thoreau

so I've been going to drawing group now (minus a week here and there) since December. (three and a half months or so) and I've been down on myself the last couple of times going. My work - what comes out on paper - is nothing like anyone else there.

Most of the guys there crank out a detailed gorgeous piece like this in a ten minute pose:

there are guys there that crank work with even MORE details in a ten minute pose.

so when I spend an evening drawing like this:

well - I do the worst thing I could do - compare where I am in my journey drawing - to guys that have drawn and sculpted with pencil and charcoal their entire lives. This Thursday was particularly bad - for me - because some of the drawings people did were just incredibly beautiful and caught such REAL likenesses. I came away discouraged and feeling terribly untalented.

justforshiggles asked to see my drawings - and said that he liked my work. (HUG!) and he asked for me to explain why this past Wednesday was particularly difficult.

I know that I try to get my fingers wet in just about any creative endeavor and that I can't be a great creative person in every mode or kind of creative expression.

so I'm working on figuring out the lesson of being around such creative people on drawing night - and not beating myself up because my stuff resembles less a deeply detailed rendering but simply naked new yorker cartoons. I really enjoy the comradeship and 'brotherly' feeling of nude drawing group - and it's an important part of my life. I just wish I felt more like a peer sometimes than a parody of the fine work that is going on around me there.

I know this is way more about me than anything else. I've always been the kind that doesn't do something unless I can do it 200%. and I realized a while back how limiting that was - so I've been pushing myself into new areas of interest - even if I'm not the worlds greatest.

but thanks to

justforshiggles for the pompom-style cheerup. :) I still have some thinking to do though.