Lesson Five...Practice

Hello everyone,

How much fun was that westie? I hope you think it was a ton of fun because guess what... if you want to become better at drawing, or soccer, or music, or gymnastics, or dance, or softball, or track, or field hockey, or basketball,or photography, or art, or sewing, or knitting, or crochet, or cooking...whatever you love to do, you have to practice...

Yes, Practice...

I am sorry that I said what may be a bad word for some people. Anyone...and I mean anyone who is really great at something, be it a sport, art, music, dance had to put the time in to get that way. Yes, they had natural talents, but most of the time that is not enough, you have to practice. Even if you never get to be world famous, you get better at it for you. PRACTICE is a must.

Believe me, my human brother is learning trumpet, and you would not believe the difference in his abilities in a years time. Mom totally enforces practice, but she was a musician herself, and she practiced her instruments until she thought her fingers were going to bleed and her lips fall off. My aunt did practice ballet until her feet bleed, poor ballerina's usually have some ugly feet for their art, that is their sacrifice. (or at least my aunt did! now that she is older and no longer dances they are not as ugly, just her big toes look squashy in comparison to the rest of the the family that didn't do pointe anyhow... I am on a tangent)

So, artists get hand cramps, and arthritis...it is all worth it though, and musicians, dancer's athletes.... all get tired and injured doing something they totally enjoy. If you enjoy it then practice should come easy.

However, mom thinks that kids today have more distractions than she did as a kid and practice was easier for her because she didn't have a cell phone, or the internet, many video games, and half the time they didn't have cable in her family. So, mom's main distraction was books since she loves to read. However she didn't have the problem of going on oh say Facebook for just a few moments and hours later realizing she was still on it like we do today. She spent hours playing her instruments. She was an only child so she didn't always have anyone around to play with either.

She spent a ton of time drawing, and her mom taught her how to draw some things, and the more she practiced she got better and better at breaking down a cartoon into it's basic shapes then adding the details and re-creating her favorite cartoon characters. (Did I mention our Christmas tree is covered in cartoon character ornaments? Yes, my human mom is one of those adults that wears cartoon characters on her shirt with pride. She liked her cartoons and still does. )

So, for today's lessons, here is a great site so you can learn step by step how to draw some of your favorite cartoon characters.Easy Drawing Tutorials has many choices in cartoon characters for you to work your way through. Pick a few, draw them and if you have your parent's permission, email your art to me at Lemonhead103@verizon.net and we will make a blog post featuring our fan art. I think I will ask Mom to draw something....hmm I know where her photo gallery is on here maybe I can show off some of her work.

GO PRACTICE !!

Love
Saige