As a writer/teacher/leader of writing groups, I love writing and writers and the process of creativity--whether or not we publish. So why have I always been shy about drawing? I express my love of color in my house. (When my handyman first came here, he said he thought it was a kindergarten or something!)
Well, for one thing, I got shy about drawing because of first grade--when a teacher chastised me for three things: coloring outside the lines, pressing too hard on the crayon, and using the "wrong" colors to fill in her mimeographed courthouse. She held up my courthouse for all the class to see as an example of "what not to do." The worst offense, I believe, was coloring too hard. "It's not ladylike," she said!
For another thing, I married an artist. Just as we had a clear division of household labor, we had a definite division of creative expression. He chose the architecture and decor; I cleaned it and cooked the meals in it. He taught art; I taught writing. Once I asked him to teach me to draw and he set up a few twigs and said, "Draw those." That was my first and only art lesson.
SO I'm ready to get out of the box! I'm ready to color real hard! And thanks to my artist friend Nellie, who recommended an online drawing class, I'm signing up!
It's time to sign up now for one of their three classes starting October 1: Beginnings, Seeing, and Storytelling. I'm just trying to decide which of them to take for starters. The website has very attractive videos and interviews with artists and teachers and I like their enthusiastic laid-back style of teaching and talking about art.
Nellie's collages and drawings and three-dimensional pieces have always inspired me! (She's a professor of art in Melbourne, Florida, too.) Some of you have seen the delightful framed work in the apartment in which she's created an image with my face and a skirt made out of a coffee filter.
If these classes sound like something you'd like to do, go to sketchbookskool.com and check it out!
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