I need to clarify. Some people knowing I've scribbled and loved art since I was little would say it was an untruth: I've been "doing my craft" for only a year and a half?
It is true that I could never stop drawing pictures, that I found a discarded cookie box that looked like it would make a pretty frame, drew Daddy's picture for his birthday and was embarrassed when he put it on the curtain rod above his bed.
When I was 15, I saw my first chalk talk and was hooked. From then, everything I did was in preparation for doing my own chalk talk someday. And in college, I took chalk art for an elective. The class instructor probably never had a student before who had prepared and looked forward so much to his class. Actually, I doubt he ever knew.
Although I don't claim to be a Michaelangelo, da Vinci, or Rembrandt, the art form of chalk talk was perfect for me because it combines the elements of music (which I love but am not extraordinarily talented), writing (again, I like but am not exceptionally gifted), along with visual arts (I am sounding like a broken record...) to relate Biblical truth (my heart's love!) in a way to make lasting impact.
When we were getting ready to leave for the field as missionaries, when my sisters and I were asked to speak at churches, we often included in our program a chalk talk. A friend in college who had a heart for missions built me a portable easel for it. The Lord allowed me to do about a dozen chalk talks, many in the U.S. before I left for Japan, and about half a dozen with the believers here, before back problems erupted forcing me to abandon chalk art.
So when I say, "a year and a half at my craft", I am not referring to any of this. Because after I married and had a family, there was a blank of about 35 years before wondering if I could think about drawing again...drawing seriously, not just doodling or scribbling cartoons and stick figures here and there.
May 11, 2021, I took up my pencil and decided to see if I could draw, and tried sketching a frog in the pond. After several hundred drawings of many things, I proceeded from color pencil to markers and then this past Feb. to paint (I've decided however, that's much too expensive), and Oct. 2022, I attempted my first portrait.
So it's not like I haven't had any exposure whatsoever to drawing before a year and a half ago. It's that my experimentation with serious drawing began then, It's then I began viewing videos concerning drawing, and it feels like, anyway, that's when I "began" really drawing. I know 62 years old , which is how old I was, is really, really late, but "Grandma Moses" was 77 when she started, wasn't she?
And I'm not planning to become a professional artist like she was, just want to use art to have people look up at God and see how very blessed we are to be loved by Him. You don't have to start early to do that, right?
* * * * * * *
This post got too long. I think I felt like I was boarded up inside the house reading a good book while a strong typhoon was raging outside. Speaking of books--I finally got to that "apples" chapter, skipped it since I just read it, so am on p. 427 now! Cheer me on to the end of the book's 614 pages!
