Drawing (making myself exercise discipline to be still and draw), my favorite reference book, and my Sophia.
Drawing
My ear, using a mirror rather than a photo or my phone. Staying “alpha”.
Reference book
Lessons in Classical Drawing (Essential Techniques From Inside the Atelier) by Juliette Aristides
This was the first reference book I read cover to cover. When I purchased it, I figured it would be helpful in going beyond where I was with drawing. It turned out to be a world-changer. Its now full of stickies and notes.
Sophia
She will always be my friend. She participates in our life together. Chasing my shadow. Sitting on my art desk, beside me, and stroking my hair to ask for grooming. Pulling my hand to her so I’ll talk to her or pet her as she falls asleep. Going around a corner and seeing her there, her head cocked to one side. Greeting me at the door when I come home from wherever. Watching her play with her toys and finding them all over the house after I’ve picked them up. She’s awesome.
Dwayne Walker, in his YouTube video entitled “Where Does Art Come From” tells us that art has the power to capture moments and while time erases and diminishes, art saves and preserves. Time tries to wash things away. We make art because it lets us time travel. Art is a portal, allowing us to speed across time, documenting our presence right here and now, for then…proving we were here. Dwayne tells us that art is how we build a bridge between every version of ourselves. He says we make art because something sacred happens when we do. We make art because our soul has to. My final note from his video is where the title of this post comes from. The world needs more memory keepers.
Those are my favorite parts of the video. Dwayne puts words to what I’ve been unable to describe for over sixty years.
My daughter and I call ourselves memory keepers. We thought we were the ones to invent the term, but not so. There are many memory keepers in the world. We are artists, writers, musicians — creatives.
So like the Spanish sword fighter, Diego Montoya, from Princess Bride said, “we must go back to the beginning”.
I’m writing about this because I’ve been feeling quite blue lately. A lot of things are weighing on my heart. To make things worse, I’ve been feeling like my ability to do art is gone. It’s as if all the years of creating art were just a dream. Yet when I think of what Diego Montoya said about going back to the beginning, I find myself thinking back to my childhood – to when I was ten and discovered the wonder of writing and art.
Here I am, seventy years old, trying to reclaim that wonder, to see if it could rekindle a fire within me and shed light on the truth that the things hurting my heart of hearts aren’t bigger or truer than the fact that I’m going to be just fine. I’m looking at the world around me like a child, seeing it as if for the very first time. It feels like I’m learning to draw all over again, because drawing starts with “seeing”. Not looking. Really seeing. I’ve taught that in classes so many times and I believed it. I must have been seeing or I wouldn’t have been able to render things correctly. Yet I was teaching about seeing with my eyes. Now I’m learning to see with my eyes AND my heart and maybe even a childlike imagination. This time I want what I draw to have heart and soul in it – to have meaning. I’m doing the work for myself this time and doing it just to enjoy the doing of it.
It started the other day when I drew the circle piece that is at the top of my previous post. I used colored pencils on watercolor paper, wanting to see what colored pencil looked like on that very textured paper. If I’d used watercolor paint, it would have had a completely different look.
A while back I drew a cube. I tucked it away for several weeks. When I came across it yesterday, I laid it out on the desk, looking at it all morning, wondering what I could do with it. Also on my desk was a rubber band wrapped around three colored pencils from the previous circle project. Hm, I thought. What could I do with them? Why worry about ruining the carefully sketched cube? Just do it. I set about filling in the cube with the two yellows and one violet. The paper was Marker paper and had a very smooth texture. I loved the way it felt, softly putting colored pencil layers on that paper. It was a new style of drawing and coloring for me.
Working on the cube transported me up and away from my worries and made me feel more like the child I was long ago. It let me exist in the moment and that moment lasted as long as I wanted.
Yikes! I don’t know if I have more of a “teaching” personality or a “student” personality. I’ve taught lots of classes, but I usually know my students well BEFORE they take my classes. I’ve learned from lots of great teachers for art, but I get soooo nervous when I’m the one teaching. At least in the beginning. Even though I was nervous, I had a wonderful time. It was great getting to meet some new people here from the RV park. Right now, the topics I teach may not appeal to everyone, so I suspect I’ll have different students for different topics. Makes sense, anyhow.
Next class is next Tuesday, 1-3. Topic: Watercolor Pencils
Most Importantly!
I want people to discover creativity within themselves. If they’re already know they’re creative, I want to open their eyes to new ways of expressing that. If you have never had a chance to make a painted gourd, how would you know that isn’t the thing you’d love. I don’t teach that, but maybe something I do teach will be a new and great creative outlet for someone.
