What's in a Pencil?

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to draw.

I still have drawings from when I was in the 1st grade. They include my dream-house on the beach. Dogs. People with abnormally large heads. As far as I can tell, they look thoroughly 1st grade.

Drawing is something that I've never really been able to stop. I go through spurts of intense sketching, but even when I am not in the midst of one of those times, I can't help but doodle. My class notes are heavily graffitied, and I often keep them around simply for those doodles.

I don't know what it is about tracing that perfectly sharpened pencil along the slightly rough paper that makes me so happy. Why should it calm, satisfy, and bring me joy to apply and relieve pressure on said pencil to create shading in a sketch?

Why do I enjoy something that really brings me a great deal of frustration? Why can't I get the eyes or the nose right? Why are teeth impossible? Why do I feel that I always get stuck with the same technique? Why, oh why, is painting soo difficult?

Why do I sit and stare at a piece of paper, holding my pencil at the ready, and find no inspiration? Why do I always look for the perfect photograph to transfer into work of my own hand?

Most of these drawings belong in the "I'll finish someday" category. I usually start out really excited about a project, and then I reach some sort of obstacle. One of those frustrations. And then I stop. And my picture stays in the book waiting to be complete.

I suppose I love drawing because whatever moment, whatever emotion is conveyed in a photograph, I feel I am able to experience in a new way. A deeper way. For example, when I sketched this picture of Jered and me, I got to relive the beautiful moment when he held my face in his hands and told me he loved me.

Or in this one, I was able to see the smile and imagine the laugh that I love so much. I was able to reflect on the joyful heart of my friend, Bek.

The emotion goes through me head the entire time I'm sketching. And then, in some fantastic way, it's as though it travels through my arm and my hand, somehow travels through the pencil, and comes out the end of my pencil. Maybe others can see that. Maybe not. I guess that's why sometimes I'm shy about my work...


So what is it about this whole drawing thing that I love, no matter how angry I get because of it? Drawing takes me to a different place. A place where I can escape the now, relive precious moments, focus on someone, wonder at my blessings, express frustrations and other emotions, and create a new way to appreciate memories and people.