Art is the greatest form of hope

 Drawing Throughout my life I have always loved drawing, spending almost as much time as I could drawing landscapes, creatures, and inventions. When I was a baby I would scribble all over the restaurant menus, when I was kid I would steal paper from the printer and sketch out machines and skateboards, and now in my teen years I made up large landscapes or my own made up worlds. I feel like I can speak through my artwork by making what I want when I have any sort of writing utensil and piece of paper. I have donated a large part of my life to artwork and feel great that I will be able to share my artwork with my peers. 

 I love the fact that charcoal is such an age-old drawing material. It’s been used for thousands and thousands of years, as the ancient cave drawings that most of us are familiar with show. These cave drawings have been found all over the world: from Europe to Australia and Southeast Asia.  Another thing that I love about charcoal, is that it’s a natural material and relatively safe for our health and environment. As a drawing material, charcoal in its purest form is made from branches of the willow tree, or sections of grape vine. These are burnt to a precise degree of hardness, eliminating the oxygen inside the wood. The more processed forms of drawing charcoal, such as compressed charcoal, use natural gums as binders, which are also generally safe for our health and the environment. 

 I guess it’s hard for non-artists to understand what I mean, and to understand what fuels me to live the creative life. I’m an artist because I need to be one – I have this inherent drive to make things. It pulses through my veins, and makes me fiercely resistant to the thought of ever giving up the artist title. When you’ve been making art every week of your life for years, the process of art making gets ingrained in your mind. What may have started as a hobby, or something that was “just for fun,” blossoms into something you can’t live without. It becomes a habit through repetition, and when you finally go without it for a few days, you feel like something is missing from your life – the pangs of art withdrawal. It’s moments like those when I realize I can’t live without being an artist in one form or another. Being an artist is what gives me purpose in life.