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Sketchbook as Memory-Keeper: Sketchbook Thursdays
Is it Thursday again already? I hope a few of you pulled out your sharpened pencils and your old sketchbook–or ordered a new one (click here to see which one I love)–and did some sketching this week. One of my goals in our homeschool has always been to make sure that my kids learned how to draw. I’m an artist myself, but that’s not why I’ve wanted my kids to learn how to draw. It was more about my mom and dad, I think, and their abilities.
When I was a kid, I worked at my dad’s drugstore after school and on Saturdays. I mixed chocolate malts with a malt machine; I made cherry phosphates with syrup and carbonated water; I served cups of coffee for 10¢ each; I used a cash register to ring up purchases and make change. Yup. That kind of drugstore, and yup. I’m that old.
The regulars would come in for coffee at certain times during the day: I think there was a 10 o’clock coffee crowd, and a noon crowd, and then a 3 o’clock coffee group, too. (Dad–you can correct me if I didn’t get that right.)
If my dad wasn’t tremendously busy up in his prescription loft, he’d sit down for a spell (we used the phrase “for a spell” in those days) and enjoy a cup of coffee (served in cream-colored cups with a little diamond pattern on the side) with his customers. Invariably they’d talk about something or other (a broken tractor? An engine problem? Identity of a garden pest?) that would demand a visual.
My dad could draw. He’d pull a pen out of his pocket, and jerk a white paper napkin or two out of the steel napkin holder, and he’d draw whatever he was talking about. The men would watch and begin to nod. Yup. Understanding. Clarity. Problem solved.
This type of drawing wasn’t fine art. It was utilitarian. It was a way to communicate. Like those ancient cave drawings found in the caves in France (and all over the world!) describing the week’s hunt: it was ultimately practical and efficient. I suppose there were other men around the table who could draw, but it was always my dad who did the drawings.
Of course it must have given my dad such pleasure to be able to communicate with a pencil and a napkin that way, too. 🙂
Cave paintings from Lascaux, France: image from Wikipedia
I contend that–even in this day when you can Google anything and everything–learning how to draw is still a very important skill that should be learned by every child. By every person! Children draw naturally and enthusiastically, I’ve noticed, until a certain age–7? 8?–when they start to notice how other people are drawing. Invariably, a friend or companion will do a drawing they like better than their own. Then, they freeze up. They get self-conscious. They decide that they are “no good at drawing” and they stop.
My goal has always been to give my kids the skills so they wouldn’t stop drawing. I think I succeeded–at least, so far. 😉 I’ve still got two kiddos at home . . .
My mom could draw, too, though I think we kids kept her too busy to do much of it. I do remember quite fondly watching her draw a hen and baby chicks from a children’s book that we were reading together, and how entranced I was by her recreation of such a beautiful image.
These two memories, I suppose, are what fueled my desire to make sure that learning to draw was at the top of the list of what I wanted my children to learn in our home school. We don’t spend a lot of time drawing together, but a few minutes a day is all that’s really necessary to keep those creative juices flowing. I described our drawing routine here.
But what I want to point out today is the memory-keeping aspect of drawing a bit every day.
This is what I do when I look through my old sketchbooks: I smile, remembering many things that–had I not drawn them–I never would have a memory of them.
This, for example: little Mack went through an intense car-interest phase, when he was just a toddler. He could identify most major makes of vehicles before he was two years old! And he’d lie down on the floor and go into kind of a trance when he played with certain cars. I drew just a quick sketch of it here.
I had always intended on doing a more detailed drawing, but I never did. But I’m glad I made this little sketch.
This is what I do not do: I don’t critique my drawings. I don’t find fault with my drawings, and you, Gentle Reader, should not find fault with yours. Your sketchbook is not a reflection of what a great artist you are, or not. It’s a visual record-keeper of your days, your moments. Things that you love. People that you adore. There you go. That’s my little encouragement for you today, if you are joining me and doing a bit of drawing every week. Every day is even better. 🙂
A few more sketches for you that have jogged my memories:
Here we are in drawing class: Andrew always was too hard on himself (note the anguished expression), little Bethany was quiet and studious, Matthew always sprawled his long limbs out everywhere, and stuck his lower lip out when he was concentrating.
I made Timothy sit still for a few minutes so I could draw his beautiful little face. Here he was 8. (He’s 20 now.) And we used to keep our new chicks in the house for the first few weeks, and they were easier to draw that way.
Here’s a sketch of Amalia and a favorite dolly, when she was nearly 4.
And a watercolor sketch of some nasturtiums from my gardens–primarily interesting to me because of those lovely stems. . .
By the way . . . we have a new kitten at our house. She bears watching. That’s the gerbil cage she is clinging to.
Her name is “Lolo.”
Happy sketching today, Gentle Readers!
