Rediscovering my Hobbies

Everybody has things they did a long time ago, that got lost in the shuffle. In my case, it's drawing. I was always pretty good at drawing, at least everybody always told me I was. 

The main thing is, I enjoyed doing it, and like most kids, I drew my share of pictures over the years. In high school I continued with art classes. I probably should have made a portfolio and gone to art school, but I wasn't that serious about it. I was more serious about writing. 

Through the ensuing years, I've done ceramics, worked with clay, painted with acrylics-mainly on those little cardboard boxes they sell at the craft store. I used to make magnets out of postage stamps and other little pictures. Those were really cute and useful. I still have them somewhere. 

There are dozens of other types of crafts I enjoy doing or would like to learn. But this week, I went back to my roots and rediscovered how much fun it is to draw. Just on a whim, I drew a picture of Jimmy, my cat. It came out OK considering it was done without really trying that hard. The outline was ball point pen and I used colored pencils to color him in. 

His head is a little misshapen, and his paw on the right side is too skinny. I wanted to keep his whiskers white, so I had to use paint, and so his whiskers are too fat. But I still think its a pretty good likeness of him.

Later that night, I used a nice picture of Lily to draw her portrait, and I was surprised that it came out so well considering how out of practice I am. I always draw freehand. 

I managed to capture her personality, but if you look at the photograph, you can see a lot of differences.

There are devices you can buy to project images onto the paper to help you out, but that might be considered cheating, at least it seems like it to me. After I was done with Lily, I decided to try a scenic picture. I went on the porch and tried to copy what I saw across the street: the two big pine trees, and the street itself. I have to admit, I have a real problem with perspective. Even though I was drawing what I saw, it sure wasn't in the proper proportion. I was attempting to show the other street in the distance, and other houses and trees. When it didn't work, I just went with artistic license, and turned it into another scene that also didn't come out right. I made the street a dirt road, but it kind of went up and stopped into a dead end. I tried to fix it by putting a stone wall up. It looks pretty, but it definitely doesn't make sense if you are paying attention.

This is what I was trying to draw. You can't see the other large pine tree in this photo.

I decided to make the house red. 

Just for fun, I took pictures as I went along.  At this point, I was undecided about what to do on the left. I was just going to cut the page and leave it out, but I was having so much fun coloring I decided to try and fix it, and I could still cut it if it didn't come out OK.

Here is the finished picture. Do you think it looks OK? 

If you have a hobby you forgot about, it's never too late to go back and start up again. You might just be surprised at how well you do, and how much fun you have!