drawing

Hands Off!

| Shannon Harrison

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In an effort to get one tiny step closer to the “illustrator” part of my desired author/illustrator title, I signed up for a beginning drawing class offered by my town art league. Although I enjoy drawing and painting, I am indeed a beginner, so I figured I’d fit in. And I did. Sorta. Lemme break it down for you.

I cruised into the first class feeling optimistic. I can DO this. I settled in at one of the giant, ancient, wooden easels and pretended to know how to adjust it. Note: I did not. I placed my brand spanking new sketch pad on my poorly placed easel and immediately noticed it. I had the wrong size. Everyone around me expertly hefted their giant sketch pads onto their easels, and the first thing I thought was LIARS. You are all liars and not beginners. I took a deep breath, straightened my Barbie-sized paper, and decided to get over it and began to make up a story in my head about how I enjoyed small-scale work.

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The instructor dove right in explaining spacing and perspective and distance, and I did what I could to keep up. I do not know the nationality of the teacher, but his sentences came out something like:

you  EYES. they tell you LIE. you look bottle and fruit. you look you PAPER. you no draw bottle and fruit. you WRONG. you got to LOOK more than you DRAW.

Albeit challenging to the ears, he was right. My eyes. They tell me LIE. I worked hard, though, and was eager for Mr. Teacher to come and give me feedback. After some time, he arrived at my easel. I’m sure that what he said would have been helpful, but he did something that left me useless:

HE WROTE ON MY PAPER.

No. Nope. Nope-ity nope-er. Sr. Nopeful of Nope-ington Manor.

Not to be a princess, but…OK maybe I’m a princess, but don’t. write. on. my. artwork. As a former teacher, this really burns my biscuits. Just EXPLAIN it to me. Use your finger. Use a stick. Use a frickin’ magic wand if you want.

Hands off my artwork, bub.

artclass4I managed to get some recognizable shapes by the end of the two hour class. When Mr. Pencil Presser wasn’t nearby, I really did benefit from his instruction, and I enjoyed the class. I even went back the next week! Maybe I’ll share some future work.

The moral of the story is: if you’re wondering if somebody minds if you touch their artwork, or their stuff, or whatever, they really, really might. So…

HANDS OFF!

Itching to Illustrate

| Shannon Harrison

img_0806I’d love to be able to call myself an author/illustrator. I have illustrated, and I have authored, but my confidence in illustrating has a ways to go. I’ve taken one painting class, and I draw and paint at home to calm my brain.

So I signed up for a class that starts in a couple of weeks–Beginning Drawing. The supply list is short: Pad of paper and a few different pencils. Simple enough.

It’s back-to-school time in our town, and last night I joined the throng of shoppers at the local office supply store. I really just needed a power strip, so of course, it was necessary to peruse notebooks, post-it notes, pens and pencils, folders, new laptops, and a host of other treasures.

I hadn’t planned on buying my art supplies there, because we have a wonderful art  supply store in town, but they happened to have what I needed, and besides, it was raining cats and dogs and my daughter and I were procrastinating to avoid swimming back to the car. I selected a 100 page sketch book–the spiral kind, because I like to fold it over and draw on my lap. I also chose perforated paper, in case something is so awful that I need to make it neatly disappear OR so nice that I’d like to share it or frame it or something. Hope springs eternal. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Speaking of progress, my query count is up to 18, a few of which were shared through someone who has contacts in the children’s publishing industry. We press on!

My suggestion to you, dear reader, is this:

Whatever you’re itching to do, get on with it.

You gotta start somewhere.