“You are amazing,”one fellow artist wrote. “Hardly,” I thought. My husband and I had just been discussing my dissatisfaction with my most current artwork. “Maybe I should have started out in charcoal,” I said to my husband after I finished it. “You can do it again,” he said. He is right as usual.
As I do every day after I finish drawing, I can see so many things I would have done differently! “That’s the way all artists are,” my son says. Before COVID-19 hit, I was taking a drawing class. I remember a few weeks into the drawing class, I told my husband I was going to quit. Here I am this old woman, trying to learn to draw at this stage in her life, surrounded by all these talented young students just beginning their lives. I will always remember the “Pep talk” my instructor had to give me in the hall to keep me in class!
Daily Drawing: Daily Challenge
Each day is a challenge for me. Usually, I have amassed some free pictures of what I am going to draw. As I look them over, something captures my imagination. I get the urge to see if I can draw what I see. For example, in nature, contrasting colors blend beautifully. Today’s request was for a multicolored sunflower. How can I replicate that with my 48 Blick colored pencils? Today, I used several colors, yellows, oranges, red, brown, green, and even blue! You never know how it will turn out until you try it.
Am I always pleased with the result? No. You should see my first cat! But the point is I keep doing it. Just like today, each day, I tell myself that today’s drawing is my interpretation of a multicolored sunflower!
The woman that requested this sunflower has a daughter struggling with mental illness. Sadly, the daughter is no longer on Facebook. She will not see the picture I drew for her. I drew a stranger a picture so she would know to keep trying. As Brene’ Brown says, “I’m like a recovering perfectionist. For me it’s one day at a time.” We are all trying right now. We are all dealing with mental illness issues related to COVID-19. And that is the point of this blog post. We all are just trying to do our best each day. I hope this blog post encourages you to keep trying! Even if you are like me and hate taking life one day at a time!
Mental Health Warrior 