You Can Do This
While flying in a holding pattern over Minnesota this evening, waiting for the weather to let us land, I decided to do a quick sketch from a photo I took yesterday. I did not realize it but the couple sitting next to me were watching as I sketched. Before we landed we started to chat about our short connections to make it home, and about their trip to Alaska. By this point my sketchbook was put away. One of them casually remarked, “So I guess you’re a professional artist.” The other added “I would do what you do if I could but I don’t have an artistic bone in my body!”
For the record, I started sketching seriously about two years ago. I’ve taken two very short classes since then, totaling eight days of instruction.
You have artistic bones in your bodies, my friends. You can do it just as I do. All it takes is a willingness to keep trying. You have an inner critic — we all do, I think — that tells you you’re no good. It’s trying to help you by saving you from shame. It doesn’t realize that it is motivated by the wrong type of fear. You have nothing to fear. You have a short life. Make some art. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to please other eyes. Let it simply be your modest and imperfect little love letter to this amazing world we inhabit for a little while.
You don’t need special art tools. Just pick up a pencil or a marker or a crayon and make some marks. They’re good enough for today. Maybe tomorrow they’ll be better. Who cares? They don’t have to be. Tomorrow can worry about itself. Just make some marks, and let yourself fall in love again, like you did when this world was all still new to you.
You can do this.
