I was a child who was often ill, and my “group” immunity did not develop in kindergarten, since I did not go there for a day. At first, there were no seats. Then, when we were informed that I was expected in the group, there was no point in moving from the boarding school to anywhere else. Grandma taught me a lot, including reading and drawing. I think that’s why I easily mastered the elementary school program until the first grade.
I had great respect for water coloring books, alchemy and the magic of pure water, which, when in contact with paper, colored it in the right color according to the meaning and idea of the author. In the late 80s, I didn’t have reusable coloring pages, so I trained my intuition on each new page, guessing the color.
I learned socialization together with the “inflammation of cunning” in elementary school. If you didn’t want to go, then your body temperature rose to indecent proportions, however, most often once. The greenhouse was surrounded with increased care and filled with raspberry jam, books were read aloud and board games were played.
When I was alone in the bedroom, I practiced my imagination. How many interesting things could be seen in the silhouettes of clouds outside the window, shadows on the ceiling and in my favorite ornaments on the wallpaper and carpet. My imagination drew fantastic worlds, and this became an incentive to recover the next day and take up pencils, paints, pastels and even plasticine, with which I painted so actively that calluses appeared on my fingers. Honey watercolor tempted her to try it, but oil paints, on the contrary, seemed very unfriendly.
Dad had an engineering degree behind him and, of course, was an excellent painter. When he was young, he painted and sculpted wonderfully, so my “creative successes” caused him to feel overwhelmed and speechless, but not out of admiration.
“Manka, I just don’t have the words,” Dad said and continued my comprehensive development. It was he who taught me how to embroider and do push-ups on one hand. The artistic potential was doomed to be imprisoned in me.
“Don’t worry, but you’re beautiful,” my father would say encouragingly after my next failed attempt. I could spend hours and days copying someone else’s work, but my pseudo-authorship was added randomly or completely ignored by me due to the complexity.
Suddenly, at the age of eight, I proudly brought a drawing that my father praised. It was not the work of a friend who studied at an art school, but the city of Zagorsk, which was honestly copied from a wooden box. At first I couldn’t believe my creative success, I suspected my parent of flattery, although he never succumbed to checkers. His praise became my strongest motivator.
Dad quickly told me the basics about horizon and perspective, chiaroscuro and composition, I couldn’t remember any more clever words. For me, that day was the beginning of the transfer of art materials to Manka’s work. She used everything from toothpaste to cream (she created a cosmic landscape and abstraction, glowing spots in the light). To be honest, I often didn’t have enough albums, and I painted on wallpaper (spare rolls, not on walls) and watman, which my classmates were happy about (wall newspapers were in demand in the 90s).
And then I outgrew my childhood hobby, because it’s stereotypical to use the word “drawing” to represent either a professional artist or an activity for a child. It was only relatively recently that I experienced the joy of purchasing materials and attending art workshops.
Drawing is not only an excellent and affordable way of self–expression and realization of creative potential, but also a powerful tool for self-improvement, helping to expand the visual “library”, train memory and observation. And most importantly, drawing is accessible to everyone and everyone can draw, it’s not some special gift, but a skill that people have developed to varying degrees.
Since childhood, we know that nothing is impossible, especially if you apply diligence and desire. And not only if you catch pike or goldfish. Korney Chukovsky has bears on a bicycle or crayfish on a lame dog traveling through the pages of our memory. “So I can paint a decent oil painting,” I thought, and signed up for an individual master class.
Fueled by my love for everything new and inspired by the desire to relive the childish delight, I chose a “day for myself.” Pleasant music surrounds you in a massage parlor, you can lie with a book in a salt bath, and you won’t want to be distracted by external factors at an art workshop.
It turns out that academic school is important for professional creativity, and in all other cases we improve our existing experience a little and enjoy it. Only paintings by numbers are not very useful, since there is no scope and splash for creative energy. And I started to realize my dream of creating a painting.
In the process, it turned out that I have a “watercolor deformity.” I used to draw pale with careful strokes to cover up a mistake with darker shades, I believed that watercolor paper would not forgive mistakes. It turns out that thick watercolor paper can handle everything, you can wash it off under running water and paint again. But it still doesn’t compare to working with a canvas. Like clockwork, easily and naturally, colors can be obtained directly on the painting, mixed, created texture and volume, overlaid with a new layer – and so on endlessly, because the paints dry for a very long time. The most fascinating thing happens when a picture doesn’t come out the way it was intended, and you can creatively correct it and use the whole arsenal of imagination. We turn off the inner critic mode and turn on adventurism, we create from the bottom of our hearts without fear.
At such moments, you begin to understand the popularity of art therapy techniques, and you feel the benefits for mental health. It has been scientifically proven that engaging in creativity improves brain activity (at the neural level), reduces levels of the stress hormone (cortisol) and anxiety.
Drawing helps people to look at the world in a new way and feel happier. Ancient people 40,800 years ago made attempts to relate their world to the outside and began to paint on the walls of the cave. Then Homo tractus became a Homo tractus painter. You need to follow a successful example and try to realize your creative potential in practice. The main condition is to draw without inflated expectations for the final result, to imagine that you are meditating.
You won’t notice how quickly you’ll change, become more comfortable with life situations outside of your scenario, learn to focus more easily, and find solutions to non-standard tasks faster. You will begin to enjoy the result due to the production of dopamine (the hormone of joy), and your nervous system will become more stable.
And even though I haven’t painted my oil painting yet, at least I understand where to go next.