Tag: drawing

Into the Painted Forest (Save the Muse Quest Continues)

As soon as I set foot under the canopy of trees, it felt like the sound had been muted on the world. Even the dripping of the rain was muffled by the umbrella of branches stretching out above me. It seemed a bit lackluster for the start of an adventure, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I had been expecting. I followed the meandering trail further into the growing gloom, steady in my stride. After all of the tales I had heard about these woods, I had expected a goblin or ghost to charge at me from the underbrush. But all was quiet. Was it perhaps too quiet? I kept moving, uneasy in my surroundings, wishing that I were back at the inn with it’s cracking fire and roasting meats. And yet I continued on, putting one foot in front of the other as my mind wandered between the place I had left and where I intended to go.

Writing has always been my sunshine, my sustenance, my personal cup of tea, if you will. It is my soul, my blood, the thing that makes me who I am. I have always felt my most creative when I’m crafting syllables and etching letters onto blank pages. And yet, I’ve always wanted to explore beyond my literary confinements. I love to create, to make new, to bring to life a vision that has been hidden behind my eyes. I’ve dabbled with different arts, but always found myself frustrated because my hands often struggled to take my mental image and translate it into the physical world. I knew what I wanted to create, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to bring it into being. I’ve never been able to fully give up on this hope, to surrender this dream. So here I stand again, giving it one more shot, slowing down the process in hopes that I will actually learn from my past mistakes.

Meandering into the art world is a bit overwhelming. Primarily because there are so many different facets and tools to use, so many different concepts to contemplate and master. For a novice it is a lot to wrap your brain around. Where on earth do you start? Graphite, charcoal, acrylic, watercolor, digital, oil, colored pencils, spray paint. Do you want to layer, cross hatch, work with negative spaces? And then do you want realistic, modern, impression, abstract, expressionism, cubism, surreal, compounded by a variety of cultural interpretations. Where oh where do you begin? And that is just one tiny aspect of the art world- I’m setting aside things like pottery, fabric, sculpting, glass, sand, etc. for the moment. That’s a rabbit hole we will be slowly making our way to. Personally, I want to dabble in all of it- figure out what feels right to me. So where I start is perhaps less important than how I start.

Aside from the occasional wine painting parties, I haven’t taken a true and honest art class since middle school (and no, I’m not going to do the math on that one- suffice it to say it was a long time ago). I tend to be more of a doodler, playing with mandalas more than actual sketches. But the few times I do paint or draw, I enjoy myself. And when I get direction, I’m not supremely awful- I have a Christmas painting I did on a wine night with my mom and aunt that I still hang up every winter on a wall that real people can actually see. Shocking, I know.

If I were a better planner I would be coming into this with an actual detailed lesson plan. But at the moment I don’t know what I don’t know. So for now, I have a general thumb-sketch idea of what I am looking for, but I’m giving myself a lot of latitude to play around. The jury is still out on whether this is a good idea or not, but short of spending a few hundred dollars on an art class, this is where I plan to start. I’ve got some books and videos on the fundamentals, I might invest in a few of the (cheaper) classes you can find online. If you have anyone you follow (or are an artist yourself), please leave recommendations below- I could use all the help I can get. But fear not, my dear adventurers, I do have an ace in my pocket. I have an amazingly talented coworker who plays with most medium- she’s been kind enough to help me play with watercolors over our lunch break (when we both manage to get one at the same time). Now, I will admit, I am not always the best student- immediately after her quick color theory tutorial, I proceeded to create the most hideous accidental brown you could imagine. I am a trial-by-error student, it would seem.

As we move farther into our quest, we find ourselves in territory we may not recognize. It will be a bit uncomfortable at times, perhaps a tad frustrating when we move away from the avenues we are so accustomed to walking. But fear not, these forests are beautiful and worthy of exploring.

Creativity Challenge:

  • Draw/paint the forest we are beginning to walk through- be creative, what colors do you see, are there animals, shady patches
  • Draw your little adventurer embarking on the jouney
  • Draw your muse- what is she made of? Will she be changing as we move through these new challenges?
  • Pick up a color book or paint by number and let your brain relax if it all feels a bit overwhelming

Side Quest, Week 1 Recap: Art Challenge (an epiphany in pencils)

Last week I made a little creative side-quest to go along with my “Rescue the Muse” challenge. It was really pretty simple: draw something every single day. It didn’t matter what the subject matter was, what items were used, how technical the piece was or even how “pretty” it came out. The whole purpose was to get out of my own head and start playing again in a medium that I don’t find myself particularly skilled in. All of this was done in an effort to overcome my fixation with perfection. I have a bad habit of dropping ideas when I don’t think I can live up to my personal standard- so bad drawings sounded like a pretty fun way to toy with my inner critic. (We will be dealing with these inner monsters a little bit more this week as we continue on our Muse-Saving Quest).

