I wish I had my Sketchpad

People never cease to fascinate me. Observing them has always been a hobby of mine. I remember, I'd sit on the college stairs with my friend, and just observe every person that goes by. We'd check out the way they talk, walk, dress and act. We'd do that for hours.

We were sometimes assigned certain projects at college. One of them would be to go sit at a local crowded cafe, and take a hundred sketches of different people. Of course a sketch should take no longer than a minute, because if you take longer than that to draw an unsuspecting person, your subject tends to change position before you have a chance to finish your sketch. The result would be a series of incomplete scribbles in the shapes of random human figures. But the good side of it is this: it teaches you to be more observant. It teaches you how to grasp the one thing that makes a person special. The sketches would be very brief, yes. But they would also be very striking. The personality of the subject would just jump out of the page at you. It could be the way they tied their scarf around their neck. Or the way the stood for less than a minute, you catching that moment so quickly on paper. It could be a sketch of a person bending over to tie their shoes, or that of a mother holding a little kid's hand while they wait to cross the street. Sometimes what makes a person special is the shape of their glasses. Sometimes its the enormously high pony tail swinging behind a girl's head.

If you're lucky however, you would manage to find a subject that rarely moved. It could be that of a person reading a book, or an old man that would just be sitting on a bus stop for hours, or a tired little girl who fell asleep in her chair at a restaurant. When you get lucky, your sketches are no longer just a moment caught on paper. You have more time to fill in more details. It turns into a painting. However, If you get that chance, you should always be prepared. An artist should always be ready, because these moments happen once in a lifetime.

I've been sitting at a coffee place for hours now. There were a lot of moments to catch, but I didn't have my sketchpad.

My Sad Oil Painting Experience

I haven't held a brush in five years. I forgot what turpentine smelt like. I forgot how we arranged colors on an artist's palette. However, I was still rather considered a "practicing" artist because my work is still somehow related to my education. I still draw occasionally and do the occasional design. I still read up on art and check out tutorials often. If I'm not painting now, that shouldn't mean that I should stop educating myself about it.

So there lies my mistake. Ever since I graduated I've been giving myself that excuse of I don't really have to paint to work on my skills, I can always just read up on art instead. Deep down I knew that something was wrong.

I'm not going to talk about what suddenly went wrong with my life, or how I suddenly realized I forgot how to paint. The longer I kept away from my canvas, the more difficult it was to get back to it. Like when you haven't talked to a friend in a very long time, when you call them up, you just don't know what to say, and it gets awkward.

I started buying fresh supplies often. I'd arrange them in a box and put them next to my canvas to give it company. Just to make up for the time I spent away.

Last time I looked, my colors had all dried up, and my canvas was still empty. That made my canvas sad, and made me sadder. I decided to just put everything out of sight so I won't have to deal with the guilt of my sad canvas's face looking up at me.

When people think of me as an artist I feel like a hypocrite, because artists paint, and I had abandoned that a long time ago. The only evidence of my past painting experiences were a few paintings hung up against the walls in our flat. That I wasn't even proud of.

So when one of my good friends took a drawing course, came over one day, and insisted that I show her how to oil paint, she really needed me to help her out and was really excited about it, I couldn't turn her down. Out came my dried up supplies, never used palette and brushes, and the white sad face of my canvas. I arranged everything for my friend and laid out some still life for her.

"yalla, paint."

"Show me how"

"At college they didn't show us how, they just told us to paint"

"I don't know how to paint, you have to show me"

At this point I felt bad for her. Her optimism and enthusiasm was too great, If I couldn't help myself with this, I should at least help her. So I grabbed a medium sized brush, dipped it in turpentine and started painting. We took turns painting. Neither of us had fun really. She was too scared, and I was too sorry for myself. I forgot how it was done.

So the result of my sad oil painting experience was this painting that you see. Ugly colors and incomplete objects. But at least my canvas isn't sad anymore.

My Second Day at Work and How Lemonade Saved Me.

I didn't really want to talk about my new job but since I might be wanting to blog about things happening at work often, I decided to come clean and just tell you about it. I started work at a school. Grade two class teacher. Today was my second day at work.

Yesterday was my first day. Umm, duh.

So anyway, because the school is pretty close to where I live, and because my freelancing jobs have pretty much disappeared for a few months now, and because they'll be providing transportation, I decided to go back to the dreaded. And work as a teacher. At a school. Again.

Not that I hate teaching. Nope. I love teaching. It's teaching at a school that I hate. Because I've hated school ever since Kindergarden when I was left alone on the first day. Wearing my sorry pink uniform and crying like I'd lost my mom for good. I've hated school because of the girl with red lips who constantly rolled her eyes at me. I've hated school because of having to get up early and wearing itchy scratchy stockings. I hated it when I needed to raise my hand and ask for permission to go pee, in front of the whole class. I hated maths lessons and the fact that art lessons seemed to last only three minutes. I hated the kids that bullied me and the evil teacher that made me stand up in my chair and wear a hat that spelled "Dunce" when I lost my Science Homework. I hated the "A" students, the goodie goodies, that always managed to get me in trouble with the teachers. I hated the rules.

Yep school wasn't a good time for me.

So naturally I would feel intimidated starting work at a school and having a trip down memory lane. I decided that I would try a different approach this time, and actually try and be a goodie-two-shoes myself. Just to find out what the fuss is about. Like following the rules, getting great appraisals ... and the like.

So because I spent my first day just observing others and trying to learn what to do. I decided that the second day I should go ahead and try and get something done. Naturally, I decided to just do what I do best to try and make an impression. That would be art. So being a classroom teacher for primary two yellow, I was supposed to create a yellow theme to decorate the class. Most importantly, the classroom door. So thinking "yellow", I immediately thought "lemons" and thinking lemons I immediately thought "Lemonade."

And that my friends, is how I came up with the idea of the giant lemonade pitcher with the sliced floating lemons inside that carried the student's names.

Using white, red, green and a lot of yellow Canson paper sheets.. After a lot of snipping and tracing, my masterpiece was complete. Gained so much popularity in so little time, teachers from other staff rooms came to have a look and my giant paper lemonade pitcher with the floating lemons. I had succeeded in bedazzling them all, for now.

I figured that if I keep up my artsy spirit, they would be too blinded to see the truth about me.