Its not what you got but HOW you use it.

Just recently I was talking with a friend, and he stated how he used to love to draw, but just didn't have the time,the space, or the right stuff to do it anymore. Now I just recently talked about the whole time thing in WAIT A MINUTE, so now I think I will talk about STUFF. I work on an extremely tight budget, but I do work and do get some things done.....not as fast or as much as I would like, but I do draw, and paint. I am using the drawing table that my parents bought for me 30 years ago.........no problem with that, its a good table. I have an easel........one I built out of 2 X 4's and some masonite and screws and such.......it works for me., and yes I do have a studio space in our home, but even when I didn't..........I still drew, and did some watercolours.......not really painted, as I have stated, I took a few years (20) off to pay bills and all that sort of stuff........ I still work 2 jobs and still take care of the house, cook ,clean and all that...........but still make the time to draw and paint.

Ok...enough on time...............the statement "the right stuff" got to me. I actually got up, walked over to their computer, pulled a sheet of paper out of the printer, picked an ol' yellow pencil up from the desk and said " there now you have the right stuff".

My point being..........you really don't need a lot to do this with if you really want to. Space not really an issue.......got a house, apt ....whatever...........I sort of use my whole house as a studio, I do only paint in the "studio" tho, but if I didn't have that, I honestly think I would be set up in the kitchen or laundry room..........somewhere I will find the room, because I really want to tdo this............to coin a phrase " its in me and has to come out"(thanks to John Lee Hooker).

Here are a few examples of what I am talking about:

these are my drawing pads, drawing board, sketch book and such, I carry a toothbrush holder around to hold some pencils, a sharpener and an eraser, the "palm pilot" is a small moleskin notebook that I sketch in when I am supposed to be payint attention at a function........concert, school thing, or church.

This is as it says.....my nite stand, the pencils and erasure and sharpener are right there for when I have that idea in the middle of the night.....,or for when we are just sitting watchin the tube and I want to sketch.

this is my home made easel, for when I decided to get back into painting.............it was originally a tripod thing, but went to this format to hold extra boards and such.

Basically all I am saying is that if you want to do it.......just do it, you don't need all sorts of fancy stuff to make the art, just the drive and the ability. A yellow school pencil is basically a 2B........ I have all this stuff lying about because it is what I want to do. I do make the time for it, but I would do that even if all I had was a yellow pencil and some computer paper. I wanted to paint, so I built an easel to do it. You don't have to do that, but you can sit at the kitchen table and draw and paint just as easily.

When I handed my friend his own pencil and his own paper, he started to say something about "its not" .......I just asked him....

" do you want to draw or not?"

WAIT A MINUTE

IT'S ONLY A MINUTE

One minute.......not long when you think about it all by its lonesome, but added up they become a long time, an hour a day.....a year.

Now I am going to back track for a minute.

Earlier today I walked with my wife while she went to work. We live on 8th street and she works on 1st. I had some dealings to do with the post office and since it is on the way.....3rd street, I decided to walk with her......it was only a few minutes of my time, but it was extra time with her and that is always a good thing. We had a nice talk while we walked and it was fun. On my way back home I stopped at the library, since it would only take a minute, and I wanted something to read....I checked oout Jules Vernes 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. All in all my few minutes added up to 48 minutes.

Now a bit further back.

There was a statement made by one of our kids friends which basically said " How did you get to be so good(not my thoughts or words), I wish I could do that " I really didn't think about it much and said I have been doing it for awhile.....I am about 30 years older than the you are.

Now, on my walk home for some reason I began to think about time and all this sort of thing. There are billions of people younger than I am who draw and paint MUCH better than I do....so it is not the years they spent doing it. It is the MINUTES........and that thing called talent, but how many minutes DID they spend working on their craft to get to where they are now?

How many minutes a day do we spend working on our craft to improve what we do, or for that matter doing what we do?

Now, math is not my forte`, but the way I have figured it there are apoximately 1,440 minutes in a day, so if we take out roughly 480 minutes , 8 hours for sleeping ( I know that is a joke...who gets a full 8 hours ) that leaves us with 960 minutes. Now if we take out 180 minutes ( breakfast, lunch and dinner ) that leaves us with 780 minutes or 13 hours. I am going to take 2 hours out or 120 minutes for the other little things that happen throughout the day. Now that is 660 minutes ( 11 hours). As an artist...........how many of those 660 minutes do we spend working? .

Now I know that I am not full-time in this, I have 2 jobs that I do work so that I can spend my minutes on the art, but even when I am at one of my jobs, I get 2, 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch......that is roughly 60 minutes that I get to draw. I sit in my car during those breaks and work on my craft. In the evening time after work, I like to spend time with the family as we all do, but in the roughly 240 minutes ( 4 hours ) of family time.......usually with the tv on, I will sit and draw while we watch tv and talk and visit with each other. So that is 300 minutes of drawing in a day.......still need another 330 to make it to 660.

I wish I could say that this was an everyday thing, but it is not. There are some days that I am just not into it, or I am just too tired from the days work that I don't feel like it, or my favourite one.....I want to devote all my after work minutes to my wife and family.

I do make up for some of those minutes by drawing when I am not supposed to....in church during the sermon ( I do portraits of the preachers ), I tell my wife that I can listen while I draw, or at one of the school functions, or some other thing that we go to. So the time is there if you want to make use of it. I will draw on anything if I get an idea, I worked inpackage stores for a while and that is where my whole "bag art" stuff came into play.








I guess my basic point is that if you want to get better at something you have to put the time in to do it. There is no secret in that. You have to work at what you want to achieve it. Today is sort of my day off from the other jobs, but I still have work that needs to be done....cut the grass and do dishes, cook dinner, and a few other things, but it is still early and I am shooting for at least a minimum of 360 minutes ( 6 hours )of drawing....even with taking the time to write this down.

Just thought I would take a minute to say all this.......I do think it is important.

It is not the years spent doing sometihng but the minutes you actually INVEST in doing it. Of course this is true in most cases but there is still a little something like ability that does have to come in as well. No matter how much I try to sing.......it doesn't work and the dogs bark way too much, which leaves me hoping I am not waisting my minutes in the art department ( sorry IG )