If you’re reading this in December 2018, I’m a lot better at this blogging thing than I thought. If you’re not, then you already suspected this would happen.
I don’t think many of us can conclude that we will be unaffected by external influences. If you do believe this, just remember everyone else will know who you are.
While I would not be one to insist on conforming, I would think operating within accepted norms is okay. Doing things like eating and standing is still considered acceptable, and I will not fault anyone for wanting to do this. Where can be debatable, but they are typically accepted as typical.
Since we are given to external influences, we can also accept that we may choose to be influenced by the actions or thinking of those around us. For positive or negative.
I have mentioned in the past my artistic endeavors. They accomplished little in the way of financial support, but they were still fun. One of the motivations I had to push myself in the past were my fellow artists, both in school and in my family.
I had one family member when I was growing up that had a talent for comic-style art. At that time, I was competent in drawing industrial objects, and cartoonish caricatures of humanoid creatures, but nothing more. His demonstrated talent encouraged me to push myself further.
This mostly came in the form of his ability to draw the superheroes (including one he made) realistically, complete with muscle sinew and athletic silhouette. But that is where I struggled: I couldn’t draw people.
So I studied and learned to draw people. For about 2 years I studied anatomy and the skeletal frame, where muscles attach to the frame, and even the effects of movement on muscular placement and appearance. After this exhaustive research, I was able to comfortably draw people.
Until someone pointed out that all my people had something in common: they were all men.
I would preface this by suggesting you look at my past blogs on myself and my thinking prior to this point in my life for more detail, but I wasn’t drawing women because I couldn’t; it was because I didn’t have a reason to. (they were already everywhere, why would I want to draw pictures of them all the time?)
This party then challenged me to draw a woman. Simple enough, I thought, they’re basically the same as a guy, with apparent alterations. So I drew a ‘woman.’
This ‘woman’ however, was not a woman as is typical of the gender. In fact, for me to say this was a picture of a ‘woman’ would imply that I don’t understand the differences between the genders (which was true then). And even if I could be certain in my head that this was supposed to be a ‘woman,’ 100 percent of my audience disagreed. There were no dissenting voices possibly implying there were hints of the feminine in the picture, and given this was a classroom setting with both genders present, the ‘women’ present were somewhere between bemused and insulted by this image.
After 2 years of intense research, I had only solved half of my drawing people problem. I would spend more time trying to figure out this enigma, but I am still confused by them.
I would like to say that my rivalry with my family member ended with a drawing competition and I was the victor, but I can’t. Because it didn’t. He was seduced by one of these ‘women,’ married her and started a family. I remember seeing some of his illustrations of her from their courtship so it would seem his artistic talents did pay dividends.
Losing my rival in the arts didn’t suppress my desire to improve. No, that was something else entirely. And while I could blame him, I recognize that we have many influences in our lives that can point us in a variety of directions and he was only one. Sometimes, the fault can lie within as much as without.
I think its called puberty. Yeah, I blame puberty for all my problems in life. Everything was fine till then.
Enough about me. I want to look forward to something else. Like what my next project is.
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In written form 