Creating Artwork

My drawing skills have always been spotty. I can turn out a lovely piece of realistic work one day, and then anything I create touching pencil or pen to paper will be utter uselessness for a week. It has, if I’m honest, always been this way. It was enough so that when I was trying to get my mother to teach me to draw that when something actually went right, she would ask me if I had traced it. It made me quit trying for a very, very long while.

Then I met one of my college roommates. Jade was (and is) an amazing draughtsman – and claimed that I wasn’t hopeless – that she could teach anyone to draw. What she really taught me was how to see — not so much what I was trying to draw, but rather what actually came out on the page. She showed me how to say, this is what works in this picture and why. This is why the overall impression is wrong. It’s really just this one little line here.

This is not to say that I always get it right now — no, my sketchbooks are still filled with hundreds upon hundreds of awful little drawings, and I have to mine for the gems, but you know? Twenty years later and that vein of gems is finally getting more regular!

This October marked the twenty third year Jade and I have been friends. the gift of drawing is only one of the many benefits I’ve enjoyed over the years. She also edits my writing, stitches some of my models, and runs a mean roleplaying game. And she produced my super-cool godson, too!

Happy Birthday, Jade!

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One Response to Creating Artwork

  1. Awww…shucks. Thanks for the birthday wish. The truth is, though, I don’t know an artist who’s work isn’t spotty. I’ve had weeks and months when I’ve been dry and hated everything that came out of my pencil.

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