I am retired and 68 years old. I’ve not done anything artistically related since middle school until I retired and began to refinish furniture for resale, which I can no do because of my back. But, my whole life I desired to have an artistic bent and would often think to myself, “I wish I could do that” when I would see the beautiful creations that so many talented people would create.

To begin my background, I must go all the back to middle school. I had a art teacher who encouraged me to continue in the arts and at that time I wanted to be a commercial artist. I told my mom my about it and her response was “you’re not good enough, you’ll never make it”. And her words have haunted me my whole life. From the age of 15 or so I gave up on pursuing any art/craft ideas that may have flitted through my mind, because I wasn’t good enough. The closest I came to anything related to art was a coloring book and crayons. The first time I picked up a pencil to draw anything since the age of 15 was October 6, 2020 at 68 years old.

Then I discovered, The Virtual Instructor and Matt, (what a blessing he has been to me), he has opened up a whole new world for me. I watched a free video where he basically talked about “art” isn’t a talent reserved for a special few, but it can be learned by many (my interpretation).

And so my adventure began watching many, many videos, following along with paper and medium in hand, viewing as many of Matt’s critiques taking in every tidbit of information, committing it to memory (at my age isn’t easy) for use on my next drawing. In fact, Matt critiqued a graphite drawing of a dog I did on Dec 24, 2020, if you want to view it. I learned so much from his review, it’s beneficial to have a review of your own work, because I develop tunnel vision after working on a drawing for several days and forget to apply many of the principals of art that I learned from Matt. I’ll post the first drawing and a couple of the most recent ones I’ve done, it’s true I can learn to draw!!!

Anyway, I’m glad to be here, so glad to be able to let out my artistic bent and learning so much along the way. I still have a long way to go, but to finally let out what was suppressed for so long, I feel like I’m finally living to the fullest and the joy I receive from it is, well is indescribable. I’m thrilled to be a part of this group and hope that you will feel free to give honest critiques of my work to make it better, more realistic or to point out that my light source isn’t consistent, etc.

Looking forward to meeting all of you and seeing all the wonderful creations you’ve made, encouraging each other no matter what level we’re individually at and especially learning from you all.