beaucoup

I'm actually glad we're writing blogs today because I have a lot to say. Here's what I think about my hobby of drawing:

Would you like to know why I practice so much? It's because when I was very small, maman told me that if I practiced enough I could draw absolutely anything that I could imagine in my head. In a childish determination, I took up the hobby and brought it with me throughout my years. I wanted to do something only I could do, maybe even learn things about my own thoughts in my drawings.

I feel differently now, I know that no one mind is truly unique. Now, I draw not to manifest my fickle ambivalence, but to relate to others. It's only when others appreciate my art that I appreciate it as well. An unloved art is usually trash, anyway.

When I draw, it is still from a series of pictures in my mind. I remember scraps of reality, invent other bits, and paste them together through my fingers. Concept is almost foreign to me for this reason. It's one of the reasons I'm not as good at drawing as I probably could be. It's through drawing I've realized just how fallible my mind is. It's the detours I've learned to take, slowly replacing confusion with steadfast reality, that allows me to progress.

This is why drawing is interesting for me.

I don't like to think of myself as an individual. If someone likes the images it's because they're familiar with them, and my reality is the same as anyone else's. I have functioning eyes, and they are the only creative tools that help me improve. I am in no way unique, to be honest, the thought repulses me. I can't ever detach myself from any living human being on this planet earth. We are all one singular group and I am a small addition. It is all that I am and all that I ever will be.

How do I learn new techniques? It's mostly experimentation. I haven't taken a class in school in two years though I'd like to. Last year, I took a summer class at OSA, where I learned a lot about anatomy and it also really helped me. If you're looking to improve your drawings I highly recommend sketching a nude model or just sketching from life in general. As for techniques, they are usually learned from experimentation. Anyone can tell you a technique, but it's up to you to apply it and the only way to learn how to do it is to try.

Often, someone tells me that they wish they could draw as well as I do and that they probably never will. This is terrible! Everyone can draw, absolutely everyone. And everyone is a different artist. We all have styles, technical skill, and an eye for color, shape, and movement. But practice is the only way we can apply these things to a still piece. It's not only about creating a pleasing aesthetic, it's about expressing your mind. Indeed, each drawing is an impression of the mind's interpretation of one thing or another.

Drawing has changed the way that I think. As I said before, I now realize my mind's weaknesses, and it helps me to improve them. It helps me learn about how I see the world internally, not through the ideas on the paper, but by the inconsistencies in the manifesto itself. Each drawing, then, is a specific flaw, and I learn from each.

Well, that's really everything I can say about drawing. As usual feel free to ask questions though.

My psychotherapist called me existentialist and nihilist.

S: (n) existentialism, existential philosophy, existentialist philosophy ((philosophy) a 20th-century philosophical movement chiefly in Europe; assumes that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves)

S: (n) nihilism (a revolutionary doctrine that advocates destruction of the social system for its own sake)

I think that I agree with her but it really depends on your interpretation of the word "meaning." Meaning, hmmm... I think that humans are nothing more than a biological being, an animal at best. However, I think that in our realization of the universe, of the smallest building blocks that compose us and most of the universe, it is our duty (as a responsible, intelligent species) to investigate these things above all costs.

What do I mean? I mean that there is absolutely nothing more important, meaning-wise, than to discover the structure behind our lives and our world. Personal needs are totally useless in this respect. It's true though, that you could consider this investigation to be a personal need on my part. What I mean is, for once in our lives, ONCE in the history of life, we need to think beyond our conceit.

4,000,000,000 years of evolution, and we are finally on our way to the most important questions in life. 3,000,000,000,000 cells in each of us, triumphing in their evolutionary success, and we are able to contemplate that from which we spring. We must not waste these numbers.