Becoming more creative, day 5

Drawing by Nancy Borson, stitched by me :-)

Ok, I've been pretty easy on you so far....we've talked about being adventurous, putting in time, learning to observe, doing things differently, and experimenting and letting yourself play. Today I'm going to use the dreaded "D" word, drawing.... For many people, this is enough to make them break out in a cold sweat, and I'm sometimes one of them :-) I come from a family of people who are great at drawing, and I pretty much figured I missed that gene... But drawing in some form is necessary for just about any form of art. The author of the book I'm reading, "The New Creative Artist: a Guide to Developing Your Creative Spirit", Nita Leland, claims that drawing is a skill that can be learned. It goes back to several of the things we've already talked about; getting over fear, putting in time practicing, and learning to observe. I find my biggest problem is that I try to go too fast...if I slow down, and spend some time on it, I can draw better than I thought, although I still need lots of practice! I'm trying to make myself spend a few minutes a day looking really carefully at something and trying to draw it. Again, your artwork doesn't have to be an exact representation of something, but being able to see and draw what something actually looks like is helpful for making a more artistic version of it.
   I recently saw an amazing quilt online, 'Shimmering Symphony' by Karlee Porter, (click here for her website with photos). It appears to be all done with thread, and embellished with crystals, which don't really show in the picture... My thought when I saw it was, "if I could draw something like that, I could sew it", it's the imagining it up and then drawing it that don't come naturally to me. My solution at the time was to send the picture to my mom who CAN draw, and put her on the job. The picture at the top of this post is the result of that. She drew me a picture, and I stitched it. I found some great Pigma pens to add the last few details. I may have left more for the pens if I had had them sooner. :-) I also got some Prismacolor pencils to go with the pens, now I HAVE to draw something so I can do a project with them, stay tuned.... Also, stay tuned for the finished reindeer quilt, lots more to be done on that. 
    The book has LOTS of suggestions for getting started, and activities to try, (like drawing with both hands at the same time!). I'm not even going to try to get into that here. I will just say if you want to be better at drawing, overcome your fear, get a good book with helpful exercises, and spend time doing it! Another great resource is all of the Zentangle books out there, using doodling to get something on the paper is a great way to get past the fear part :-)

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