Abroad in Baltimore #10
Beginning of the End (of the semester)
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As this week comes to a close it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that the semester is almost over! The end of this week marks my 10th at MICA and gosh what a time it’s been so far. While I still have another semester here, this first semester has pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me get a clear gauge of my current skills as well as an idea of where I can grow.
With each completed semester, I feel myself “leveling up” in a sense. I can only smile when I look back on my work in Foundation year and all the hang wringing I went through, hoping there would come a day where all this wouldn’t feel so overwhelming. One of the best parts about being a student is being able to look back just a few months and see how far you’ve come. As an artist, you get the feeling that you’re never really done learning, but it’s still good to take a second to look back and appreciate your growth.
The most shocking amount of growth I’ve experienced has been in my Anatomy drawing class. In just 10 weeks I’ve seen myself go from not knowing an oblique from a fibula, to now coming into every class excited to push myself to a higher level of detail and precision with my figure drawings. This class has helped me fall back in love with the process of drawing and gain a new sense of confidence in my technical ability.
If you’ve been reading this blog from the start, you’ll know that becoming more comfortable with drawing was one of my original goals and it’s so satisfying to feel like I’ve made real progress with it. I remember one of the first weeks of class, I admitted to my professor that I’d kind of been avoiding drawing because I was afraid of finding out I didn’t have any talent for it. Right away she told me, “All that doesn’t matter.” and you know what? She was right. Worrying endlessly about if you’ll ever be good enough tends to get in the way of actually trying to do anything at all.
Something I love about art is that there is no best artist, it’s all subjective. You can have favorites or be more technically skilled, but there is no best. It’s all up to you. Drawing, and pretty much all of art, is a skill, and to get better you really just have to practice. It’s not always easy, but I can tell you if you truly want to be good at something, it’s more than worth it to try as hard as you can.