Thoughts on Drawing

When I first signed up for this class, I honestly didn't really know what to expect.  Walking into the first class, I mused that my mediocre drawing skills wouldn't measure up to some people's since I was never serious about being an artist or the like.  My mom had been a sketch artist and was a phenomenal artist, but I had inherited maybe half of her talent, if that.  I had taken ceramics in high school and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I knew that aside from drawing animals, I had no chance at sketching humans, buildings, or even creative doodles.

After walking around the room the first day when everyone had completed their study drawings, I knew I was right.  What was I doing in this class?  In the beginning, I couldn't say I loved the class, but as I developed more of the basic drawing skills (that I never learned from formal teaching), I began to enjoy it.  As much as I loved the getaway from menial, everyday biology problems, a part of me hated that I always took so long with drawing as my (slight) OCD caused me to pour over every single detail of a drawing.  And when all that time added up going over every detail of a huge sketchbook page, I have to say I did rush parts of my drawings sometimes.

In the end, though, I think the pros of taking this class outweighed the con of spending a lot of time on it.  For example, in high school, I always loved reading into the messages of literature.  Near the end of our class when we started to delve into creating messages and themes into our drawings, I enjoyed exploring the ways I could utilize my new drawing techniques to convey what I wanted to say to my audience.  I also found it interesting that nearly every other person had their own style and way of delivering messages through their pieces - whether intentional or not.  Creating titles for my last two drawings was a fun task and I'd like to say I had a knack for making up witty or clever titles as well.