Thoughts on Drawing - Anngelyque Stevenson

Before this class, the at last time I drew was back in middle school. It should come to no surprise that comparing myself to other students left me feeling steadily behind and constantly losing hope. However now when stopping to focus on just myself, scanning through my sketchbook and final drawings, I’m astounded by how much I’ve genuinely improved. Coming in to this class, I had never shaded or used charcoal in my life, never considered line weights to have significance, never thought of using an eraser to draw. From the considerable amount of what I’ve learned, I honestly feel as if I should continue my own personal drawing journey, one that focuses on my abilities and my own self-improvement.

I love drawing for several rather simplistic reasons. For one, it’s a pleasant distraction and much needed stress reliever. From anywhere to five minutes to several hours, I can create (or attempt to imitate) my own piece of art that I can keep forever as a growth measurement. Another reason is that I plan on becoming a visual arts and computer science double major, and I thought have drawing under my belt would be a good foundation. This semester I really enjoyed the final drawing of creating our own environment because it felt like half imagination, half realism; the weight of feeling like I had to perfectly copy another image had been lifted considerably. Nevertheless, I believe that the previous assignments were a necessary foundation for me so that I didn’t come up with excuses for why my image on paper didn’t look remotely similar to that in front of me (aka, it’s abstract was no longer a valid excuse).

At Duke, I have also taken an experimental drawing course that much more heavily focused on the digital mixture of art. In that class, I learned about negative space art. I tried to create one via photoshop and failed miserably. In retrospect, it seemed like something that would have been better executed drawn by hand. That being said, I feel like in my current position I execute that assignment properly, and I might go back to that previous digital drawing and see what I can produce by hand. This link: http://tangyauhoong.com/portfolio/the-art-of-negative-space/ is that type of negative space art that inspires me to want to get better at drawing. I think that the combination of creativity with cartoonish art is something that suits my style.

Without a doubt, drawing 199 was a course that I’m glad I took, and I would definitely recommend it for anyone starting out from the bottom like me. It’s astounding how much I have improved throughout the year without even noticing. I hope to continue my drawing career even after the class is over.