet admiring the work of artists and illustrators.
It was when I moved from Portland to Amsterdam that I stopped the clothing business it just wasn’t possible to move it. I had a lot of time to be alone with my creativity which was really nagging me. I felt lost not having a creative outlet. One day when I was on Amazon shopping for books a suggestion caught my eye. It was Lilla Rogers “I just like to make things”, the title alone spoke to me and I ordered the book. Shortly after, I began taking her classes, and things just snowballed from there. Today I couldn’t imagine not drawing and painting every day, it feels like I’ve been doing this my whole life.
Here’s a suggestion to get into drawing. Give yourself an assignment. I used to tell myself I’m just going to draw an object 50 times. I discovered if you draw a chicken 50 times it’s not possible to have 50 bad drawings of a chicken a few of them will be interesting and pretty good. It’s a great way to get yourself into drawing and to discover your style.
Thanks you for spending the month with me, I loved blogging every week.
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