It's amazing how only two days of school can enlighten you. I've only been to my digital art class once since school started, (I have Digital Art on Mondays and Wednesdays; and Visual Art on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and I have already begun to work on awakening the imagination and creativity that was dormant in my mind for far too long. I can't even remember the last time I got out a paper & pencil and began to draw before going back to college this week. It's almost as if I had built a wall or barrier to block that side out of me since I grew out of childhood. I can't really say why... I used to LOVE drawing when I was a kid... constantly sketching and drawing Marvel Comic characters... I'm even embarrassed to admit that I once drew a portrait of Jason Priestley from 90210 when I had a crush on him back in those silly pre-teen days... but what I drew is not the point... it's the simple fact that I drew and enjoyed doing it. Somehow, it all got lost as I got older, but just one day at my digital art class sparked that old memory in me. I came across such an interesting section in my Visual Art textbook, which talked about early encounters with the artist within. I quote:
Young Children often demonstrate an intuitive sense of composition. Unfortunately, we lose much of this intuitive sense of balanced design as we begin to look at the world from a conceptual, self-conscious point of view. Most children who have been given coloring books, workbooks, and pre-drawn printed single sheets become overly dependent on such impersonal, stereotyped props. In this way, children lose the urge to invent unique images based on their own experiences. Without ongoing opportunities for personal expression, children lose self-confidence in their original creative impulses.
Children begin life as eager learners. If they are loved and cared for, they soon express enthusiasm for perceiving and exploring the world around them. Research shows that parents' ability to show interest in and empathy for their child's discoveries and feelings is crucial to the child's brain development. Before the age of one, and well before they talk, babies point tiny fingers at wonderful things they see. Bodies move in rhythm to music. Ask a group of four-year-olds "Can you dance?" "Can you sing?" "Can you draw?" and they all say, "Yes! Yes!" Ask twelve-year-olds the same questions, and they will too often say "No, we can't." Such an unnecessary loss has ominous implications for the spiritual, economic, social, and political health of society.
Most abilities observed in creative people are also characteristic of children during interactions with the world around them. What becomes of this extraordinary capacity? According to John Holt, author of 'How Children Fail', "We destroy this capacity above all by making them afraid - afraid of not doing what other people want, of not pleasing, or of making mistakes, of failing, of being wrong. Thus we make them afraid to gamble, afraid to experiment, afraid to try the difficult and unknown."
Feels good to rekindle with an old flame...
Photo taken with my Canon 5d Mark II
50mm f/1.4
