Drawing from experience

"I hate your stupid face".

This has been heard at my house a bit lately.
No, there's not marital problems or tourettes sufferers visiting. I have been getting my hand back in at portraiture.

There's an old saying ' use it or lose it'. It seems that in the years between art school and sketching for fun, my hands have forgotten the pathways that lead from what my eyes see to the paper. So I am beginning to 'use it' again, but I fear I may have already started to 'lose it'!

This life has held many artistic endeavors for me, one of them for some time was pet portraits. I drew animals in pencil or pastel from photos, because they are incredibly hard to make sit still for a few hours.
But most of all, I have always enjoyed sketching people in pencil. Hands, faces, friends, poses; a sketch pad was never far from reach. But now, living in a house the size of a large postage stamp has changed my habits considerably.
'I'll just pull them out when I need them', I said to myself as I delicately stuffed them in to a place where they fit.
I think we all know what happened next...

Somewhere, by a large armchair, next to a floor lamp, behind a creaky wooden door lives an old gothic style desk. In that desk live a number of things, all crammed in with napkins and unused teatowels, covering my sketch pads and pencils. 

So now, if the urge grabs me, I think of that armchair, floor lamp, creaky door etc., and am too damn tired and lazy to go grab my gear. I'll make a cup of tea instead. Or take a nap. Equally important in the scheme of things.

Now since I put my mind to it, and decided to cut back on the tea and naps, I have pulled out all my tools, thrown away the dusty teatowels with pictures of cats on them (I also decided I am never going to dry my dishes with horrible, cottony abominations), oil that creaky door and DRAW to my heart's content.

Since I have done this, however, I have not been so content. The whole process is far more swear-y than I recalled, a lot more hateful and somewhat embarrassing when reviewing attempts.

But as my ever wise and beardy husband said to me - "keep failing until you don't" ... then "stop swearing at me".

I have put my efforts into one of those things - I can't promise both...

the bearded wise guy