Frustration

Drawing is a very personal experience. It allows you to convey your own perspective of a thing that is seen by the public. It is a combination of your interpretation of a subject, your abilities, and how you want the rest to see it. At least for me, it gets very frustrating sometimes. I feel like I am lacking ability – or at least technique and experience – and so what I end up drawing turns out to be very different from what I had imagined in my mind.

I also feel like it tests my patience. Sometimes I wish I could include the texture of the brick wall in my drawing, or actually draw the leaves of the trees; like you would do it in a photo-realistic drawing. So since I don’t have the patience or the ability to do that I just end up using dramatic shades and try to pull the whole thing to the opposite side. I think my preference of charcoal over pencil is a result of my impatience. It just comes more naturally to me and requires less effort; I feel like I can concentrate on the drawing itself rather than technique.

For some reason, I just find soft pastels magical. Their colorfulness and smoothness remind me of a child’s imagination; a world in which he could create endless things, without worrying about their connection to the real world. I want to be that child, but I can’t do that either. I feel like I’m torn between ability and creativity; because I haven’t excelled in neither of them. I can’t be free as I would like to be and I can’t pull myself together and produce something that has an actual technical value.

I love drawing – it really is one of my passions; but not knowing where I stand limits me and I just feel like giving up. Art is supposed to be limitless; it is supposed to be an area where you can extend beyond the boundaries set by the real world. So why do I end up feeling like I’m in a cage when I know that there are endless things that can be done with a piece of paper and a pen? I want how I feel when I touch the soft pastels to be visible in the drawing; but I don’t know how to do it.

Drawing is a very personal experience for me but it just becomes too frustrating sometimes.