lauantai 18. tammikuuta 2014

New And Old Beginnings

'The seventh piece of butter!'

'Viivoi!' could be translated as such if you use roman numerals but what it really means, is more in the category of lines. And this blog isn't about high colesterole cooking. It will start unfolding a story of lines and the progress on making them better. Let me elaborate:

I have loved to draw and write since I could hold a pencil. It was so much fun when I didn't know I couldn't draw and I just drew. It was sheer play! Then one day, I was maybe 6 or 7, we were drawing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters with my cousin. We decided to ask my mother which drawing was better. She replied that if she really had to choose, the better one would be my cousin's drawing. You see, I had drawn my Turtle's legs so that he looked like he was missing half of his lower body... and if the missing part was added, he'd have four legs.

Reconstruction of the original:
How come this didn't make it to the finals?


Then I realised drawing was something that I'd really have to practice if I'd wanted to draw not so mutant Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You know, like the normal teenage mutant ninja turtles with two legs, a shell and a mask. That's what I wanted to draw.

I didn't exactly start practicing right away. All my natural born talent laying on the floor, I had to get over my ego crash. I wasn't a natural after all, and I had to learn how to draw. I had to work for it. Damn it. But thanks to my age, drawing felt like play and it was easy to learn: I just drew.

But there comes a point, a very annoying point, where playing just seems to childish and you start yearning for adult things. And adult like skills. And you don't have them. And you've grown this inner critic that just won't let you draw like you used to anymore. It wants perfection, it wants realism. Forget the fairy tales, your anatomy sucks and you have no clue of perspective (or even what these terms mean)! That's when you start to lose faith, that's when you have to decide: Do you want it bad enough?

And I wanted it. Bad. So I didn't give up. I kept drawing because I loved it. Then I grew up a bit more and my skills got a bit more better. But it wasn't enough anymore. I just couldn't get over the fact that everyone was so much better at drawing than me. I felt I just couldn't keep up. I felt like I was failing. I'd lost all the play.

So I quit. I didn't draw a line for over two years. I think I quit a lot more than drawing with that decision.

I kept writing a lot, so I was creating something. I was still in touch with the fairy tales in a way that my inner critic was speaking at a tolerable volume. But I missed drawing. I missed colours and forms. I missed making visual art. So I took a chance after those two and some years and started making forms on the paper. Would that dictator of a critic have a bit more consent after this time?

The autocrat let me draw again! I was shy and the critic was still there, but I fought it. I applied for an art school and got in. The first year was great! I drew and painted a lot. Then I hit a wall. And I quit... again. And after a year, I started missing drawing... again.

So that's where I am now. At begining number three. My skills have come back some what and I'm working hard on making them better. And the dictator inside me? We get along. We've learned some life lessons along the way, and now, even the dictator knows that we need this. Both of us need to draw. She helps me to get better and learn from our mistakes. I teach her how to play and laugh at our mistakes. We have a truce and looks like we might be forming some sort of a friendship even!

This time I decided to make my progress public via this blog to inspire others and to help form truces with our inner critics. It's all about team work, and if you have just the right amount of self criticism coupled with joy, you will learn and you will excel! It might not be on on da Vinci's standards, but your own. You can be better and you can evolve. Even if you've quit once... or twice. Just get back up and do what you love!