Drawing From Life ...

I am writing about drawing. Writing on a computer you depend on for WiFi as it comes and goes is one of the most irritating things you can do. I started writing via the key pad, and along the lines that I advised you earlier that you make friends with your writing tools, and along those lines of advice I went immediately onto key pad, and promptly lost my writing piece in which I had explained exactly in totality a very useful piece of writing advice, this is a 're-written piece. As I was saying, i started writing via the key pad and had written a fair way when the whole thing suddenly lost and I had to start again to say the following which I had already said very well. Now i have to try to deduce from my memory what i wrote a moment ago when I was in my writing groove, via this tablet computer - it's a writing friend, but it can also be a pain in the butt, excuse my terminology. To begin ... Drawing is something I do. I have lots of pencil drawings in coloured pencils, and I have drawn regularly since moving to where I live some seven years ago. Some of my drawings I have put on the wall of my living room in my flat, they are not professional drawings, but, however, they are my drawings, I did not depend on anyone for those, and for everything I have, knowledge, everything has been acquired only through me, by me. That won't change and I know I'm me, not by proxy, me, Angela De Freitas. I draw as a way of engaging with an artistic process, in which it can take hours just to complete one drawing. Drawing a tree could take up to three or four hours and at the end of the drawing time I would revise, look at the drawing to see if I had accomplished in drawing what the time I took to draw resulted in. A complete drawing of a tree, leaves, lines, shades, colours. However, I am not a trained artist, and doing anything you feel naturally inclined to do but are unsure of the processes involved is not an easy thing to come to terms with, however, you learn to co-exist with that other half of yourself that is searching with the half of you that is complete in terms of practical achievements. There are intricacies of drawing work I must define, and as I said, these intricacies can take hours to get through. You are working without a practiced artistic knowledge in an artistic discipline where parameters to do with structure, context, perspective are in contest to gain a place in your thinking, which over the years has been honed towards a practical engagement with life rather than an artistic engagement with life. It would no doubt be wonderful to live as a well honed practiced artist, however, that's not exactly an entirely easy thing to-do, either, even when you are practiced, I know this because I sing, I am a singer, although i have taken a rest from singing as i gave away a lot of the music i listened to and practiced along with, and, however, to sing well, again, is like moving a mountain, there are so many turns, high, low, meandering, soft, gentle but strong, and artistically defined to be able to make a sound with your voice which is pleasant and adheres to music. It is not easy being an artist, but at least when you are doing something well because you have a talent for that you can celebrate your accomplishments in the knowledge that when you practice singing, for instance, you sing well, you don't just hum along and sing in and out of tune, you maintain a structure which is essential in singing as it is with almost anything you do in life, artistically or otherwise, if that is who you are and you do so effortlessly, because you are practiced, you have achieved a goal, but this doesn't mean you can slacken in your art, you cannot ever do that, once you have gained a skill you have to maintain it and you become the person you are through your talents, in effect, the sum of your talents, as it were.  I don't draw all the time, continuously, recently I have not drawn for the last three years, but I started to think about drawing again, and felt I should look at disciplines so I purchased a book and with graphite pencils on this occasion i have been practicing structure, and other techniques, really, once you do that it becomes more difficult to go into freestyle and draw another landscape, for instance, if that is the subject you revert to, which heretofore has, for me, I am learning profiles and those techniques, see where it takes me artistically. However, as I said earlier, there are intricacies of drawing work I must define, and as I said, this can take hours to complete. In reality, what my young life equipped me to do many years ago. I was very good at art at school and my art teacher expected me to take art at college and from there to study a degree course at university in art. This of course I did not do. I decided in my young wisdom to take a secretarial course instead, I felt it was a more practical thing for me to do, and I did not wish to put undue pressure on my parent, who had become a single parent by being at home and studying art. We all as a family loved to talk about the things we could do and were good at, to me it was amazing to discover members of my family who i lived with would suddenly pull out a talent from somewhere, an expertise, something they would speak of with some authority, there was respect and politeness, but also there were things we didn't agree with and everyone would shout, I didn't like that, too much clearance of the air, I don't really like that very much, and if i think of those instances I then miss my pets, my cats, Henry and Kitty, who are no longer with me. As I was saying, we all loved to talk about the things we could do and were good at, but when it came to putting those plans into practice in the real world, we knew the only things we could do at the time would be to do something that would procure work, and for me something I could do almost immediately I left college and that was secretarial work. I could have taken a different route in my life to the route I took, if I had accepted the kind offer of my secretarial tutor at the time, Mrs Clayton, of a job in the principal's office, however, it was with the proviso that that particular job would lead to full-time work after the two weeks' work experience, we had all been alocated as part of the course, I thought about that and very quickly In my mind decided that really I must complete my secretarial course which was for two years, I was half way through the first year, and in case the job in the principal's office didn't last, for whatever reason, and I would be be stuck with an incomplete course and no job, I took the difficult route, I think, it would have been useful in its own way to take the job, and I felt perhaps Mrs Clayton worried about me trying to find secretarial work, which can be a competitive field in it's own way, and we both knew I am not and never have been a competitive person, I believe she was being a very good, very kind Samaritan in procuring that job for me, she knew better what i could not see at age seventeen. Lesson learned - there are some wonderful, genuinely kind people in this world and it is always worth remembering that. I could have bowed to her superior wisdom, but I took the view that I knew best about my own circumstances with regards to my place in my family, and making my own decisions, she was thinking in terms of the wider world view experience. It was 1978/79, Mrs Margaret Thatcher was leader of the Conservative Party, and there were no signs in her favouring women in particular in the world of work, and the importance of acquiring work as women with their own worth, she was not a champion of women, in particular, and perhaps my tutor thought that too, and genuinely worried for certain students. If a young person is nice and gentle, you want a situation where that person goes into the world of work at a different kind of pace, and strategies are important for a good tutor to have in place with regards to their students. She was a wonderful person. She was disappointed and even more so when another girl in my ciilass who noticed my hesitation asked me if she could have the job instead and I very magnanimously said yes. Mrs Clayton truly believed I should have taken the job, its true, all of the girls on my course had families who were more than capable and eqipped to find work for their daughters, such advantage i did not have, its true, and its true today, and i abhor anyone taking advantage of me and taking from me what they are in no way qualified to do, and at the time my tutor, aware of those kinds of humanities obviously felt, above all that gaining practical experience in work was as good as gaining the necessary qualifications, and as well as that that I could have studied the course part time, there were all those alternatives and those options, and sadly, I said, no, no thank you, and I completed my course. It is always worth sharing such experiences because I know my readers and writers may be in the same situation as I was in and perhaps by reading about my experience at college you can do well by listening to the wise advice of your betters and olders, I say this in the right sense, you must bow to superior wisdom, but however, the world has changed, do not, for instance be taken in my anyone who says they are a tutor when all they are are paedophiles trying it on with you, do be careful of those types of adults, they do make the rounds, it was never in my experience, but unfortunately in today's society, paedophiles are a reality of life, be careful, and listen to what I am saying to you, so that's fine. My tutor was a very nice person, a nice lady, you need to know who is a good person, and who is not, this is sound advice to my younger readers, and writers. Do be careful not to become involved with older men who may appear to you as a tutor, takes an unhealthy interest in you and then uses you for sex. Do not succumb to such idiots. Angela De Freitas