Drawing again

I have always drawn - mostly over the last 20 years it has been kept to weekends and holidays odd sketchbooks, no consistency and discipline. Just dabbling. And no classes. 

I used to really love life drawing. The focus that is required. The challenge - the restrictions of time and processing what is right there in front of you. The humanness of it. I still have folios and folios of drawings from all those years ago.

But then somehow despite loving life drawing through my early one day I stopped and I didn't sign up for another class for nearly 20 years. And the weird part for me is that I am not even sure why. Why didn't I make more time for committing to drawing of any kind - why didn't I realise that it was essential? Why did I spend so much time looking almost everywhere else for the joy and happiness I can find in a simple drawing session?

So now I have committed to drawing sessions weekly - and soon hopefully more. Moving to our new home with drawing sessions around the corner has been a big plus. I must write more about that. How this for me - being very thoughtful about where I am living in terms of the life I want to live - really matters.

beginning the journey

I have been reading Steven Pressfield again. The war of art. It was timely. Sometimes books like this come along exactly when you need them. Beginning is hard. Always. I have for a long time had a real fear of sharing my creative work. Only friends and family - visitors to my home -would see my work. And I realise now that this is not enough. I don't need to sell it - or make money from my art - well not yet - but I do need to share it (and I definitely need to make time to make it) because it is such a big part of me - or at least the dream of the person I want to be.

Not long ago we moved to a new house. Up until that point I thought I was a minimalist. But I discovered I had so much stuff. Not clothes and kitchen stuff - but art books, art materials, sketch books and folios. Things I had kept close (through quite a few moves to be honest) but items that hadn't played a central role in my daily life for a really long time. Except for being on my walls and shelves - there to look at. But they still played a central part in my identity - in who I thought of as  me - but this wasn't the way I had been spending my days. Knowing they were keys to my person - to who I really was. But they had been kept on the fringes of my identity. I had kept them on the fringe.

I am not sure what I was hoping to achieve. Pressfield would call this resistance. For me it is a kind of sabotaging. Of wanting one thing, and seeking it in all the wrong places. This is a personal journey. One I am not entirely sure should be shared here. It is personal. But sharing it here makes it real. Be compassionate. Be kind.