Thoughts on Drawing

I've never been able to take a drawing class before ART 199.  Middle school and high school had relatively strict/traditional paths for me to follow: take as many AP courses for college placement. This meant that I never got to explore drawing in a more fulfilling manner until now.

I've always enjoyed sketching, drawing something to pass the time, usually something that I currently had interest in.  I slowly figured out rough ideas of shading (I always made the outer lines darker, shading inwards to a lighter middle).  This worked well for drawing my favorite mythical beast, dragons.  I never really explored art much beyond doodling and the occasional sketch, although I enjoyed "reading" how-to-draw books in the library in my high school, admiring the evolution from circles and geometric shapes to full blown monsters and soldiers and dragons and such.

Last year, when I was a freshman, one of my best friends noticed my artistic side and bought me a sketchbook.  This was the first time I'd actually used a "real" drawing tool in my opinion and I got very serious about drawing.  It became my goal to as accurately as possible recreate drawings from how-to-draw websites, taking me as long as 5 hours to draw a pony for a friend, and over 10+ hours over 3-4 days for a fully scaled and detailed dragon that I eventually gave to a different friend.  These I enjoyed so much that I convinced myself to try my hand at an actual drawing class, and thus I enrolled in ART 199 fall semester of my sophomore year.

I've really enjoyed this class.  Despite personal complications, I have enjoyed broadening my horizon from drawing one item to attempting to capture an entire landscape.  Drawing is a very fulfilling and soothing pastime for me; it allows me to leave behind the stress of the college work and daily life and to focus on the task at hand.

Creativity and expression through artistic designs have always been and will always be an important part of who I am, and I'm glad I got the chance to take ART 199 and enjoy it.

Regards,
Po Edgar Alin.