Now, I anticipated that I would have some fun with this challenge, and I knew going into it that my artistic abilities wouldn’t suddenly be morphing into anything grand or amazing. Don’t believe me? Look at Exhibit A: (virtually slaps sheet of paper onto the screen)

Hehe- I added the photo of Link to give you an idea of what I was attemtping to draw in the middle of the sketch on the left. Lucky for me, Link is an unconditional-love kind of dog, and not much of an art critic. He was just tickled to be included.

While I was anticipating that this challenge would be solely about learning to draw and playing around with circles and lines- I wasn’t prepared for the epiphanies that came with the meandering lines and overworked erasers. I’m not sharing the above sketch with you to show you the kinds of “skills” I’m working with- I’m sharing it because it is the perfect example of what art morphed into. You see, I started this random assortment of drawings by playing with things that I enjoy: my dog, Star Wars (which turned into a very sad baby yoda), the mountains, chairs (apparently I’m a big fan of sitting- honestly, I don’t really know why that one is there). As I was drawing I could feel my insecurities building, I could hear that little voice start to whisper that I wasn’t any good and should just quit. Instead of listening to it, I started drawing a little anxiety monster in the upper right-hand corner (based off of the Mental Illness Monsters created by Toby Allen- look them up, he is phenomenal).

As I finished drawing my little monster I decided to scrawl out the words bouncing around in my brain- don’t worry, it’s written by a lefty in cursive, so I don’t expect anyone to be able to read it. But it says “What does it say about me when I am far better at creating monsters than the things I love?” And below baby yoda, I wiggled out my own reply after a moment’s hesitation, “My sweet, who ever said you shouldn’t love the monsters too?” It was a strange, yet peaceful moment to acknowledge my internal monsters without trying to shove them back into the dark. It was powerful in a way I didn’t expect. I ventured away from the usual cartoons I like to draw, and wound up uncovering an inner-truth I’ve been struggling with.

And here is the real epiphany I never expected when starting on this little journey: art in any form is emotional. That’s what makes it so damn beautiful. It captures truths we didn’t know were inside of us- and even if you can’t ‘read’ it in the artwork, the artist can feel it. As a writer, I have always experienced this moment with words: my words are my lifeblood, they are my link to the world, and they tether me to the things that are important. I am accustomed to the emotions that roil below the surface when I am writing. I never expected to feel that same energy channeled into my random little sketches. Which leads me to believe that it is the act of creation itself that makes us more connected to who we are in this vast world; and not just the particular form we thought we were good at. Art and emotions are intrinsically tied together; you cannot have one without the other.

So I got brave with my pieces after that. I decided to tap into this well that I’ve struggled with. I decided to embrace the emotions that were coursing through me, and allow them to lead me to my next piece. I was able to channel these emotions that I haven’t even been able to adequately write about- instead, they came out in sweeping lines of colored pencil. And while the picture itself isn’t anything grand or spectacular: it has turned into something pivotal for me, a piece of my soul that has been liberated and can now float freely into the world.

The backstory here is pretty important to the outcome. As I have shared before on this blog, at the beginning of 2019 I experienced my first pregnancy loss while in my second trimester. What most people don’t know is that seven months later I lost my second at eight weeks. 2019 was a year of painful transformation for me; I not only had to deal with the pain of the losses themselves, but also the loss of security in a dream I always carried. I was left unmoored in the world, unsure of what a future would look like for me. It’s been a struggle- there’s no nice way to get around that. And I have found it exceedingly difficult because this was the first time in my life that my words failed me. I couldn’t adequately portray the roiling ocean I had tearing me up inside. I didn’t have the words. And that was terrifying in so many ways because my words are all I ever really depended on. Without my voice, I lose who I am as a person. I’ve had these images and feelings buried inside all of this time without the relief of releasing them into the world.

So I started tapping into that well, and I let those silly colored pencils dance across the sheet. And when I was done I found myself staring at the picture I haven’t been able to speak into existence. It is a sketch of a promise lost: two sweet little boys (I always picture them as two little boys) running around the grass together, counting stars, and existing in this beautiful place with one another- a place that I can’t go to yet. And in my head, I see them sitting together, staring at the same moon I look at from my bedroom window as I ask the question I ask them every single night, “Can you feel me when I think of you?”

It was powerful and therapeutic, and so damn good for my soul to see the picture I’ve carried inside all this time. Even in its childlike imperfection: it speaks the truth I couldn’t verbalize, the one that was too large to be ensnared in syllables. But here it was, on a piece of paper that I could hold and touch. It existed somewhere outside of me for the first time in nearly a year.

It reminded me of the importance of this work; these creative endeavors that we take on. Sometimes the tools you have in your kit aren’t adequate for the job that you need done. Sometimes you need to step outside your comfort zone and try something you aren’t very good at- because it will help you grow in so many more ways than you anticipated. Sometimes you need to put down your words in order to speak your truth.