Today I sketched a dogwood leaf with watercolors. It was so unsatisfactory that I don't want to share it here. It's frustrating, this starting over, because I used to be pretty good at this stuff. I just want my hands to match what my eyes are interpreting. Is that too much to ask? Rationally, I know it is, yes. Too much since I am out of practice. But I feel good about continuing this little-bit-each-day approach.
Part of the reason I started this blog was to track my progress. I'm hopeful that a year from now, I'll look back on these early posts and say: "oh, okay - I that's more like it." I wish I could simply say to myself, no hurry, just living life like everybody else, but a BIG part of me feels a real growing urgency about this. Only way to deal with that is to just do MORE of it. More sketching. More playing around with materials. More working it out. More seeing where this will go.
The drawing is only one of the skills sets I am working on, so I'll keep it up. Better to start over now, than at 50 or 60. My Dad (a very talented architect and artist) died leaving an empty sketch book - only the date line on the first blank page and then white throughout. I don't want this to happen to me. This idea of an ability, a talent left undeveloped. I feel that if Dad were here now he would implore me to go through the pages wildly, documenting each discovery. I have his old book and those pages are calling me. I hear you Dad.
