Being Creative

The quilt is progressing slowly; the squares are cut out and the pattern established - except I've changed my mind as to its' final purpose and I think I'll make it a doona cover. Of course, by the time I get around to finishing it, it may have gone through several more reincarnations before it finds its' final identity. At the moment it's not quite big enough to be a doona cover and sewing all the squares is going to make it smaller so I probably need another thirty or so squares to do a complete row around the outside. I might make the outer edge all one colour, otherwise I'll have to find seven new patterns or buy more of the same and rearrange them all. I pretty well exhausted the supply of different purple patterns at the fabric store so it looks like more of the same might be the answer. Who knows what it might end up looking like!

I started drawing classes last Tuesday and was the only student - good in some respects, maybe not in others - the added scrutiny was a little unnerving. I cannot believe how much I suck at drawing - well actually I can believe it as I did warn the teacher that I was probably going to be the worst student she'd ever had. I can draw stick figures and nothing else but she assured me that I'd be able to add some flesh to the sticks by the time I'd finished. The classes run for seven weeks.

I arrived at 9am and there was nobody there except a man in a very large truck who, it turned out, was delivering roofing iron. I had to move my car and ended up backing into a gum tree and cracking the rear flicker light. The teacher turned up a little later and I found out at the end of the lesson that it doesn't actually start until 9-30. I had been thinking it was all a bit disorganised but as it turned out, I was early.

So the lesson for Tuesday was drawing "skies", using pastels. I tried to copy a stormy sky from a book, a blue sky with fluffy clouds from the real sky and a purple/orange sky from another book. It was not easy and I didn't really enjoy the whole process, only parts of it. I think I probably have to overcome this perception I have that I'm totally hopeless at drawing and try to just embrace the creativity of the process rather than expecting the end product to be of any certain standard. I also think it would have been helpful if I'd spent the first half hour just playing and practicing with the pastels to get a feel for how to use them and the different effects that can be produced with them.

However,the teacher was very encouraging and helpful. After three hours I'd had enough though and was totally over the purple/orange one. I thought it looked ridiculous.

My real aim of doing the drawing classes was/is to learn to draw naive characters - girls with triangle faces and hair; straight legs with no knees; whimsical figures that I can add to words I've written - not so much fantasy figures but animals and people that represent animals and people but might never be real animals and people. I didn't actually communicate that to the teacher at the beginning when I first booked but maybe I can swing it that way in the next couple of weeks.

Here are my very first official pieces from my very first official drawing classes (not counting Grade 8 Art which I also sucked at).