Losing My Inner Artist

Sometimes I feel like I've gotten this far for reasons that do not include skill or talent. Not even creativity. I used to be so creative when I was little, and I loved to doodle and draw all the time. I think my passion to create started the moment I was able to hold one of those big fat crayons that a little girl can barely wrap her hand around. That little girl, me, used to have a head full of ideas. Not really the kind that had been given deep thought. There were no hidden agendas back then. At least none that I can recall. They were simple things, but I still felt like I knew what I was doing. I had no rules to follow except those of nature, which I tried to the best of my ability to copy based on memory.

In kindergarden, I remember, the first thing we did was draw in our journal-type books. We could draw anything we wanted, but the teacher would call on some of us everyday to share with the class what we had drawn. The boy who sat across from me always scribbled these big blobs of color that, to me, didn't make sense because they didn't look like anything. I don't know if he was really trying or if he just wasn't intersted, but it doesn't really matter. It was kindergarden.

Anyways, I can recall this one time that teacher called on me to share. I had drawn something like a cat tripping over a rock, but explained that he'd be okay because cats land on their feet. I remember I had tried to make it look like a cat, pointed ears and whiskers and all. And there was another time when we were split up into groups to make up a story about three or four dinosaurs. Then we had to illustrate different scenes of the story to put on a long piece of paper. The paper was then rolled around a couple cardboard tubes and put in a box with a square cut in one side, so that when you turned the roll of paper, only one scene would show at a time and could transition to the next scene. I distinctly remember my groupmates' disosaurs looking like scribbley blobs. But I had wanted to do a "long neck" one that eats leaves. So I gave mine a long neck and four legs and drew a tree next to it. Okay, so maybe in my five or six year old mind that's what happened, so that's how I remember it. Maybe mine was a blob like everybody else's. But I was still using my imagination.

In recent years, I find that my imagination just isn't what it used to be. I will get this urge to create, but can't seem to get my modivation going. I don't feel particularly inpired by anything, and when I am, I don't know what to do with it, how to incorporate it into a piece.

When deadlines for classes are set, I force myself to come up with ideas. Those ideas never seem to strike me as anything special or creative. I usually don't start "feeling it" until I've carried out a decent looking piece that derived from the sketch my teacher and I thought would work best. I wish I could get into it from beginning to end. It's like I've lost the passion to do anything on my own anymore.

I started two paintings this summer -which is better than the last couple summers when I didn't do anything- but neither of them got very far. I had the final outcome in my head for each, but once I stopped what I was doing to take a "break," I wouldn't go back to it. Is it that I am too lazy to mix paint and set everything up again? I don't know.

Another thing is that it always seems like everyone else knows what they're doing. They have complete control over their pencil or conte or charcoal stick or whatever. I know my bigest challenge right now is learning to lighten up and not go over my lines so much. I think I've definitely improved the weight of my hand, working from the general to the specific. But I am still unsure of myself when it comes to my lines, my proportions. I see what I'm drawing and I know exactly what I have to do, but when it comes to doing it there is this thing that keeps me from doing it that way. I'm scared to mess up. I can't make distictions between what's a good artistic move and what's not. At least that's what I end up telling myself.

There are certain skills I am trying hard to work up to. Better technique. Smoother values. Texture. Pespective. Straight lines in general. Composition. I don't know specifically what it is that keeps me from being at the level of my fellow classmates, those select few who seem to be masters at everything they put their hand in. I think I am very close, just not quite there. I'm sure not carrying a sketchbook with me all the time has it's negative effects, and going this long without drawing can't be a good thing. I feel like such a fruad as an artist sometimes. Like I'm wasting the professors' time because I'll never be as good as my competition.

I used to look at the world around me with such an artistic eye, making trees look more blue than they really were or pulling out the purple in shadows or studying aerial perspective while on walks or runs. Now it seems I'm just itching to be inspired. But I know that I have to get out and make my own inspiration. I can't just expect it's going to happen in my living room. Not that that's impossible, but I guess that's more of a reactive approach than a proactive one, which I should be aiming for.

I think it's about time I call up the little girl inside me and set up a play date.