Show and Tell

*Stands up in front of class*

Today for Show and Tell I'm gonna show you what I just bought on the Artist Date I just went on. I haven't been on an Artist Date to buy stuff before, but I realised that this was what happened as soon as I left the store. I didn't realise I was even going to buy the stuff I did. I couldn't afford it ... but I did anyway, cos my Inner Artist doesn't understand money (unfortunately neither does my Inner Accountant, so you can imagine my fiscal dilemmas). And anyway, the air outside smelled good cos it was gonna rain so I started feeling excited, after being cooped up inside feeling sick all day. And anyway, I've got my period. So there.

So anyway, I can't really show you what I bought, because I don't have my scanner here, so it's really just Tell and Tell, instead of Show and Tell. But you know. So this is what I bought:

• Some pastel coloured copy paper for writing morning pages on
• 24 colour pencils (cos the textas I got to colour in with were shite)
• 12 metallic coloured pencils cos they were pretty
• 100 sheets of scrapbook paper, even though I don't do scrapbooking - I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet. I got them cos they were really pretty and I'm doing a collage and maybe they will fit into that
• Glue to stick my collage stuff down with
• A sheet of different sized gold and silver stars cos every time I do something that feeds me, my inner 8 year old, I'm gonna give myself a star for it (I know it's corny, but I'm 8, so what do you expect?
• Two HB pencils
• A book about drawing
• An A3 pad of acid free cartridge paper

Thank you. *Sits down*
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The last four things I got - that was when I knew that this was an Artist Date :) A couple of weeks ago, I came across an assessment I'd had done by some dodgy place called The Art Training Institute when I was about 12. I'd been in the habit of copying birthday cards I liked and colouring them in. I found it therapeutic. I was quite good at it. But I wanted someone else to tell me if I was any good. So they sent me their assessment, a couple of different drawings to do, and when they assessed it they said things like, "We thought you'd already had some training until we realised that you hadn't squared off your work" etc etc and that they were of a very high standard. So, I was pleased enough with their assessment to keep it for all these years, regardless of said institute's (there's a hint in itself) dogdiness (they were probably as much an institute as, say, the Ponds Institute)

Anyway, I came across it the other week, and my inner artist saw it and said, "I wanna draw." And I said, "Well, you're not going to." And my inner artist said, "Why not?" And I said something terribly adult like, "Why do you need to draw for? It's not like you're going to be able to do anything useful with it" or something equally as tedious. And my inner artist just looked at me blankly and said, "But I don't care about any of that stuff. I just wanna do it cos it's fun". And then she looked at me blandly because she knows I don't believe any of that sort of shite anyway. She knows that I know that this has got nothing to do with anything outside and everything to do with everything inside. But partly it was because I knew I'd feel like a twit doing something I hadn't done for decades. I don't even know why I stopped. But I did. I'd actually almost forgotten that I used to draw, and then just stopped doing it for 25 years. Isn't that strange? And I felt funny trying to do something like that when there are so many talented people who read here who are artists. But then, what's that got to do with anything, all this worrying about what other people are going to think? It's not like I have to post anything I draw, is there? I can, you know, go and draw stuff and it be horrible and Big Brother isn't standing there forcing me to blog it.

So anyway, my inner artist is growing in strength. So when she said, "I wanna draw", I ended up thinking, "Well, whyever not? What harm can it do?"

I had even emailed Eileen about it yesterday - she draws stuff like this - and shyly said I was thinking of maybe drawing again, and she was as encouraging as I knew she would be, being the dudette of coolness and rockness and such things and the epitome of encouragement to be as creative as creative can be.

And so today when I went to The Warehouse again, merchants of cheap Chinese exports, my inner artist grabbed those four things and headed to the checkouts with glee. And I thought she might be onto something because when I grabbed those HB pencils, my stomach churned.