A Little Inspiration

A Little Inspiration

Today called for something different and to get back in touch with why I love painting. I was sitting in the studio feeling a little lackluster really, and was staring at my brush cleaner sitting on this journal. I’ve been teaching a few drawing lessons lately, and they’ve been so good to get me back to basics and to practice drawing more myself. Drawing and I have a rocky history. The first “realistic” drawing I did in school, I spent hours slaving away at getting it right. When done I marched over proudly to the teacher to show her my masterpiece, only for her to inform me that it really wasn’t very good and I could try again another time. (yikes!)Crushed, I never really spent time drawing after that until I became a painting major in college. Then there was no way out of or around it, we relentlessly submitted ourselves to drawing. As soon as I could figure out how to wield paint and a brush I left drawing behind, fumbling with my blobs of color. But I didn’t mind, I liked the mushy texture of paint and wasn’t concerned about the drawing.In teaching drawing and seeing others struggle with the basics, I remembered my struggle (ongoing by the way) and have so much appreciation and gratitude for the hours that I have and will put in. The thing about drawing is that it can be painful at first until we learn to appreciate it and let ourselves be humbled by our clumsiness and try and try again, there’s just no shortcut, all there is is practice. And today, for the first time in a long time, I reveled in the practice of drawing.