Friday 3 June 2011

No such thing as can't

K: "Mummy, when I grow up I want to be an artist"
Me: "Oh? Why's that, then?"
K: "I just love painting."


For a long time, I've lived by the maxim "There's nothing I can't do, just things I haven't mastered yet". I really do believe that there's nothing you can't learn*. Ok, so I will say "I can't knit" or "I can't run" or "my sewing machine scares the crap out of me" or "I can't draw". But you know, I can. I just haven't been bothered to do so as yet. As time goes on, though, the need to be able to draw is increasing. It's becoming one of those bloody annoying things you have to get round to because you can't fly any higher without that particular skill. I have a major problem with "art for art's sake", mostly because finding the point of art - in my head, at least - requires a whole lot of space and time I don't have, and that's been one of my "not learning to draw right now" hurdles.

I'm aiming to fix - or at least, improve - on this. I can draw. In a very untutored, unsophisticated way, yes, but I can make marks on paper and that's a start. So I'm doing a 30-Day Drawing Challenge along with some of the ladies from Crafteroo (Flickr group here).

Day 2: Favourite Animal

I suck. No two ways about it; I don't know the first thing about drawing. But I'm willing to try, and that makes all the difference.


* Ok, smartass, maybe you can't learn to sing if you're tone deaf or something, but I'm talking about things for which you're physically equipped here. Being mentally equipped - shedding the laziness, the inertia - is a state of mind which most of us are in denial about.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

:)
No such thing as tone deaf either. Well at least, only very rarely:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12127843

Caroline said...

Exactly what I mean by "physically equipped", you see - most of us just need practice and tuition to overcome mental blocks (and my "can't draw" is a huge one!). "I can't sing because I am unable to perceive pitch" or "I can't draw because I can't make marks on paper" is a very different thing to "I can't sing because I've never stretched my vocal cords" or "I can't draw because I'm too scared to make something crap".