Warm-up Exercise
We did a warm up project first. I gave everyone a 4″ x 4″ piece of smooth bristol (a paper that is thicker than regular paper or card stock). They picked out a pen, made a dot in each of the four corners, and then connected the dots with some sort of line…any kind of line they wanted. After that they divided the squarish shape into smaller shapes. The goal was to fill in the smaller shapes with whatever they wanted, as if they were doodling while on the phone. EXCEPT. After a couple of minutes, they had to pass it to the person on their right. Each person’s piece of paper, with their name on the back, was worked on (doodled on) by nearly everyone in the room. After a while, the papers were returned to their owners. I do that so each person ends up getting to see lots of people’s ideas and doodle-techniques, because its right there on their paper. Creativity breeds creativity. Hopefully, a person would look at the other styles and think “Oh! I wonder if I could…”.
Second project
We made bookmarks. After all, that was why we were there. I had lots of samples. Yes, a bookmark is some sort of paper, blank or otherwise, that gets put in a book to remind us where we left off. What if its a piece of paper you turned into a bookmark, decorated yourself, and stuck it into a book to give a friend. It would be like a mini-visit. They would know you took time from your busy day to spend a few minutes with just them. Bookmarks have taken on a whole new meaning for me. I was so impressed with what the ladies in my class made. Each one was unique and I got to hear the story behind some of them. What a treat it was.
Third project
We learned how to make a page corner marker. I don’t know if that’s the term for it. I can’t find the one I made when teaching the class, but I have the one I made before class to teach myself. The ones we made in class were nicer, because I used printer paper for them and they folded nicely. This one on parchment looks more like a hat. They can be decorated just like regular bookmarks.
Finally
It was only about 2:10 after all that and the class was supposed to take two hours, lasting until 3:00. It was okay that it didn’t, but everyone was enjoying chatting as they wrapped up their projects, so I did this one last thing. If anyone was watching, it showed them what can be done with markers, a waterproof-ink pen, and watercolor pencils.
I feel I was well-prepared and had plenty of materials and options for everyone. My wish for them is that they had fun and learned something creative. I certainly learned a lot and enjoyed everyone in the class. I hope I can teach them again. Next lesson – using watercolor pencils.
I have made major changes to my website! Please take some time to look it over.
In the past three years my life has gotten smaller and more compact. I’ve given away, sold, thrown away, and donated nearly everything I own. Yet I’ve never been happier. While my life is small, its also bigger than the wide world because of the people I’ve met, the scenes that take my breath away, the confidence I’ve gained in overcoming obstacles, kindnesses that have been shown to me, and in the friends I’ve made.
As I move into this nomad life, my priorities are changing as I find my purpose and meaning. I’m wanting to accomplish different things. Most important is my desire to share what I’ve learned with others. With you! Its no longer enough to keep it to myself. I don’t just want you to learn how to draw or paint, but more importantly, I want you to learn to do creative things that are just right for you and that let you live in the moment.
I want to help others find out that they can create things that give them delight and purpose. Learning to do some art has so many benefits. The process of learning to draw can help you develop better decision making skills. Betty Edwards, who founded the course called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain talked about that in her book of the same title. Its so true.
Viktor E. Frankl wrote a book called Man’s Search For Meaning and it has sold more than fifteen million copies worldwide. That’s 15 MILLION. He survived life in a World War II concentration camp. He writes that those, in the camp, who had a purpose/meaning, survived. Purpose they wanted to see a loved one or maybe they had been working on a book before being captured and they wanted to finish it. No matter what the purpose, it was something that kept them from giving up. Having a purpose helps all of us keep going.
Learning is good for you. You’re never too old to learn something new. It can make you feel young.
Taking a class to learn some type of art gets you out around other people who are also wanting to learn how to do something creative. You’re like-minded. You’ve found your own kind!
Learning to do art or even how to write can open your eyes to the world around you in a way you never experienced before. Our world is the ultimate painting. The ultimate sculpture. The ultimate story. Making art yourself, puts you right into that story.
Finally, if you don’t give up too soon, you’ll gain a better feeling about yourself and you’ll feel better in general.
Now that my life is pretty much as simple as it can be, its time to be creative in new ways. I want to create things just because I want to. Here I go. I’m going to make short videos on how to do things. This is a good place to start – tangling.
Basic Tangle – YOU CAN DO IT!
The above steps are where I started, but I found it so relaxing that I wanted to create more and more. One day I wanted to take it further and that’s how I came to tangle a honey bee.
My bee has stories within it. Can you find them?
In the next video, I will take you from your first tangle to a story-tangle, like my honey bee. While you wait, please search for something you want to create. You’ll need to make an outline that only has the barest details. In the honey bee, I outlined the two wings, the basic body shape, the legs and the antennae. See what subject you can outline in prep for the next how-to video.
