Draaaawin'

I said the title in a Southern accent (in my head).

*ahem*

Now on to the actual post:

I am drawing! Huzzah! I've surprised myself by attempting (and sometimes succeeding) to draw several things over the past few days...some days, it's on, some days, it's off, so I guess I should draw everyday and see what the pattern is...:P

I've drawn: Catwoman, a Snape fan, a mysterious cloaked figure, a design for my Fall 2010 line (haha), and a girl with wings (bat wings).

Maybe reading Batman comics and Harry Potter (just started the first one...again...) have something to do with these?!

After scrapping several dozen sketches (sigh...that's my least favorite part of drawing...so often it doesn't work out!), I have these that turned out nice. I'm hoping to add to the pile.

I think my artistic talent (what there is of it) comes from my grandmother. Watching her draw beautiful paper dolls and then the amazing clothing for them was inspiring. She has such a talent, but unfortunately she's never used it for anything (that I know of) besides those paper dolls. That whole family is like that - we have an oil painter, a drawer, and a mixed-mediums artist, and a photographer, and although I think 2 of them got pretty well-known in their areas, my grandma and her sister never did anything with the talent they had. It saddens me to know that the world missed out on their beautiful art.

That's why I keep all my drawings in a little folder. Just in case. You never know when somebody's going to want to look at what you got, right? I take it around most everywhere (most days), and flip through them, and sometimes weed out the not-so-good ones (they go in a drawer usually), hoping for that one day when someone sees my artwork and tells me I can/should do something with it.

I can't really do cartoons - I can never draw the same thing twice. Believe me, I've tried. That's why I stick with Paint when I want to do comics. :P

It may be a talent that I never get to use professionally; I draw for weeks sometimes and then a month or two will pass before I remember how much I like using felt-tip pens and colored pencils.

But I love it. I love pulling something out of thin air and figuring out which colors work together and seeing how tiny I can make the details.

And yes, using the Bamboo is fun - I wish I had a more reliable computer and that I had a class to teach me all about the Adobe Elements software it came with. But I shall learn it on my own and I've really enjoyed it so far. There are a few things that turned out pretty good.

All that to say, if you have a talent, even a small one, exercise it. If you write, do it whenever you can! Keep a sketch journal if you draw, or if you like arranging flowers, try your hand at arranging the wildflowers you found on your walk. Just keep doing what you have a talent for, and it will grow. (I'm hopeful, anyway!) And it's always fun to try something new, because you never know...you might be good at it!

Not sure where that pep talk came from...it's more a reminder to me to keep doing what I know how to do, and maybe someday I can get paid for it. :P

Have a good weekend, everybody.