Gratitude 68

I spend a lot of time on my art.  I don't paint a lot these days, but I carry my sketchbook and pens and pencils everywhere and often spend up to three or four hours a day on making art.  It's better than taking drugs.  Cheaper, too.  And more productive.

I don't paint to get high, by the way.  I don't draw to get high, either, nor can I say that making art produces in me a noticeable altered state.  The process of making art is very calming.  Why?  I don't know. 

It could be that I'm just giving expression to one of the most essential facets of our humanity.  Human beings are born to create.  Not just procreate, but to actually make things, create things, give visible expression to ideas and inner realities.  We seem to be the only animal that does this.

It is really incredibly satisfying, this process of making art.  It really doesn't matter that I am no longer showing or selling my work.  I never became an artist in order to become famous or make money.  In fact, I never intentionally became an artist.  All I started doing was painting, and eventually drawing and it's wonderful.  It is one of the few things I can simply do and do and keep on doing without getting bored to extinction.  While in Costa Rica two months ago I was often spending up to eight hours a day making art.  It did not feel like work.

I never seem to run out of ideas for making art.  Focussing mainly on tropical birds makes it easy.  All I have to do is a little research and there is a new idea.  It might be a bird I've already interpreted many times over.  It still always comes out a bit different: different colours in the background, different lines, different shading, varied compositions.  It's always original and all I have to do is get out my sketchbook and my embarrassment of riches for a variety of coloured pencils and pens and Bob's your uncle.

I have resigned myself to the idea that I might never show or sell any of my original art again.  I don't care.  This is also why I have gone from painting to drawing.  I can produce far more work without having to worry about how to store it.  It also feels somehow easier to gift my drawings than my paintings.  I don't think drawings are taken quite as seriously as paintings on canvas and so people are a little more relaxed about accepting them as gifts.

I suppose I could also publish a coffee table book of my best drawings.  All I need is money and a few connections.  Anyone out there willing to help?  No advice please, just help me do this.

Thank you, Gentle Reader.