Art is a Powerful Thing

One day, I did a series of little crayon observation drawings — one of my neighbor's foot, another of a friend's face, and an attempt to draw a pelvic bone that ended up looking like Brain from the cartoon Pinky and the Brain (a deep, complex show about two lab mice who try to take over the world).

I posted pictures of the drawings on Facebook last night and ten minutes later my inbox said "17 new messages" — all of them comments from 4 individuals. This morning, there were 32 new messages since last night. I kid you not.

Having gone from drawing basically every day, all day, non-stop to only drawing a few times a week, it feels nice to get feedback on what you do accomplish. On the other hand, it feels weird to get stronger reactions to a 5 minute 3" by 3" drawing of someone's foot than to a 18" by 24" oil painting that took two weeks to complete.

When I regularly posted artwork on the gallery site deviantART.com, I found that my old fan art of video game and Disney characters still gets more traffic than my new paintings, drawings and photos, which feels very strange since I feel that the new pieces are way better in terms of effort and quality.

On the other hand, it's really neat to watch the conversations that develop from a piece of art, whether it's a crayon foot or Moorish tile work, and I am not about to tell people not to make such interesting comments like:

"That is the sexiest algae-green haired teletubby [referring to a portrait of someone, not an actual teletubby] that I have ever seen… I can not tell a lie… oh, and that mouse is[name of a friend]."

Tough Choices

At work, I have access to a small, semi-organized cart of coloring books. There are several hand-assembled books of photocopied word searches and coloring pages, as well as some hand-purchased ones. For a while, when I had free time or simply wanted to color along, I took pages from a mandala coloring book. Mandalas, in Buddhism and Hinduism, are elaborate concentric diagrams with spiritual significance (Wikipedia explains it better than I can). They're also really fun to color.

I felt bad using the hospital's coloring books so much though, so I moved on to playing Solitaire when the clinic was quiet. My older brother, in his unbelievable practicality, suggested that I do my homework instead. I decided that I would rather color and play Solitaire.

So, I decided that tomorrow I would go on an epic journey to Borders and Barnes & Noble in search of a good coloring book. Or perhaps two; they're not that expensive. However, I'm not sure which type to select. A fancy "grownup" coloring book with geometric designs or historical costume? One of those finely detailed anatomy/physiology coloring books for science students?

I'm tempted to get a 4-year-old girl coloring book, which I never had as a 4-year-old (I'm not sure if it was a lack of interest on my part and/or my mother's lack of interest in nurturing gender roles/stereotypes). There's a Disney one I saw on Amazon about Cinderella; one half is about her life pre-Prince Charming and the other half is about her wedding planning. It is almost too sickeningly cute. 

Update: I found a good compromise between "boring" and "sickeningly cute" — a coloring book with finely detailed cat pictures, and another with snowflakes.