on learning to draw...

My latest learning endeavor is drawing. A painting class last summer (which was a blast) has opened a door to the wonderful world of visual arts. I never considered myself artistically inclined (and still don't actually), but I'm discovering the joy of dabbling in things without the pressure of being 'good at it.' With that said, I picked up a stack of drawing books from the library several days ago and I've been drawing on my metro ride/at lunch/ect. ever since. My repertoire currently includes a 3x4 inch composition book (thanks joi) of an owl, some vegetables, three dimensional boxes, some other kind of bird, a funny looking man in a top hat, and a pitcher. I kind of feel proud of them even thought it looks like a second grader did them. I have attachment to the things I create even if they aren't very good. I painted this Van Gogh that came out looking more like Michael Jackson and I still having hanging in my kitchen. Jon keeps asking me to take it down but I refuse. I'm actually really proud of it.

Up until today, I had only drawn from looking at pictures in the drawing books. Today I started to draw a object by looking at the object not a drawing of the object. It's turning out to be rather challenging. At lunch, I tried to draw a picnic table with an umbrella above it. It looks horrible. That whole three dimensional thing is pretty tricky. I guess I'll have to try again tomorrow at lunch. Actually, I'll probably be drawing that picnic table for the next several months at lunch.