One Leaf

In colored pencil class this week we worked on creating a leaf. I'm starting to understand colored pencils, it's a lot like watercolors. Finishing my leaf at home I started thinking back on how I got started with all these art classes.

About four years ago I had phone conversation with a friend in the middle of the night while my life was falling to pieces. He suggested I take an art class. I've never been artistic and hadn't done anything remotely creative since I was required to meet my high school's art requirements. So I responded that I couldn't do art and didn't see the point, art is for artists. Then he asked me what would I draw if I had to draw something right that minute. Ah, but I don't draw and can't draw anything I protested. He kept pressing and finally I declared I would draw the lamp in my living room. Where would you start he asked and I indulged him by describing how I would probably draw the base then the pole, then the leaves sticking out and lastly the lamp shade. And there you have a lamp he said, it doesn't matter where you start you just need to start somewhere, and work on it bit by bit. Four years and a steady stream of art classes later I understand doing art. It's about finding a place to start. It's about looking at a thing from different angles, it's about how what you thought was orange is really red with tinges of yellow. Creativity is about making mistakes along the way but finding a way to turn a poorly done flower into a bush or creating a lake in the foreground where the grass got to dark. Sometimes the work results in something you hang on the wall and other times you have to search the page for the one area where you think the way that cow's ear has a sense of depth is pretty good, but next time I need to work on the nose a little more. And sometimes creating art is about throwing the thing in the trash and starting over.

Last week's colored pencil assignment was to draw a leaf and used varying color schemes to fill in the spaces between the veins. I didn't quite understand that the lesson was about color theory and placing colors next to each other and not about mixing colors. (I love mixing colors.) Upon further discussion with the instructor I understood what she was getting at and started trying out different color combinations. So my leaf is a mixed bag but I rather like it. Four years ago if someone had said draw and color in a leaf I would have said I can't draw and I don't know what color to use. And now - it was the best thing I did all week.