Drawing is one of those things that I’ve always sort of wanted to but never quite got round to. Partly I didn’t know how to go about it and partly I “wasn’t any good at it.”
It was one of the many things that they didn’t teach you at school. We did do drawing, we just weren’t taught it. Some people seemed able to draw naturally, I didn’t – with the result that I always got C– for my art homework along with a snotty comment from the art mistress.
I decided to try learning to draw a couple of years ago.It was part frustration and part inspiration.
The frustration came from going round an exhibition of British Folk Art which, being and exhibition didn’t allow photography – though how a 200 year old wooden boot manages to be copyright I shall never understand. As these were fairly simple items, it struck me that I could have a go at drawing them.
The inspiration came from the same exhibition – this wasn’t great art in the sense that the contents of the National Gallery are great art – it was art made by ordinary people – sometimes a bit crude, but you could see what the picture was about and. One part of the permanent (i.e. photograph-able) exhibition of folk art at Compton Verney House is a collection of drawings in ball point pen of one man’s memories of his home town.
Not quite a “Eureka!” moment more an “I could do that” moment. So I got a drawing pad, a few pencils and a book of instruction. I’ve had goes at drawing vases and teacups on and off over the last couple of years and I’ve also been learning a bit about art from TV, books and exhibitions. And yesterday I geared myself up to go to an “all comers” drawing lesson.
We were given 5 minutes instruction on the proportions of the human face and told to draw one full face picture and one three quarter face picture. I flunked the second task, but was quite pleased with the outcome of the first – not great art and not as good as some of the other pictures around me, but it looked like a face and would probably allow the subject to be picked out of a police lineup.
After Work 
You draw well Helen, it’s a gift combined with a skill. I was taught to draw and was never particularly good at it, but I envy people who can sit and capture a place or an event or a person with a few lines and a bit of shading. A skill worth honing.
I think honing is the key word here. It seems to be very hard to shake the “handwriting” of how you draw. When I look at what drips from my pen, brush or other implement now, I can see things that the “me” of 30+ years ago could probably pick out as being by my hand.
However, being a little more mature than my teenage self, I feel more confident about what I produce. I rarely get near to what I first set out to achieve but I can now appreciate what I produce alongside what others produce. To be honest, if you look at the work of “professionals” and “masters”, they aren’t flawless.
Having fairly recently got back to visual creativity outside of the digital realm after most of those 30 or so years inbetween, I think the key thing is not to give up. You should keep practising and try returning to the same subject (even if just from the photo) in a year or so. I expect you would find something that is still distinctively a piece by HB and yet one that you feel is distinctively ‘better’.
Agree that maturity is a factor here – you’re not under the same pressure to “get it right” – it was interesting to see what other people were doing – all different, but all recognisable as the same subject.