Drawing

There are a set of stories that get told about me regarding my childhood – over and over. Perhaps you have a similar set, those stories that dragged out at family gatherings. One story is about how when I was a kid, young enough that I have no recollection of this, I was at my maternal grandparents house. My papa was a skilled artist, and he always had paper in the basement for folks to draw on. I imagine this was something he’d pull out to keep us grandkids occupied when we were at their house. I imagine he gave me the paper that day.

My grandparents had a gallery on their living room wall – meaning that the entire stretch of it contained photos and art and even a canvas my papa himself had painted. The items changed throughout my childhood, but at the time of this story, there was a Picasso print hanging on that wall (which was later moved to one of the bedrooms). It’s had a few names and derivatives of names over the years – I knew it as Bouquet of Peace. The image has two hands clutching a grouping of flowers.

Apparently, I decided (or perhaps Papa prompted me) to recreate this. If the drawing still exists, I don’t have it, so I have to take my dad’s word for it. He said it it looked exactly like the original. (I don’t know that I believe him, but I appreciate the kindness.)

The thing I don’t understand is – if my papa was so artistic, and my mother was (I found one of her sketchbooks when I was a teen – she had excellent line work), and my dad wasn’t a visual artist but a musician – if I showed such skill at such an early age, why this wasn’t nurtured. I’ve never asked them. Maybe I should. (Or maybe it’s one of those stories that has just evolved to make me look good, and it wasn’t encouraged because it was actually a craptastic replication. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

On and off throughout my life, I’ve picked up a pencil and drew things, but I never really took it too seriously because I wanted to write – that was the path. Not ignoring that one can hop from one path to another and back – but because life was chaotic on the writerly (teacherly) path. There were so many things I held an interest in that there wasn’t time for all of it. (Yes to knitting and photography and stitching – everything else would have to wait.)

Well, I finally made a leap (and some time). I needed a new laptop (my old one won’t let me update the operating software anymore, and so I can’t update my word processing software anymore… [deep sigh]), and I decided to go the tablet/Bluetooth keyboard route. And with it, I bought ProCreate. This is a first for me – drawing digitally. It’s only ever been me and a pencil and a sheet of paper. But I thought I would give it a try. It’s taken a bit of time getting used to it, but now, it’s my go to whenever I sit to watch something (I’m terrible at just sitting in one spot not doing anything). It feels like a different skill than drawing on paper (and I REALLY love that back button… 👀), but I’m digging it.

Are there things you’d like to explore but maybe don’t have the time to? Something you loved doing as a kid that might be fun to bring back onto your path?