Sylvia‘s Art Journey

These are two quotes that I encounter every now and then. I think they are worth remembering. "Creativity takes courage." - Henri Matisse To really be creative you have to follow your own route, do what you are interested in, and not do what others think you should do. You should do things the way you prefer to do them, not how everyone does them. And you should try out new things when they inspire you. All this takes courage. "Every artist was first an amateur." - Ralph Waldo Emerson No one has ever fallen from the sky being a full-blown professional, not even the most genius artists. They also had to learn their trade, gather experience and practise. And they also created bad stuff along with the great stuff. They also had doubts about what they were doing. So you are in good company 'just being an amateur'.

They say, when you start drawing you start to see the world differently. And you feel the urge to draw everything. The first part of this claim is true for me to a certain degree. I do sometimes look at things with the eyes of an artist, wondering how I would draw this. The second part not so much. I am still quite selective when it comes to choosing subjects to draw. They also say that everything is interesting when you draw it. And when I see other people's drawings of supposedly banal stuff, I like them. But I can't get myself to drawing just anything. It has to be something special or something that spontaneously attracts me or has some other motivation behind it, except that it's in front of me and I want to draw. So one could think that the moment I do find something visually interesting somehow, I would want to draw it. And there is sometimes the thought in my mind that I would have to want to draw at least everything I do find interesting. As if I was not a

During a sketchwalk you walk around a certain place and stop here and there to make a sketch on location. Often people meet somewhere to do this together. But drawing on location is not for everyone. You often don't have a convenient place to sit down. Not everyone can stand for longer periods of time. Or you just are not comfortable drawing in public. With a virtual sketchwalk you use photos or Google Street View and do your 'walk' from the comfort of your home or studio. You choose a certain place or topic to explore and draw from (copyright-free) photos you find online or make some from Street View. Of course, you can also include your own photos. Like the 'real thing', this is even more fun when you do it in a group. You can provide your own photos to the group and draw from the photos other members provide. There is a Facebook group I have joined not long ago. We work on a different topic every month. Last month it was Ireland. This month it's flowers.