On Art

I'm currently in the period where I haven't officially graduated but already done with those academic requirements. This just means that I have a whole lot of time writing in my blog (yes, I am searching for work but well employers aren't really knocking on my doors). While doing my blogs, I just realized that I'm more comfortable writing (typing?) down ideas and emotions rather than speaking or being artistic about them. Now I know that there are a whole lot of ways to be artistic so to make it clear, what I mean by artistic I guess is drawing, painting, sketching and the like.

Which is quite a shame actually. For some reason I really do enjoy drawing and painting. I guess I can say that I would actually feel much more satisfied if I can come up with a good drawing/painting rather than a good written work. My friends chide for me this, saying that the works I did for my classes in third year (CS 175 and CS 176) are nice, and are in a sense artistic but there really is something quite different with being able to come up with a work that had no aid for filters, or the undo function.

I joined a class during my last semester in school called Introduction to Drawing and Painting, in the hopes of trying to increase my actually give me skills in those things. But well, while I did improve a bit, I still find myself seeing that the desire is there but unfortunate, my innate talent does not match with the desire.

I try to work on it through classes, tutorials and friends but sometimes I can't help but realize that artistic skills (as with other talents) are not simply things that can be attained through effort (but it helps a lot, I think I got a B in the painting class just through professor kindness and sheer effort) but also has that God-given component in it as well. I guess I'm stuck in this frustrating cycle of doing something that I like but not being able to show an output that would satisfy that like.

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I got into thinking about art because I saw all these art materials that I bought for class. I was cleaning my room and then came upon a stash of watercolors, colored pencils, pastels and a sketch pad. So feeling artistic, I just drew, simply drew. I was finished and was packing my stuff when I stumbled upon the Free DVD from the Faber-Castell colored pencil and after watching it, I decided to color the drawing I did.

I came up with this:

This image actually presents it way better than seeing it in real life. Hehe as with all my "artistic endeavors", they look better when they're smaller or farther away from the viewer.

I have no idea where that face came from... Probably from watching death note and looking at various Visual-Kei artists. Finishing the image depressed me quite a bit because looking at the finished product made me realize how I just don't have the touch.

I was about to put away all my art materials when I remembered a joke I told a friend about me drawing a picture of her. So I decided to just keep some pencils (an hb, a 6b and a 2b) and a page from the sketch pad. And then sketched. I finished the pencil sketch this evening and looking at it, I saw that I actually improved. I compared the drawing to the one I did for class which was of Utada Hikaru and well at least now, it has a semblance of the person I was trying to draw.

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I guess tonight was just one of those moments where you learn more things about yourself. While I understand that I do not have the innate gift that God seemed to have provided to a whole lot of my friends (which I admit makes me envious), I also gained the feeling that I do not suck as much as I think I do.