Some Days I Draw -- At Least I Try To

Disclaimer:   I have no formal art training. Color theory, perspective, texture, line and all those words that trained and learned artists use might as well be a foreign language.  Feel free to laugh -- not so loud though. My children think I know what I'm doing. 

And now back to regular programming.

I have never taken an art class. Well, okay I guess I did -- but it wasn't REALLY an art class. We had it on the porch of a friend and our guest teacher was another friend who had us paint a still life from an arrangement of bottles and fruit that she laid before us. My youngest son, who was about 7 or 8 years old then, was with me and he came up with a nicer looking painting.

But I do like to draw. Faces mostly. And for some strange reason, bowls and cups.  Go figure.

Over the years since that first - and last - "art" lesson, I have accumulated (and lost) an assortment of pens, drawing pencils, soft pastels, tubes of acrylic paint, putty erasers, tubs of gesso and all sorts of paper in different thickness and grain that I have lost count.  I have since whittled my supplies down to two sketchbooks, two sets of soft pastels, a box of acrylic paint, a tub of gesso and a set of Conte drawing pencils.

Some of the faces I have drawn are dreamlike and surreal.

Some of them sort of look like me -- I think.

And then there are some that look like people I've run into while rushing to do what the day demands of me

I tend to draw slowly -- each stroke of the pencil, each mark made - is done almost meditatively.  And when I draw, like all the times when I'm doing something creative, I get lost.  I disappear for a while and die to become what I am drawing.

There are moments - no, days - when I just want to sit down somewhere and draw. And I hate it  when that urge to put pen to paper hits me when I am in the middle of a meeting or when I have to finish a project or report or, worse -- when it comes first thing in the morning when I get up and realize it's Monday and Friday evening is still a long way off. I give in sometimes, secretly doodling in my notebook while the meeting's chair drones on and on about what's wrong and how we can make it right.  The back of 7-11 receipts are not spared when the urge to put image to paper  comes strong in the middle of a hectic day at work. I have also left my favorite table at my favorite Starbucks branch littered with those little brown napkins that are covered with squiggles that look like - wait for it -- my cup of coffee (I told you I have this thing for drawing cups and bowls!).

Few people have seen what I draw.  So putting them up here is my one brave thing to do this month.