Sunday, December 5, 2010

The Rolling Pin and Discipline

So the first suggested object in the book was...


...the rolling pin! I'm not off to a very good start I must admit. I thought this one would be really fun because I kind of have a love affair with wood grain and normally I love drawing it, but I had a lot of trouble getting the proportions of the pin right and so by the time I had a decent outline of the structure I was so sick of it that the details were not appealing at all. I pushed through, but grudgingly I think it's evident in the finished product.

I think this whole thing is going to end up one long hard slog, and I'm probably going to have to intersperse it with more entertaining projects along the way, but I WILL finish! I know this will be good for me. I need to crawl before I can walk and I have the unfortunate habit of skipping steps in every area of life, but especially with regard to this. I always hated having to do X amount of sketches in a sketch book for the art classes I took because I didn't like to just sit down and draw something just because. I would go months without drawing anything before an idea would pop into my head and fill me with an all-consuming desire to draw or paint or whatever and then I'd stop again and not touch anything art-related for another long period of months. The obvious problem is that I have stifled myself this way by not practicing I can't make any noticeable improvement.

By working my way through this sketchbook I'm forcing myself to practice more regularly and I'm hoping that practice along with drawing a lot of things I likely never would have on my own, will show marked improvement in the projects I really am passionate about.

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