Why I draw

All the reasons why I draw with colored pencil.

For me colored pencil has been one of my major mediums of choice since I can remember coloring in my first coloring book. It's a familiar fitting tool in hand. One of the first things we learn to do in school is how to hold a pencil. It translates our thoughts in to many words and for some of us it flows into images. An image is worth everything that a word just can't say. It's the feeling, and the voice, of a place and time. Colored pencil brings out many details of mine that I just can't seem to be able to write in quite the same way.

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The pencil as an extension of ourselves

“Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression. A species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality." -Edgar Degas

When drawing with colored pencil you are putting such a small ark on the page at a time that you are forced to look at the detail in an image. Making abstract or impressionist remarks about a subject is not impossible but made more personal with the physical motions of the hand. The detail is not avoidable. Learning the detail of each subject becomes an artful study.

Learning as we go

All of the things that we study make us understand the world just a little more. Fifty people could draw something and you would end up with fifty very different pieces of artwork. We all see the world a little different. Just as each version of ourselves can see the world different. We can see something a million times and still see something new we hadn't seen before if we look close enough.

“A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts.” - Swami Sivananda