Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash
“Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the ‘creative bug’ is just a wee voice telling you, ‘I’d like my crayons back, please.”
Hugh MacLeod, Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity
I am on day 67 of The 100 Day Project. A challenge to do something creative, anything really, for one hundred days in a row.
I chose to do drawings with markers. As long as I’ve considered myself any type of artist I’ve loved working with markers.
If I’d gone in the direction that I think my grade school teachers might have been pointing, I would have given up on drawing a long time ago. But there was just something inside that said keep on.
Even when Miss Guthrie told us that you don’t color red and orange next to each other. I remember that, and still don’t get it. I love that color combination.
I kept drawing. Through grade school. Through high school.
Truth is, Miss Guthrie might have been onto something. I didn’t come with a natural talent for drawing.
I could blame her for that as well. I have this memory that, before I started school, I could already write my name with my left hand. But for whatever reason in school I had to be right-handed. My Mother cannot confirm that memory. But it’s a great story for explaining my handwriting.
Always drawing. Always coloring.
And finally, my junior year in high school, I took an art class, and another my senior year.
Available at
The Write Side Shop
(click the pic)
I ended up being President of the Art Club, and at graduation, I even won the Senior Art Award. Although in reality it should have gone to Bobbie. She was much better than I ever was.
The problem was that, while I was always drawing, I was also always writing, and always singing.
Perhaps if I’d had a little more guidance in the seventh grade I could have correctly merged at least two of those. Once on a bored spring-ish afternoon, we decided we would start a school newspaper and somehow I became editor and publisher of “The Scott Stafford Times.” We only had one issue, but I took all our work home and painstakingly wrote and drew it into “final” format.
On a side note, I wonder where the heck Scott is these days?
I digress.
So, in high school, while receiving the senior art award, I also got the award for being the newspaper editor. And that one was really in print. Around the same time, I got some incredible compliments from a director at a choral festival.
So, I applied to two schools. I was accepted to Virginia Tech as an art major. I was accepted at Asbury College (now University) as a music major. I went to Asbury which was, for many, many reasons, the right decision.
But I also ended up with three majors. Just not at the same time. I went from Music, to English to Speech/Communication.
I actually had a conversation with my best friend from college, also Scott by the way, the other night and talked about how, in our generation, it was important to finish on time. Maybe if I thought I could have taken some more time, I might have ended up in the art department.
I’m saying “maybe” too much in this post. Maybe I should stop that.
I started this post with the idea of telling you why I’m doing The 100 Day Project, and I’m getting to that. At least I think I am.
Most artists will tell you they’re a little weird. In fact, we sort of wear it as a badge of honor.
Anyway…back at the ranch…
In spite of taking career paths in many directions I would never have considered in high school…
In spite of knowing that I am a writer and was always meant to be a writer…
In spite of knowing that donning (Dondering?) the red suit is also a calling…
I know that I’m an artist. I have never stopped drawing. In fact, that may be the most consistent thing in my (gulp) sixty-some years.
I’m mostly self-taught, especially with regard to graphic design and publishing…oh, I also edited the college yearbook…
Again, I digress.
All this to day that, two months ago, The 100 Day Project seemed like a fun little challenge. I could do it in a few minutes a day.
But doing the drawings and, more importantly, being vulnerable enough to post them online, well I’ve learned some things.
Much of that I’m still sorting out (I hate the term “processing”).
What I’ve found is that, the more time I spend creating, the more I feel creatively inspired.
And the more project ideas I come up with.
I’ve learned that, while I’m doing the daily drawing, I need to keep a notepad handy.
Sometimes it’s for simple things like “switch the laundry over.”
More often than not it’s a new project idea, or a twist on a story I’m writing, or something else to draw.
I’m enjoying The 100 Day Project for that reason. I will admit, however, that I’ve got another thirty-ish days to go and I’m running out of subject matter.
Or maybe I’m just running out of things I think I could draw well enough to be recognizable.
Louis L’ Amour said:
“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
But, that’s a writing quote and this is a post about drawing…that I’m writing…
Follow my 100 Day Project in Instagram.
American actress and singer, Patti LuPone, was born on this day in 1949
THINGS YOU SHOULD READ
I got a little snarky yesterday at Bearing Drift: Fletcher: Dear RPV, You’re Blowing a Good Thing.
BREAKING: Florida moves to revoke Disney’s privileged tax status
The Post Millennial
DeSantis asked lawmakers on Tuesday to consider eliminating the special taxing district that allows Disney to act as its own form of local government. Read More.
EXCLUSIVE: Top Oversight Republican Demands Twitter Preserve Communications About Hunter Biden’s Laptop
Daily Caller
The top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is demanding that Twitter preserve all communications related to its October 2020 decision to ban a New York Post story based on materials from Hunter Biden’s laptop. Read More.
Alan Lee on Illustrating J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
Literary Hub
I was asked to produce fifty watercolors for the single-volume edition. The question of which episodes I should choose as subjects, which could have occupied me for a good part of the allotted time, was more easily settled; the color plates were to be printed on separate sheets and bound around alternating signatures of text pages, which meant that the illustrations would fall between every thirty-two pages of text. Read More.
7 Ways To Cope Now That You Can’t Force People Around You To Wear Masks
The Babylon Bee
It can be difficult, though, to suddenly see all those triggering human faces after the government coddled you and fed your psychotic delusion and fear for the last two years. Read More.
BORN ON THIS DAY
1816 – Charlotte Brontë, English novelist and poet (d. 1855)
1838 – John Muir, Scottish-American environmentalist and author (d. 1914)
1915 – Anthony Quinn, Mexican-American actor (d. 2001)
1926 – Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and her other realms
1936 – James Dobson, American evangelist, psychologist, and author, founded Focus on the Family
1951 – Tony Danza, American actor and producer
1958 – Andie MacDowell, American model, actress, and producer
BENEDICTION
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
2 Corinthians 13:14
In last week’s Cup of Joe, Joseph Michael talked about “How to Finish One Project (Without Starting Six More)”, Joe recommends taking one project and focusing on it for the next six weeks. Ignore the others.
