On Drawing

Drawing has been a lifelong habit of mine. Maybe it's because I'm a visual person, but I always doodle and draw whenever I have time. I love being able to translate what I see in my head into a form that other people can share, whether it is through drawing, writing, painting, singing, or playing an instrument. When I do any of the above, I can sit at my desk for hours without moving or feeling tired. There just some things you can't describe fully with words, and the feeling that you get when you succeed at getting a drawing just right is wonderful and intrinsically rewarding.

The problem, recently, is that I don't get enough time to do the art that I want to do. Art is one of my hobbies, so it tends to fall by the wayside when I have a lot of work to do. Although I sometimes feel inspired to draw something, I often can't find time to actually draw it just because life gets in the way. It's an issue of the tradeoff between expressing myself and feeling guilty about my responsibilities or fulfilling my responsibilities and feeling guilty about wasting inspiration. I think of myself primarily as a student who focuses on academics, not an artist who focuses on expression. As such, I try to put my academics first, and when I do end up drawing, it's usually because I'm procrastinating from doing "real" work. This is of course a horrible way of viewing art, and makes it seem much less enjoyable because it's done with guilt.

As a solution to this issue, I took Drawing 100 this semester as a wonderful excuse to draw whenever I wanted. Although drawing from observation is not always the most exciting thing, it helped me better understand different methods to approach realistic drawing. Additionally, I loved having sketchbook pages to fill with whatever I wanted to draw. I drew everything that was on my mind-- TV shows, song lyrics, logo designs, etc. -- and it was a very relaxing sort of freedom. I am always happy to have art in my life, and having my drawings count for credit is even better! Overall, I would definitely consider art classes to be a great way to keep up my creative spirit and to keep me sane. I hope I will continue to have the chance to take art classes throughout my college career and in my life.