March 26, 2006
Post Sixteen

Ok, I don't really know if I did this right. I was confused, but I took a stab in the dark and came up with this stuff. It's the assignment to mimic Margaret Atwood's "The Female Body."
Huzzah. Finally, it is done!
Hopefully it's not so wrong that I'll have to redo it cause this took me forever.

The Art of Drawing

1.
Everyone has taken part in it. Probably before they could even properly talk. They just don't remember. Do you? That time your mother went to give you baby food and instead of eating it you smeared it against the table with your fingers? Yeah, that time.

You started smearing Gerber, mixing the banana with sweet potato to make an interesting color. You didn't need paper, you had the table. You got older, found mixing food in your hands to be impolite, thus took charge of handling more advanced tools. Weird graphite tips atop a yellow number two and a pink rubber butt. It's an interesting combination.

2.
It doesn't stop at that. There's other tools: Paper, pens, chalk, charcoal, and paint to name a few. Then there's the extra tid bits: Easels, brushes, smudgers, smocks, and whatever else you want to work with. It's been done with hair, feet, hands, and paws. Oh, and creativity is a must.

3.
It's quite a simple recipe. Just take something from column A and column B, plus the creativity. Mix it all together. That's all it's made out of. You can throw in a part from one that was premade and another part from another. This will help jump start things. People have been doing it for years like that. Even DaVinci and Munich had help. Just know when to stop mixing. Too much can lead to an overspill disaster and too little can lead to an unfinished work.

4.
He said he prefers to focus on swords and guns.
She said she prefers to focus on flowers and hearts.
He said he'd give the flowers a try if she gave the guns a try.
She agreed.
He exchanged his finished flower with her finished gun.
She laughed in unison with him and went back to flowers.

They realized they could explore different boundaries in their works but weren't as comfortable drawing something so foreign to their liking. It seemed foolish to draw a gun that looked like a bird with a crooked wing and a stick figure with bushy hair. No, wait. It's a flower.

5.
Of course, drawing has many uses. It must be more versatile than vinegar.
You can use it to vent and express your anger, happiness, sadness, kindness, loneliness, etc...
It can be used to tell visitors to keep out of your room. Though it doesn't always work, but it's there.
It can be used to show how much you love someone with just two simple brush strokes, or to communicate with those who
don't read or write.
It can be used to keep yourself sane in class when you feel bored out of your mind. Fill your notebook with it, or crumple it into a ball and keep score of how many times you hit the head of the kid in front of you.
It can be used to decorate a cake, a wall, a face, a binder, notebook, desk, cell phone, you name it.
It can be used indoors or out; rain or shine.
When finished it can be given as a gift, traded for the same, sold to make some fast cash, and, if you hate it, it can be burned for a source of heat.

6.
Each finished work contains the creativity, time, effort, and imagination of a person. Looking in the drawing, one can see all the mentioned items clearly. It's more than a pretty picture. Often it portrays something. A meaning, emotion, a story... Something. If you don't see it, turn it upside-down, sideways, or phone a friend. Sometimes it'll take a while before you understand it. It can be very complex. Everyone probably thought the Mona Lisa was just a portrait of a lady. Well, it's a song, too. But the picture itself has a story more deep than that gaze it gives as you walk by it.

I question why people lock up their work in a dust-collected art book somewhere under the bed. So much put into it, but it never comes out. No one can look at it, learn from it, or understand it. I guess to each their own.

Maybe they hope in a few years their untouched art will be worth more, or at least standing idle and collecting dust in a glass frame in an art museum instead of under the bed.


Comments:
More versatile than vinegar, good! I just found out one theory about why everyone cannot draw - as people develop their vocabulary and communicate verbally they stop growing in their drawings...interesting, eh?

Great recipe, Meshell.
- posted by Blogger Bridget Whalen-Nevin @ 7:08 AM 
 

Thanks for posting this! I especially love how the opening to #4 catches our attention.
- posted by Blogger ProfStrong @ 8:13 PM 
 

~About Me~
Name: Meshell

View My Complete Profile


~Other Blogs~
a talking soul
blackhawk
Chicken Pastry Omlette...
Claire Murphy's Blog
CreativeAvocados
Danielle's Blog
Fear and Loathing...
Katie's Blog
Sarah's Blog
ThePinkPanther
Thoughts Worth Noting


~Links~
deviantART


~Previous Posts~
Post Fifteen
Post Fourteen
Post Thirteen
Post Twelve
Post Eleven
Post Ten
Post Nine
Post Eight
Post Seven
Post Six


~Archives~
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006