When The Iron's Hot...

Sometimes when inspiration strikes, you have to do something about it. Saturday night I had a dream that I drew a picture of Heath Ledger [that was random, I know], and it really couldn't become any clearer for me that I needed to do just that. What better way to honor someone in their death than to depict them in art?
I went on a mad hunt for any type of magazine that might have several pictures of Heath in them. Maybe I was a bit premature since it hasn't even been a week since he died because I only found an Entertainment Weekly that contained one, full-page picture, plus the cover shot. It just wasn't worth my time and money.

I came home extremely disappointed because I really wanted to act on this. My inspiration in the realm of art strikes once in a blue moon, and I wanted to take advantage of it. My husband suggested looking on the internet even though we need more ink for the printer. I wasn't too thrilled about the idea, but I did it anyway.
Searching on Google was practically a waste of time, so I decided to try Flickr, and luckily, they had tons of great pictures to draw. I saved three to a disc and busted out my husband's laptop and went at it. I decided to take progress shots, so you can all see how it plays out. You can view these on my Flickr account. I'll try to get a little more done each day so you have something new to look at each night (well, newer).

That Didn't Take Long

I just uploaded that drawing of Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday, and someone already wanted to use it on their site (thanks to Creative Commons). I gave permission, so now it's over here, as well. I wish I'd had the chance to fix and finish the drawing before it's displayed anywhere else on the net. Oh, well. I suppose I'll take the compliment (I guess) and go with it.

Hidden Talents (Part Dva)

I got a lot of good feedback on my last post, which was inspiring. I don't usually talk much about my drawings or the fact that I do draw. It's been one of those hobbies that I keep to myself somewhat. I don't know if it's because I'm ashamed if I can't draw up to the expectations of others or if it's for some other reason. I listen far too much to the opinions of other people, and I let that affect how much I draw.

I used to have people ask me to draw pictures of certain people for them. I'd start them, and then I'd never finish the drawing. One of my dad's friends wanted me to draw a collage of pictures of his wife, and it would be a present for either their anniversary or her birthday. I can't recall which. I never finished it. I finished drawing her entire face on one picture, and I stopped. I just became embarassed of what I was drawing instead of being proud of it (mistakes and all) and continuing on until I finished it. I suppose I could have tweaked it along the way, but I didn't give myself a chance to.

If you can recall, I mentioned a Tom Cruise drawing in my last post, and I talked about how frustrated I got with it. My husband was probably terrified of me that night. I don't think I get upset with anything else in this world more than I do with my drawings. If they're not perfect, I'm no picnic to be around.
We went to Borders one night to look at magazines because I felt inspired to draw something. That month Tom Cruise was on the cover of Fade In because this was at the time he was promoting MI:3 and War of the Worlds. I decided to buy that one because they had a lot of good pictures in there, and the cover really caught my eye. I did end up drawing the cover. I got about halfway through my drawing when I realized that the proportion was all wrong on his face, and it was nearly irreparable. I had to stop working on it to keep from ripping my sketch pad to pieces. To this day, I haven't once touched that drawing again, and it's been about 2½ years since I first drew it.

It's moments like that where I'm brought back down to reality; just when I think I could make a career out of this. I couldn't see myself doing this day in and day out when I get so frustrated. I wouldn't last long, and I think (as I said before) I would grow to resent drawing altogether. I'd hate to do that with the one thing I know I'm at least semi-good at.
At the same time, I'm left confused as to what exactly I'm supposed to be doing as a career if art isn't it. What else could I see myself doing and enjoying for the rest of my life? It's certainly not retail...

Hidden Talents

Some of you may or may not know that I have a little bit of a talent for drawing people. It's something that I started when I was around twelve, and my father did it a lot when I was growing up. I think that's where the interest derived from. I just kept working and working at it until I got to where I'm at now. I can't say that my work is anything impressive right now, but it's a lot better than 10-11 years ago.

I started out as most artists do: My parents bought me a sketch pad for Christmas to kick it off. I then bought "teeny-bopper" magazines (or rather Mom did after much prodding from me), and I'd draw several pictures a night of everyone from Brad Renfro and Devon Sawa to Neve Campbell and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Needless to say, they weren't anything terrific as I only spent about 15-20 minutes on each. I got frustrated because I couldn't draw anyone whose mouths showed teeth as they smiled. Instead of tackling the problem, I'd just draw a closed smile.¹ I always got so frustrated with my drawings (I still do), and I'd have to walk away to keep myself from ripping the paper up.

Through art class in 7th grade, I delved into the wonderful world of shading. While my teacher tried to tell me how you're "supposed to" shade on a drawing, I did my own thing, and to this day, it works for me. I've just tweaked my method here and there along the way. At one point, we had to do a portrait of someone, so I asked my sister if I could draw her. You can always expect brutal honesty out of a twelve-year-old for something like this, so I got plenty of constructive criticism on that one.² I tried my best shading job on that, but it ended up looking choppy.

All through high school, I continued to take art classes, and I had to fight my art teacher my senior year to prove that I was responsible and independent enough to take studio art (you needed the teacher's permission to be enrolled in that class). I finally convinced her on the promise that I would come up with my own projects regularly. It sure seems like I had to do a lot of fighting to prove myself in high school, huh?
Anyway, I was able to come up with several projects to work on, and I liked having the freedom to continue to work on my hobby without someone telling me what to draw. That had to be the best class Iroquois had to offer for me.

Over my teenage years, my drawing skills improved more and more. I began perfecting my shading and drawing different parts of the body. I used to have trouble with noses and mouths, and now I love drawing them because they're challenging each time I draw someone new. People used to ask me if drawing hair was really difficult (you wouldn't believe how many people). Honestly, that's the easiest part to draw. All it is is coloring and shading. As long as you can see the different shades in someone's hair and the direction it's going in on each part of their head, and you can translate that to paper, you'll have no problem drawing hair.

In my senior year of high school, one of my parents' friends bought me an 18X24" sketch pad, which was quite the upgrade from the 11X14" pad I'd been using. I'm still using that pad today, and I'm able to draw much larger pictures. Now everything I draw (that I finish, I might add) eventually ends up in a frame and is hanging up on the walls in my house. I've uploaded a few to Flickr if you want to browse through. They're not the best photos as the drawings are in frames, and they're far too large to scan.

Right now I'm working on a picture of Arnold (as you can see at the top of this post) for my husband. I still need to make quite a few tweaks to his face before I move on because I know I have some proportional mishaps going on in there. Unfortunately, this picture has been sitting dormant for several weeks now. I really need to finish it. I haven't even drawn his huge chest, and that could probably be considered the highlight of the entire drawing.

Now I'm left to decide if this is something that I could go further with or not. The only problem I have is that I can only draw when I feel inspired to. At any other time, I get extremely frustrated. My husband knows because he remembers what happened with my Tom Cruise drawing. I'm not sure if it's something that I can force myself to do anyway and I'd get better or if I'd grow to hate it by forcing myself. I'm not sure I want to take the risk. What do you guys think?

¹I, of course, learned how to draw teeth eventually, and I have a lot of fun with the challenge.
²She didn't like the way I drew the dip between the top of her lips and her nose. She claimed it looked like a mustache. I guess I couldn't disagree with her on that one.