January: The Month of Drawing, Part II

Art, through copying.

I'm out of practice.  Out of practice with imagining.  You know how hard it is to come up with something to draw every day?  Surprisingly so.  You wouldn't think it would be difficult...look around and draw the first thing you see--a mug, a fork, the corner of the room.

I let my kids select for me.  It's delightful to see what they come up with.  No apologies, no prefacing ideas with "This is silly but...".  Just suggesting things that bring them joy or interest them.

I'm out of practice with the process of drawing.  I start with a pencil, then trace in thin sharpie.  I enjoy the refinement.  Sketching basic shapes, double checking the perspective, figuring out to change a gradient of shadows and corners into lines.

There is something to be said for the focus that drawing, especially copying, requires.  I sometimes feel like a compulsive multi-tasker.  I listen to podcasts while driving.  Music while cleaning.  Cross-stitch when watching TV.  If I'm sitting in a meeting with an attentive look on my face, I'm most likely mentally preparing which doctor appointments I need to make or what to cook for dinner.  On the other hand, if I'm doodling circles in the margins of the agenda, you can bet that I'm processing every word and hanging onto every word.

Drawing, both from life or from a photo, is not conducive to multi-tasking.  I've enjoyed the moments of laser focus, of being in the present, of comparing the two images side by side and searching for the flaws or the trick of perspective. 

A quick note about my drawings here:

• Space suit, drawn from a photograph of Buzz Aldrin
• Beanie boo.  Drawn from real life, a toy that belongs to Ellie.
• Fluttershy from My Little Pony.  Drawn from a cartoon, requested by Ellie.
• Chase from Paw Patrol.  Drawn from a cartoon, requested by Noah.
• Rose, drawn from a photograph
• Death, drawn from Neil Gaiman's character in Sandman series comic book
• Kero-chan from Cardcaptor Sakura, drawn from cartoon, requested by Ellie
• Owl, drawn from photograph
• Olaf/Frosty mashup, drawn from two cartoons, suggested by my husband Jim

 As much as I've been enjoying this, I had to wonder:  is this art?  Do I feel artistic as I copy images?  I enjoy it, yes, and I'm good at it.  But I'm not creating anything from whole cloth.  I'm not so much as reclaiming artistic as I'm copying artistic.  It feels like cheating.

So next up:  my attempt to create.  No copying, no cheating...and so much more difficult.

January: The Month of Drawing

I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point I stopped considering myself artistic.

I drew a lot as a kid.  I was cool for one week in sixth grade when I revealed that I could copy pretty good renditions of Simba and Nala from The Lion King.  I think all kids think of themselves as artistic.

I was artistic in high school.  I took extra art electives, to the point of even building up a portfolio.   I was editor of the school's literary magazine and wrote flurries of bad poetry and even worse short stories.

I was artistic in college.  I still sketched occasionally for fun and took classes in photography, jewelry making and pottery.  I still wrote (slightly better) poetry and made the occasional attempt at starting a novel.

And then what happened?  I guess the easy answer is that I grew up and ran out of time for that sort of stuff, but that is lame.  Totally lame.  It wasn't a sudden thing.  It tapered off slowly until one day I realized that I hadn't cracked a sketch book in years, my set of paints has completely dried up, and my ideas for writing stay totally in my head.

In a sad way, this is normal.  In high school and college, I knew so many people that I would consider artistic.  Poets, artists, musicians, playwrights, and more.  Now, out of all of my current friends and acquaintances, there are maybe three I would consider artistic.

On the other hand, I feel like I know a lot of creative people.  As an adult, I mostly see creativity express itself in three ways.  1) Unique business or entrepreneur-type ideas 2) A creative job, in marketing or design, but still a job or 3) "Mommy creative" in a Pinterest way (ugh, this is the worst and most disparaging way to describe this creative impulse, but you get my drift.  Lots of creative energy channeled into childrearing activities.)

None of these are bad, but it isn't exactly the same as being artistic.  A lot of being artistic is art for art's sake--not creating something to sell or use, just creating something for the simple joy of doing it.

During the month of January, I am doing one sketch per day.  It's for the joy of creating, of doing something with my hands, for that moment of concentration.  It's for my quest for reclaiming artistic.

Meowth from Pokemon

I really want one.

This is a totally accurate picture of Draculaura from Monster High.  It's one of the only shows/franchises banned in our house. The over-the-top sexualization of characters aimed at little girls is incredibly disturbing.

Not a fan of this, but the goal isn't to produce the perfect drawing.

My daughter asked for this.

My son asked for this.

New Year's vs. New Year's Resolutions.

 "Oh, you are going to exercise and eat right?  I'll remind you of that at the Superbowl party, right when you are eating all of the cheese dip."

I hate New Year's but I love New Year's resolutions.

Maybe hate is too strong of a word.  I've just found that the amount of effort and time that I put into planning a New Year's celebration is inverse to the amount of fun that I have.  The effort never lives up to the hype.  This year I didn't know what I was doing until the day before.  I ended up having a great time hanging out with my cousin and her family.  No pressure, no you-must-have-fun-or-you-wasted-your-money mentality, no navigated crowds or too drunk strangers.

In the grand experiment of my life, I've had to grudgingly come to the conclusion that at least with a New Year's Eve celebration, you can't plan fun.  And that, my friend, is heresy.

I'm a planner.  I've become more of one as I've gotten older, partly from necessity but also after learning the perverse joy that I get from checking things off a list.  And that's why I love New Year's resolutions.

It's such a great premise, this promise of change.  Who cares that most people last an average of nine days before quitting?  There are fantastic videos on YouTube that tell us otherwise, where we get to see satisfying montages of before and after set to inspiration music!  Let's go by some kale and get a gym membership!


I could list about 50 things that I'd like to change about myself without breaking a sweat.  But that just leads to a laundry list of resolutions, one that I feel vaguely guilty about by March and pretend I never made by May.

And yet...people do change.  I'm not the same person that I was ten years ago (let's not discuss my fashion decisions) and I will not be the same person in ten years.  So how do I shape this change if resolutions don't work?

I have an idea.  Instead of making resolutions, I'm going to work on one habit, once per month.  These are the rules that I set for myself:

• I will commit to doing one habit once a day, every day for a month. 
• Each habit will help my body, mind, or spirit.
• Each good habit must be challenging but doable.
• It's not cumulative i.e. I won't have 12 great habits by December that I do every single day.  The month long experiment is supposed to give me an idea of whether or not it's worth doing.
• I'm going to blog about it.  Is blogging still a thing?  I think all of the cool kids on are Tumblr now

Enjoy.