Old Dog New Tricks
Grew up in a conservative household, coupled with a rigid education system means my creativity was crushed fairly early on in my childhood.
In fact, I was led to believe I am analytically minded without much creativity and certainly cannot draw. This is the story about how I dismantled this believe system.
My first ever isometric drawing. I dare say the speech bubbles are pretty creative! However, the scale of the characters …hmmm… can be better.
When mid-life crisis hit me hard (see my origin story), I started my soul searching journey, the memory of being good at drawing when I was a teenager suddenly resurfaced!
The still life drawing of a broccoli, an egg and a can of Welch's grape juice pop into my head as if I had just finished it. I was transported back to the childhood bedroom I shared with my sister.
I was alone, sitting on the study chair with my legs in an angle on the edge of the bed supporting the heavy wood drawing board. I felt content and at ease, felt the absence of time.
This revelation was a complete shock to me. Did I have an amnesia? Where is this drawing now? This shock turned into sadness and anger.
I was angry about my talent being ignored, been lied to (not intentionally I am sure, but it felt like a betrayal)!
I was upset because the childish, humorous and creative side of me wasn’t allow to be out for decades!
Also, can you imagine the drawing skill I would have had by now if I had never stopped!!!
Agghhhhhh!! So angry! Ok, breathe in… breathe out…breathe in…😮💨
Right, so instead of drilling into the past (occasional lapses do happen, as you just witnessed!) or to confront the grownups in my life, I decided to simply accept my upbringing and nurture my younger self the way she likes it.
The society tells us learning anything is best to start when you are a child, whilst that might be true (personally, I disagree…but that’s what I have been conditioned to believe in), they failed to mention how fun it is to learn as an adult!!!
No fixed curriculum and no grading, I am free to pick and choose whatever I want to learn without external pressure and judgement (oh don’t worry, my internal critic is loud, you will see.) and I can push myself in the way that suits me the best.
So first self-challenge - learn isometric drawing - a method for visually representing 3D objects in two dimensions (copied from wikipedia). I had seen interesting drawing done in this style and always wondered how they were done, it is time to find out.
The best way to learn a particular drawing style is to find the artists who are known for it, then copy their work to understand how it is done. Mattias Adolfsson to me is the king of isometric sketching, so I signed up for his drawing course right away. (Link to his courses are here if you are interested. No one pays me to say it, just a big fan!)
My finally course project - Doughnut City. A much better drawing than my first one, keep improving is the key.
The course was fun and Mattias is a very supportive instructor and yet I find the final course project - a city in isometric style - a daunting task. It seems so complicated and difficult, I could not help but keep comparing my drawing against Matthias’s work (“…look at his city, there is no way you can do it…”, said my inner critic). I was scared and wanted to give up (“…stop embarrassing yourself!”, my inner critic continued).
To ease my anxiety and pressed on, I had to stop myself comparing my work against artists with decades of experience - repeatedly. It is like comparing a normal person to an Olympic athlete? RRiidiculous!
Another way to encourage myself is to turn this final project into a fun entertaining activity! I made up funny characters in unrealistic situations to the drawing, such as a small rat chasing a big cat, a bank robber with a trolley and a drive-by shooting with a paint gun.
I find adding humour and fun into any tedious tasks take the focus off the end results, because my attention how much joy the process is bringing to me.
Before I knew it, I finished the final project, all sort drawing flooded my head, that’s when I know for sure I am indeed creative and DAMN it, I can draw!!
Old dog can learn new tricks and I am the prove!
Eventually I had the courage to enter a competition with an isometric drawing a year later, but that is a story for another time.
If you are still reading this, WOW?! Thank you ❤️, care to subscribe? Form at the end of the page. 😘
Anyway, my point is, find a way to have fun in the learning process, this way you will keep at it long enough for the skill to become part of you, part of your identity.
So start learning whatever you want right now and enjoy the ride!
With Love, Vienna
P.S.: Here are some non-social media friendly portraits.
