I wish I made more time for drawing or painting. It’s something I like doing once I get into it, but half of the time I’m discouraged before I even begin. Having to take a drawing class at school helped break me out of that “You suck, don’t even try” mentality, but every so often it likes to bother me again. No, I don’t “suck” but I have lots to learn. And that vast space of things-left-to-learn (neverending, really) can be really intimidating.
A while back I realized I was tired of not doing anything about that and decided to start pushing myself more. That whole… practice makes perfect thing, you know? I set up some rules: One drawing every day. Don’t spend forever on it. Any medium, any style. FINISH it, even if it’s bad in the end.
I figured that if I kept that up for a month, I would begin to see my drawing skills improve. I chose horses as my subject (surprise!) to rid me of the “whatamIgonnadraw” problem.
It started off ok. My first was a grey Arab, drawn mostly in chalk and Conté crayons.
Next day, a graphite portrait, but facing the other direction.
Then I thought I would be brave and try drawing the entire body of a horse…
A zebra managed to make it into the mix…
… but then school got in the way. I lost my focus on the 30 horses, but I did continue working on other drawings, most of which are still… unfinished. (sigh)
Perhaps the project WAS biting off more than I could chew. However, it was nice to spend and hour or so completely focused on nothing but drawing. In a way it was relaxing.
I kind of want to try it again.
