this year's annual learn is drawing. while i'd be quick to say the ability to sketch/draw is my most coveted skill of them all, if given five moments, i surely could rattle off a string of others i intensely wish i could do in addition. but drawing is certainly way, way, super, way up there. to this day i succinctly remember the kid from my elementary school who could draw anything effortlessly (usually space battle scenes in his case). and i can still perfectly picture the shaded and realistic face of the old man chewing on a cob pipe (most impossible to replicate in my tourist mind!!!) a kid in my high school art class created with the same ease as i'd pen my name to the top of my embarrassing version of that same assignment. and then, quite recently, i randomly stumbled upon an interview with an artist,
sarah melling, who eloquently put to words my sentiments and respect for the craft:
"I love the simplicity of using pencils and colored pencils; they're not messy and they're perfectly portable. Pencils are a humble instrument, to be sure, but they have such a long history and are capable of so much. Some of my favorite works of any artist, even the Great Masters, are their pencil sketches."
those three sentences closed the deal for where i'd put my time and attention in 2012. i'm in such rabid agreement with those words i'm peeved i didn't think to say them first. and if envy is truly a sin, i'm in a heap of trouble because i desperately envy anyone who can transform an empty page of paper into to a vivid, living spectacle with something as low-tech as a child's pencil. i've been contemplating the simplicity of this craft so much, the other day i subjected my kids to a fifteen minute treatise on how/why beyonce's single ladies
video is so close to perfect, it's hard to imagine a single way to improve upon it. so basic. a fully white room (the blank slate), an artist, two dancers flanking her, thumping song, creative lighting, astonishing choreography, and even more astonishing execution. most importantly, no cgi-like antics. just beautiful, trained, human bodies doing beautiful, trained, human feats. the sophistication of this three minute product, which for sure comes after thousands of hours of training and effort on the parts of all the players, proves so humanly exquisite that, again, seriously contemplating how to improve upon it stands as a near futile exercise.
while i know my drawing skills will never reach the precision and expertise of those i fawn over and daydream about, i do know that one year from now they will be better than they are today. and given enough minutes stolen here and there over the next thirty years, one day i may have a tattered sketchbook containing my own two-dimensional, graphite interpretations of the world around me.