*hugs*
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Read moreIntroducing . . . Sketchbook Thursdays
This post contains affiliate links which (you know the drill) may benefit me in a miniscule way (not to mention my blogging prowess) if you click on them. So–click away, chickie! 🙂
I’ve been working on this blogging thing for some time now–actually, for over two years! I love it! It is fun, and challenging, and interactive, and creative. It suits me. But there are a few things that have fallen by the wayside while I’ve been putting effort into blogging. My banjo playing! Cleaning house! *cough* And picking up a pencil and paintbrush and drawing and painting the world around me.
The kids and I draw together nearly every day during school. We trade off reading our Bible lesson and our current read-aloud. Amalia reads, Mack and I draw. I read, Mack and Amalia draw. You get the idea. In doing this–even though my sketchbook may only represent a few minutes a day of drawing–I’ve filled several sketchbooks, and I treasure them. I’ve got drawings of all the kids when they were younger, cute things that they said, drawings of our place and our things and our animals and our lives. It’s not great art–it’s daily note-taking, journaling, in a visual sense.
This is the little book that I’ve used to teach all my children to draw. It offers over 200 sequential little drawings to learn, and it takes kids from drawing “flat” to drawing with perspective and values. We’ve bought several copies of it over the years (I’ve been homeschooling now for nearly 25 years, yikes!) because now and then a copy would get lost and I didn’t want to go for long without one.
By the way, even if you’re an adult and have always wanted to learn how to draw, this little book is a great way to start. Each lesson can be accomplished in 10 minutes or less, I’d say, and all you need besides this little book is a really nice sharp pencil and a great sketchbook. Speaking of great sketchbooks . . . this one is my hands-down favorite:
Even just looking at this link, makes my fingers itchy to start on a new one. The paper in this sketchbook, you see, is nice and thick and has some tooth (artist’s term for texture) but just a bit, so you can use it for pencil, ink, and/or watercolor. It’s just the right size, too. It really is the best sketchbook. And speaking of watercolor painting . . . (gosh, I didn’t mean to write this much, but you got me started, Gentle Reader!) . . .
THIS book is a great resource for learning how to keep a day-to-day sketchbook with your pencils and watercolor paints. I’ve painted out of mine–there are bite-sized lessons, again, that can take just a few minutes a day–for years. It is dog-earred and paint-splattered and scribbled in. I’ve got a bachelor’s degree in fine art, but I was never satisfied with my watercolor painting ability, and I’ve learned lots from this book.
I just love it. I think it’s out of print now, but it’s super cheap to pick up as a used book. The title is The Joy of Watercolor: A Complete Course in Watercolor Using your Sketchbook as Workbook, by David Millard.
I realized the other day that my blogging has taken over so much of my life that I hadn’t been drawing or painting at all. Even our Bible study and reading time was often rushed. I had to look awhile to find my treasured current sketchbook. I sat down and had Amalia do the reading that day and I drew a houseplant, a succulent that my mom had given me and that I liked particularly, across the room.
Making this little drawing–it probably took me less than 15 minutes–opened up a longing in me that I had forgotten about. A longing to produce art. I wondered, miserably, how I could fit in a few minutes every day to draw, and paint, and I decided that I just had to.
Yeah, so running a household and homeschooling and building a blog (all of which I love) takes time. But art is important. Making art is a quiet longing for me that I realize that I should not ignore. I am a fairly quiet and unselfish person (no comments, kids!) but I shouldn’t be quiet and unselfish about a gift that God gave me: God gave me the gift of seeing, and being able to put down on paper what I see, and immense pleasure when I do so.
I’ve always harbored the smug feeling that God made sensitive types, like artists, for His own pleasure–who else will stop and notice how breathtaking those iridescent bugs on the cabbages are? Or the thirty shades of pink and orange in the sunset? Or the beautiful way that the weeping willow tree sways in the wind? I see these things and I praise God for caring enough about us to provide a constant and changing visual feast!
So I made that little drawing of a houseplant and I left it on the table for days, and every time I entered the room, I’d stop and admire it. I miss drawing! And I realized how I could mesh my blogging with my need to make art: I’ll have a day every week where I am not working on my blog, per se, but I’ll publish some drawing that I’ve done the week before, or even a page of my sketchbook. That’ll be my post for that day. Easy, quick, and this will leave more time for my drawing.
Here’s the drawing of the little plant that got me to make time for drawing again . . .
Maybe someday I’ll have enough drawings to make prints, and then make them available in my (soon-to-be-announced) blog store? The possibilities, as they say, are endless. 🙂
I went on, as is my wont, with doing some drawings of little Mack in his Taekwondo class, and also writing down a fun passage from Kipling that made Mack and me giggle . . .
And with that, I’ll encourage you, if you have art longings, or mountain-climbing longings, or deep musical desires, to turn off the ‘pooter today and put some time in–even if it’s just 20 minutes–feeding that part of you that God put there.
And even (holding my breath) sharing them with me, from time to time? I’d love to see your drawings, too!
*hugs*
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