stoner41

I am enjoying drawing, I never did at school, but sat at my desk, listening to the cricket, or some music, or the women's rugby world cup (well done England!) working my way through the Basic Drawing Made Amazingly Easy by Christopher Hart has been enjoyable. At school, we were told to draw or paint or make, but i don't remeber being taught about proportions, perspective basic shapes, texture, - this book as helped me understand the skills behind it, not to rush, use your eraser, don't be too self critical, and enjoy it, and that is what is going on. On holiday, I sketched the scene out of our caravan window, i would have never have done that before, I look at normal everyday things different as a result of this book and this experiance.

Is it any good? Well some I would consign to the bin in less than a second, but even those I know why, I wasnt inspired by drawing houses or cars or motorbikes, so i rushed them, which was the reason probably they came out poor, rushing onto the next thing in the book, as a result, they to me, look naff, but even the naff has taught me a lesson, like what motivates me, so rather than draw a car or a motorbike, I'm going to take a photo of a train, a tank or a Spitfire and draw that, while I'll never live in a spanish styled villa, I do live in a vicarage in a sea side town in England, so I'll draw that.

Basic shapes are an issue, do I use a ruler to draw a line or freehand it? Egg shapes nearly always turn rectanglel and ovals always turn to weird round things and circles to squares, but dyspraxia is like that, so that is why the eraser is my best friend. I'm doing this not to make a living, I'm doing this to enjoy, and learn a new skill/hobby, one which for me to enjoy. It is weird as well, I tried to keep this a secret from my family (I didnt want to embarss them), but I was caught, and what is interesting, my wife is thinking of putting her photography on DA, and to restart her drawing, my kids are like me, but have downloades Kindle apps which they are using to help learn to draw dragons, wolves and Winnie the Pooh!

Inspired by what I see on DA, inspired by my family, I'm going to carry on (even though back to wearing a clerical collar next week - so won't have as much time) but thanks for the encouragement, thanks for the chance to have a go.

Well I've submitted the first few pictures I've drawn. They aren't awful in that my family recongised most of what they are. I've enjoyed the journey so far, I know my shapes are wonkey and I know that my perspective needs working on, but taking my time (thanks Stanio for that tip) and using my eraser quite a lot I've enjoyed it. Thanks for the encouragement from quite a few people, only on page 45 of the book, so a few more to go...

When I was young... sounds the start of bad Fantasy novel but truly when I was in my teens, I used to read, Fantasy novels, simple ones and usually very slowly, the Belgariad and the Mallorean by David Eddings being the prime example, I also claim that the Dragonlance Saga ruined any chance I had of passing my exams as I was reading them instead of studying for my exams! But I loved the books and then I saw the art work of Larry Elmore & Keith Parkinson on the front covers and in Art books and they truly gripped me, giving me images to my imagination. Work & life lead me to lose that side of life, reading was was rekindled with the Lord of the Rings Triology where the fresh images of the film inspired me to read the books, and then recently I reread the Belgariad and the TV series of Arrow and Agents of Shield and the superhero films have helped me rediscover some truly great memories of comics and my teen years. It was a week ago when I decided to look up some old images that I had in my head to see if I could find them online, that's how I found DA. Since then, I've loved looking at the landscape photography and looking up the Fantasy work & superheroes images drawn by some truly talented people. It also lead me to think. I wouldn't mind drawing! I wouldn't mind trying to put some images down on paper, that when I stopped and laughed, I can't draw, I gave up Art as a subject over 28 years ago, a good and sympathetic Art Teacher could not help me as I was truly useless with not a scrap of talent, but that was 28years ago, that was before I knew that I was dyspraxic and dyslexic, so no wonder I was useless, my brain could not communicate to my hand what it wanted to draw or write, the straight line would always be bent, the bend would always be wobbly,  but now with that knowledge I can work around it and so only telling my wife, and to whoever read this journal I'm going to read a book (Basic Drawing Made Amazingly Easy - it was the only one in the local shop!) and slowly learn to draw and if anything, put it on DA, to chart my progress, which could be painfully slow.
It will either go extremely bad and I will delete my profile of DA or I will enjoy it, whatever happens, here goes...