I sit down. I drink tea, lots of tea. Sometimes, I drink coffee instead; it creates a nice, small buzz of energy in my body. I just sit there, staring at a blank page. I do this for a while until I start to draw. A blank page represents the excitement of creating. The page is just calling for you to make a mark and start something new. There are so many possibilities here and you are in charge. You can do anything and no one can stop you. If anything, you can always start with a new blank page. I realized that my affection for drawing didn’t begin at any school, or under any instructor’s guidance.
Other than my stick figures drawn as a child I realized that my drawing started appearing in middle school and high school. I remember drawing flowers in a park I use to live close too. I remember drawing the cat that would always sit on my neighbor’s window in the afternoon. When you draw you can see how you’ve grown. From your early, not so detailed scribbles, to much more detailed and refined drawings. It feels good, and the growth is almost endless. I will say that I draw because I am not musically talented; that my lack of ability to write a good break-up song forces me to draw instead.
I am very uncoordinated, so being a dancer is out of the question. I might say that it is because I am not a good writer; making all of my poems rhyme even when they don’t have too, always having a “happily ever after” at the end of a story. Drawing has always made me feel good. Drawing keeps me thinking and keeps me entertained. I get lost while I draw; it is my way of entering a world that no one else can see until I make the marks on paper and even if no one gets to see it, I can still be my own audience.
I want a way to express the images in my mind other than writing. Sometimes, something can only be born in visual, and when it is there, it is beautiful. I draw to express my feelings. Sometimes, words and writing can not express what is said in drawings. I am able to put onto paper what is in my mind through art. I can let out emotions I other wise wouldn’t be able to. For someone who has difficulty talking to people about my feeling and issues, I can make those feelings into an image that reflects them.
Feelings that cannot be summarized in words can often be expressed with a small stroke of a paintbrush or a smudge of black charcoal. If you make a mistake you can erase it or paint over it but the ghost of that mistake remains denting the paper. When drawing, there are people out there who can relate to them. There are times when someone will be able to tell you, this makes you want to continue drawing, in the hopes that when other see your work they feel like there’s someone out there who understands them, and maybe it will inspire others to do the same.
When I see something beautiful, I want to own it, have it, and possess it completely. Sometimes I can just buy the object, if it’s a physical object, and sometimes I can save a file, if it’s a digital image, and then I can look at those things whenever I want. But if I sit down and sketch them, it’s a more personal, a more full experience of their beauty than simply looking at them. Creating something and immediately see the result of it. When you create something you have total control, and I absolutely love that.
You get to be in a character’s head. Why she is thinking in the way she does? Why is he mad? Did he just stub his toe? Did she lose someone or something in her life? Even with just one image you are able to create such feeling and emotion. With every swift stroke across the page you are deciding which parts of your subjects are most important to you. You are re-sculpting one thing into another unconsciously. In filtering visual information from eye to hand, you tell a specific story, one that is unique to the way that you see it.
The hand will only do what it can do naturally. There are no filtered lenses or editing tools to reshape it into a more-perfect thing. For me drawing is a form of thinking. A drawing never has to be finished, just like a thought does not have to be an accurate statement. I can explore and do so much with just a few marks on a blank page, and that is something incredible. To be able to create anything you can see in your mind, and few things you didn’t know were there is really a gift, and it is something everybody has and should explore.
