Art is awesome, even when it doesn’t come out how you wanted it to

This is the first drawing I ever made of Ann Harner. I sometimes wonder how my ancestors feel about the fact that I use them for drawing practice, but they’ve never told me not to, so I keep doing it…

I’ve been writing— trying to write— for decades now, but art has been a much later addition to my skill portfolio, and it shows. I have confidence that I’ll get it eventually, but in the mean time, my drawing skills are often hit-or-miss.

This is the second drawing I made of her. At least in this one she looks like a real human, even if not like the human I was trying to draw.

You know what was awesome, though? One professional artist and two different colleagues (art teachers in a school I was working at) who did everything in their power to encourage me, even though I was terrified to try to make any art at all. I am SO grateful for their influence.

And I would like to pass that goodness on. I can’t look at all of your art and say: Wow! Cool! Way to go! Keep at it! But what I can do is post on this blog when I make something so bad and unintentionally funny that (hopefully) you will think: WOW but that’s bad. I’m pretty sure I could make something at least as good as that. Maybe I’ll try.

I’m not trying to say nobody ever needs to improve, but improvement doesn’t happen if you don’t start, so: please start! Art is awesome!

This is the photograph I was working from. I never did end up doing a drawing of Ann Harner that I liked, even though I drew her five more times after those first two. But I’m actually super thankful that I drew her, specifically, so many times in an effort to get the drawing right, because I feel like doing so allowed me to get to know her better.

That is because the last time I drew her, I finally put together some clues: one hand is resting in her lap; the corner of her mouth on that same side droops dramatically; even her eye, on that side, looks a little less open than her eye on the other side. As I was working on that seventh drawing, I thought: wait, what if she had had a stroke?

I’m so grateful that she was willing to sit for a photograph even though (if I’m right about the stroke thing) she might have felt self-conscious about her appearance. If she was willing to be seen in public despite her brokenness, maybe I can do that, too, through my art.