Drawing Blindly

When I was a kid, my big brother and I would watch a TV show that taught you how to draw.  I don't remember what show it was.  It wasn't Bob Ross.  

Incidentally, I can never seem to remember Bob Ross's name, but if you do a Google search, like I did, for "bushy haired artist," you'll find him on the first page of hits.  You'll also find a picture of Helen Hunt.  That one didn't make sense to me at all.  I digress.  

Anyway, we used to watch this show, and Jake, that's my brother, could draw whatever they taught.  He was, to my young mind, an amazing artist, and I was always so envious that he could take a pencil to paper and draw exactly what he wanted.  I couldn't draw what they taught on the TV show whose name I cannot remember.  In fact, my drawings never ended where they started.  I may have set out to draw, say, a cat, but one wrong line and the whole thing would simply have to be turned into a tree.  I was a very unfocused artist.

Over the years, I have given up drawing.  I simply cannot create something original.  I discovered that my true medium is the written word.  And although my brother is a superior human being on so many levels, maybe even most of the levels, it makes me just a little bit happy to note that on this level, this word putting downing level, I am better than he is.  

However, I'm still unfocused.  People have been telling me for years that I should blog or write a book or have a newspaper column or create pithy quips for catalogues.  The problem is, I haven't found my focus.  I need a hobby, though, and I need some discipline in my life.  Therefore, I have decided to quit waiting for my focus and start writing.  At some point, I may turn this cat into a tree or an elephant or a skyscraper.  Who knows?  I just know that I want to work with words.  Perhaps it will amount to nothing.  Perhaps no one will ever read this.  Perhaps I do not care, as long as I'm writing.  

If you decide to come along with me on this journey to who knows where, then I will ask you to drop your expectations right where you sit and just go with it.  You may read about my mental illness struggles, or a bizarre dream, or something delightful one of my kids said, or my almost romantic involvement with Snickers, or maybe even how I hate to fill my van with gas.  This blog is mostly for me to try and get a little discipline into my art and into my life.  But it's a little for you, too.  Please enjoy, and maybe try drawing a cat and letting me know how it turns out.