Hmmm

How much I admire people who can sketch or draw.

My friend Jon growing up was an amazing sketcher. While we all talked, he was often sketching on scratch paper. Maybe it was a character he’d imagined, or the view outside the window, or a memory, but he was always sketching something to perfection and we always admired what he sketched.

I also remember reading the autobiography of the great 1950s independent filmmaker Samuel Fuller. In his diaries he often sketched, and his notebook from his tour in Europe during World War II was filled with little drawings to document his days that really captured my interest and I thought really quickly expressed to me what his experiences were.

How much I admired this.

I’m not a drawer. I’m that person who can’t draw a stick figure well, and can’t even really draw a straight line, and was often teased in art class for the (lack thereof) quality of my work although being teased about that didn’t bother me since I couldn’t help it. Luckily I can write okay, but it takes “a thousand words” (wink wink) to cover a picture and it’s easier I think to listen and draw then it is to listen and write, which means a person can be a part of a conversation while drawing.

I also admire those people who can sketch out the vision they’re trying to convey. Maybe plans for the garden. Or a particular door. Or a place that they visited. Me? I have to describe it in words which is harder to convey in every day life.

I have many weaknesses but I’m a faster than average sprinter (not the fastest sprinter, just faster than the average weekend athlete). I can’t take credit for it, I was just made that way. And just like the average person can’t will or train themselves to sprint as fast as me, I know from experience that I can’t train or will myself to draw as well as the average person let alone to become a gifted drawer. How much I wish that I could train myself to sketch things well and to sketch them quickly.

Anyway. That would be my wish. Everything else that I’m not good at I’ve made peace with. But I do wish I could draw well.