Excuses, excuses

For years I have spent a lot of time making excuses for why I don't have time to make art.  I say I didn't get enough sleep last night and I can't focus.  I say I am busy with taking care of kids.  I say I need to work. I say I will draw tomorrow.  Lately I have decided I need to make the excuses go the other way... I need to say, no, I am sorry but right now I am drawing and I will do that other thing that needs to be done when I am finished.  OK? Good.  Glad you all agree :)

A few words about artistic satisfaction

Here is a set of pages from my most recent sketchbook.  Both are from the same day, but the one on the left made me feel completely as though I had failed (after all, it is difficult to make a good drawing while watching your kids riding their bikes on the road, right?), and the one on the right left me feeling like I might be able to sort of draw after all.  When I looked at these pages after completing them I wasn't sure if I would share them together or just scan the drawing of the French macarons and try to forget the other existed at all. But then I thought, what the hell, I started this blog as an exploration and to record my artistic journey for those who care to look.  Some drawings are better than others.  Some leave me feeling like an artistic disaster.  Some I like.  And so, I am off to make some more terrible drawings... ones with weird perspective and crazy lines that don't always make sense.  But somewhere among the crazy maybe there will be another lovely, clean and tidy box of macarons, or some other wonderful thing that will be a good drawing... the only way to get to the good drawings, the ones that you finish with a sigh and a smile, is to get past the crappy drawings, to keep drawing.  If Van Gogh had just quit what would have happened? His early drawings are really pretty lousy, but look at his paintings toward the end of his life... they were amazing. 

I often go through my sketch books out of order.  I don't know why I have the urge to start something on one half of the double page or the other some days, but I often will draw something on the right side of the page and then go back and fill in the left, as I did here.  I did the drawing of  the hydrant, and then the next day added my bike on the left hand page because I felt like the green of the bike would be a good thing next to the green of the hydrant top.  I like the way the whole layout turned out and this week of assignments to do directly in ink with no pencil drawing first has been interested and both freeing and scary at the same time.  I like to lay out a very sketchy sketch with pencil usually before starting in with ink and not doing that obviously made for somewhat wonky and crazy lines in places, but I rolled with it and I am relatively happy with the outcome on most of my drawings this past week. 

This week we begin with drawing in public and drawing in colored pencil as our homework for Sketchbook Skool.... that's so much more relaxing to me than drawing directly in ink... this week should be a breeze! I started by getting out my colored pencils and drawing my teapot just because I like the color and the reflected light on it. Ahhh colored pencil, a little watercolor for the background, and an ink border... now that's something I can relax with!

Now I just need to figure out what to draw in the rest of the page....

Yesterday I admitted my weird love of fire hydrants to the members of Sketchbook Skool... and it turns out I am not the only one who thinks they are pretty great :)

The best part of the day wasn't drawing the fire hydrant at the end of the road though (though that was pretty fun....).  The best thing was when Lucy decided that she was going to sit down and draw too while Tessa was napping.  She got out her pencils and got right to work while I drew with her markers for a while. 

Lucy put all her pencils in rainbow order and then made a drawing of her headphones and her iPod that is pretty great.

And I made a pretty lousy little drawing of the peanut butter jar with some big fat crayola markers that belong to the kids.

I have a hard time getting into a habit of making art every day after so long not making art... and while this Sketchbook Skool thing that I joined is a good reason to make art every day, it's also sucking a fair amount of my time into keeping up with the class on Facebook and the Ruzuku platform that the class was launched on.  The class is very large, and there are many many beginners which makes me feel like I need to offer support and encouragement a lot because the teacher is clearly overwhelmed by it or doesn't think it's needed... it's keeping me from actually drawing, which is why I began and that is a struggle for me because deep down I love helping people and teaching and being a part of a group, but I am not being paid to be that help and I would rather be drawing... I just find it hard to just sit back and ignore it when people are crying out for help.

These are the drawings I did on Monday... some Riess enamelware milk pots that are living on a shelf in my kitchen... except when they are on the stove full of hot chocolate or a poaching egg :)

A few days ago I started an online art class, not so much to learn new techniques or to get better at drawing or anything like that, but more to just push me to make the time to draw every day.  And it's working.  I am finding a little bit of time each day to draw... not always all at once, and not all of it is great... but I am making the time to draw for things other than stuff that is strictly for work and that was my goal.