Charcoal Drawings: White Rose and Feeling Trapped

Charcoal Drawing, "White Rose" 8"x10"

I took a sick day about a month ago. It was snowing, and I was feeling really conflicted. I felt like after a few frustrating events in my life, that I needed a minute to reconnect what I loved doing and feel some reassurance. I started first with the image below, which I had been thinking about for a while and finally just did it (maybe I'll do a series - I do think it's a cool concept).

Do you ever look around and just feel trapped? Maybe a huge doctor's bill put grocery shopping off another few weeks, or that car you pictured owning after graduation took a side seat because of the constant battle between your rent, student loans, and current paycheck. I guess this feeling of entrapment stems a bit from money - like all the possibilities before and during college are no longer possible because my sole mission now is to make money in order to pay off that education and to support myself. That art career won't pay for it: at least not now. And definitely no vacations for a while - at least last year I had my best friend's wedding in Florida as a fabulous excuse. So I'm stuck.

"Trapped", Charcoal 11"x16" on white paper

I needed reassurance and I needed it fast. After a frustrated attempt at painting two months ago, I busted out what I could find for charcoal supplies (and amazed how little I had - in school and before I always had a "kit" of essentials nearby), Googled an image of hands on jail bars, and started sketching. The simplicity, ease of blending, and quick buildup of charcoal made me feel better immediately. I felt like I really captured what I was feeling on paper, and felt so satisfied once it was completed.

After that weight had been lifted, I didn't want to stop. I wanted something that would last longer, that would be a challenge: so, with the same paper but cut down to an unused matted frame size, I Googled images of White Roses. Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to sketch out, let alone DRAW a rose?? There's each petal, that has to make sense with the petals surrounding it, then each of those petals has to have the right shading for the whole image to make sense. But I sat there, with Grey's Anatomy in the background in my studio, and sketched lightly, then re-sketched, then finally filling in the darks. When that image was finally complete (see above) I felt immensely satisfied.

Sometimes it's not about where you are in your life when you look around - and sometimes there's only so much you can do. What I do know, is doing what you're good at once in a while (think riding-a-bike-skill) can really make you smile. And we all need that to keep going.