With an icky sickness that is. I’ve been on bed rest for the past two days. Spent the better part of Tuesday asleep (seriously, I think I estimated 16+ hours of cumulative sleep time). Fever lasted the whole time, finally broke at 6am. Guh. Still have this fraking cough though.

But I’m sure you don’t come here to hear me whine about my stupid illness (I don’t get sick often, so I don’t get the chance much). Shall we move on to the project updates?! I think so.

Tuesday I was slated to have Art History and Visual Literacy. Unfortunately I was only able to get to Art History (at 6am, after much rest and sans fever). Starting from the beginning of the text was a “starter kit” of terms, styles, and techniques that would be referenced later. It was all of 4 pages long, but sooooo incredibly dense. Took me forever to jot down notes for it all, especially since reading for any length of time was giving me a headache.

To stay on schedule, another round of Fundamentals and Drawing was in order for Wednesday. Despite still not feeling well, and spending most of the day resting, I managed to squeeze them in. With a special treat!

First Self-Portrait Exercise

The first of my actual drawings! The first exercises are meant as a pre-training marker, and as supreme confidence booster when compared to later drawings. This one was the self-portrait exercise. I did bump up the contrast for uploading here, because my originals of all them were drawn really lightly. Partly due to my lack of confidence, and that I was using an HB pencil. That way y’all didn’t have to strain your eyes to judge appreciate my beginners attempts. Oh yea, it doesn’t look like me at all either. That frustrated me. But again, part of the point.

I guess I should be truly honest and say I did take a drawing class in college. It ended up being less successful in teaching me to draw than it was giving me ammunition for self-deprecation. To be fair, I did turn out some things I liked. Though there were few representational drawings among them.

Here are the other two drawings for the pre-training exercise:

Right Hand Drawing Exercise

and

Person from memory. Fraking hard! And definitely has no likeness.

The one thing I like so far about my drawing textbook is that it has a bit of scientific background into the brain. Being a Psych major, I’m a sucker for stuff like that. It utilizes psychology theory and practical considerations to adequately deal with the “self-doubt” that accompanies a lifetime of never feeling good at drawing (lifetime being relative). I always wanted to draw, but I could never make it look the way I wanted to. So I did what any self-respecting child who was told that art was just an elective would: gave up. Besides, science is fun too!

One of the quotes that struck me in the text so far was this:

Over the last forty years, many educators, decision-makers, and even some parents have come to regard the arts as peripheral, and let’s face it, frivolous—especially the visual arts, with their connotation of  ”the starving artist” and the mistaken concept of necessary talent

—Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Her use of the word “frivolous” accurately describes my general feeling towards the arts for so many years. The arts I stuck with for any length of time I was mildly successful at without much strain. There was a wall though. Ironically enough the wall was not insurmountable. It is the same wall all professionals feel when they are challenged and need to put forth effort to learn. The difference here is that I couldn’t be bothered. This was just a “hobby” after all, and how much would I let it distract me from more “productive” pursuits. Thus I eventually gave up playing music, as well as acting. Due to other reasons, I ended up giving up photography too. Living in just one side of your head can be dangerously limiting. You might say the proverbial stick gets stuck further up your backside the more left-dominant you get.

Now, here I am, coming back to artistic pursuits. This time going after a skill I never gave the time to flourish. And hopefully one that will prove useful as I get further into graphic design.

I think that will do for now. The book list I am using will be up soon. It’s all a matter of finding time now.

Parting note: Do something frivolous.