Thoughts on Drawing

Drawing is magic. The ability to express yourself through drawing is extraordinary. The ability to translate what you see in real life onto paper - intriguing.

Drawing at Duke helped me understand the power of drawing. I’ve never thought about it before, but drawing can be quite fascinating. Before taking this class, I would just find myself doodling random things and think nothing of it. Now, whenever I draw, I want it to mean something. I want there to be story behind every drawing I draw, I want to portray what I see and what I think.

Drawing is dynamic. The process of drawing is dynamic. On a macroscopic scale, art is being innovated by new mediums, new schools of art, new types of canvas. On a microscopic scale, the process of planning, creating, perfecting, art is rather vigorous.

Drawing at Duke showed me that drawing takes time, effort, and most definitely patience. When I look at all my assignment pieces or even the doodles in my sketchbook, the drawings I took the most time on and had the most patience for turned out looking more aesthetically pleasing. Looking back at this past semester, I can confidently say that out of all my classes, I spent the most time out of class for this one. As the semester progressed, I saw myself spend more and more time on each assignment piece. I would plan, sketch, plan, draw, plan, draw, shade, inspect, and (try to) perfect until I was exhausted. The process of creating a piece of art is rather long and tedious, but the end result is definitely worth it!

Drawing is personal. Everyone can draw. No one “cannot draw". Everyone has his or her own sense and style of drawing.

My favorite part of this class was when we got the chance to look at everyone’s drawings. I loved seeing the different techniques and styles each student had. I could tell that towards the end of the semester, everyone developed their own style and technique. Seeing people's styles made me find my own. Toward the beginning of the semester, I struggled between using charcoal and pencil. I realized that I like using pencil better, because for me, it allowed me to create different textures better (and it's also a little bit less messier :P). I also figured out that I like using darker values and the eraser to highlight the lighter parts of the drawing. 

Drawing is fun! 

Drawing has been my favorite class at Duke so far. The class didn't create the stomach-churning stress that most of the other courses that I have taken did. I actually used drawing assignments and sketchbook entries as a stress reliever! After taking this fundamental art course, I decided that I want to take more visual art courses at Duke. Thank you so much for an amazing semester Professor Fick!