Picking Up Where I Left Off 20 Years Ago

Two days from now, a children's book that I illustrated will be released on Amazon.com! I will post a link later when Traveling Bob is available. But for now I am going to share how I began drawing.

I can remember being very little and sitting at the kitchen table at Mamaw's house with a huge sheet of paper and several colors of finger paint. My sister, Shaina, and I splattered and smeared paint across our blank canvases with reckless delight. Running my fingernails across the slippery surface of the paper, I made little claw marks that I thought looked sort of like rainbows. After theses pieces of "modern art" dried, Mamaw hung them upstairs it the room the cousins all knew as The Dusty Room. This hallowed place became the permanent home of the artistic fruits of all of the grandchildren. Mamaw provided us with paper, colored pencils, markers, and an old cash register--which inspired us to begin charging admission. The Dusty Room was transformed into an art museum, and Mamaw became the first patron of my art.

The Dusty Room's transformation to an art museum was partly inspired by the local Michelson Museum of Art in town. Summer classes for children were offered there, and I remember pouring over the course schedule with Shaina and Momma. We took drawing and clay sculpting classes, among other topics. The museum also showed us a few of the exhibits when we were not in the class room learning.

However, in the Tumultuous Move of 1996, the summer art classes ended for us, as well as my gymnastics class that I went to every Friday. The move from Marshall to Harleton swept all of my career aspirations away...My Olympic Dream was crushed at the age of eight, I never attended another art class, and it was all because of the arrival of a baby brother. One might say I was quite bitter about the turn of events, considering I barely tolerated being a big sister until I was nineteen and living in the dorms as a college freshman. But in spite of the change of address, I continued drawing. (I never did do another back handspring, though.) Every birthday and Christmas I received sketchbooks, pencils, and other art supplies. I recall one birthday, a friend of my aunt's gave me the tool to combine my two (current) life obsessions: Lee J. Ames's Draw 50 Horses book. Pouring over each step-by-step page, I traced them before I mastered the technique. By the time I graduated high school, I could draw a horse quite well!

Doodling around on paper is fun, but what was I to do with my life? Not once did I consider an art degree. So I set my cap upon becoming a pilot. I had never even been on an airplane before, but flying sounded beautifully fantastic, and I heard that it paid well. So I began college at LeTourneau University. Flying a plane itself was wonderful. Learning about meteorology for pilots was fascinating. But everything else was incredibly stressful, and I was very far behind my classmates. Many of them had been flying longer than they had had their driver's license. They had pilot parents. But mostly, I lagged behind on account of my poor foundation in math and science. And I simply did not learn things fast enough to meet the rigorous standards.  And so my new found love became my first heartbreak. I became, once more, an outsider to a world I had just discovered. The friends I had begun making in flight school were suddenly cut off from me. The university had just moved the entire school of flight off campus to a new facility at the airport, so those people I looked up to--I never felt like an equal--were now beyond me in every possible way. I still try to keep in touch with them in the least stalker-ish way, but they fly for a living, and I can only sit on the ground reminiscing.

In this state I drifted through the rest of my college career, no rudder and with badly damaged sails. I scraped by with an Interdisciplinary Studies degree in history, English literature, and biblical studies, but I had no career path. Getting married shortly before completely leaving the flight school probably saved me from dropping out of college entirely. I decided I needed something, some kind of work. I started a Mary Kay business, and for about a year I puttered. Then I decided to throw everything I had into it, and I became very, very busy. So busy, in fact, that I decided my hobby days were over. No more hand quilting, minimal gardening, and my drawing had dried up when I started college. I had also abandoned music, which is one of my greatest regrets of my time in college. I can't even read music any more. All of this saddened me, but I figured it was just a part of life.

But then I nearly lost my sight when the retina of my left eye tore in November of 2013. The right retina wasn't doing much better, with several holes in it that had to be stabilized with laser surgery or they too, would have resulted in tears. Through the years, I had slowly and unknowingly been barring myself from the things I was actually good at, and it took a near catastrophe to realize it. I was an artsy person trying to be a technical person. When that failed, I tried throwing myself into running a business in a field that scared me...cosmetics! I was learning, but I was also casting aside the things that I was truly passionate about. Almost losing my sight made me slow down and reevaluate my motives. I was still chasing airplanes.

During the recovery of my surgery I had time to think. I was bored, prone to depression, and restless. I never went back to my Mary Kay business with the same vigor, but I still do a little of it. I began reading books for fun again, as well as my other hobbies. Titus would get me sympathy gifts when I was feeling particularly miserable, and one of those presents was the book Color by Victoria Finlay. She fascinated me with her descriptions of exotic places and intrigued me with the history of paints. Watercolors in particular caught my interest. I hadn't tried them since I was very young, and I had hated it. But I did some research, and came to the conclusion that the only people who said watercolors were difficult were those who did not work with the medium. I learned that a good brush is essential. So, armed with a coupon, I walked into a craft store and bought a small set of brushes (which had decent reviews online) and some student grade Prang watercolors.

I had been dabbling in watercolors for about a month when Mrs. Cheryl, who was like a second mom to me, asked if I would be interested in an illustration project. I hadn't seriously tried to draw anything for several years. I accepted the challenge, and I feel like I have finally picked up where I left off twenty years ago, an eager student, ready to explore museums and learn new things.  I don't know if I'll ever "make it big" as an artsy person, but it is rather rewarding to see my name on the cover of a book. :)