20 years of progress

Since before I can remember I have been drawing. I have no idea when this obsession started and I don't know who started me on it. All I know is I like it.

In elementary school I, of course, drew anything I could think of. But most importantly I drew ninja turtles... All the time. At that age I did not know how to use reference. Anything I drew was from my head. Detail was a strange mystery that I could not grasp. There fore Improvement on my drawings were rare and the same image was almost photocopied to every ninja turtle I made. For years this is what they looked like.

.....and my creative mind grew bored.

I gave up drawing through junior high and high school. Thinking I must suck at drawing. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I felt I was great at little. So I took a year off of collage to go work in Florida at the Disney parks.

Down there I felt I really found what I wanted to do.... I wanted to create things.

And to create things I was going to have to get good at something. So I started to draw again... I drew a lot. I went to collage and now five years after collage I am still trying to get good. I love this field. I love that I will never be good enough. I love that I will always see that I can improve on what I am doing right now. I love that I can look back at yesterday and cringe at my mistakes.

I think everyone should practice drawing. I feel it is a form of communication that is hugely under rated. There are many different words for an object but it only looks like itself.

I decided I needed to draw a ninja turtle today. And just to be fair I would use no references to enhance my detail. I finished one turtle and physically couldn't bring myself to stop, until all of them were on the paper.

Here is 20 years!

And I hope tomorrow i hate this one too.

Thank you dad, for saving this drawing for so long.