When I was 18, I remember saying in a drawing class to my friends, “goddamn it! I HATE grayscale! I’m a Technicolor person! Why do we have to do this shit?” I was bitching the whole entire semester about working in grayscale, how it made me feel depressed, how I just wanted to splash color on everything. I did graphic design in black and white paper, drawing in various grayscale mediums (charcoal, conte, ink, sharpie), and photography (black and white film). Even my English papers were black and white (black ink and white paper). I remember that I became so sick of seeing in only the neutral tones.

I’ve used various kinds of charcoal- such as willow, compressed charcoal, hard charcoal, and soft charcoal. In all pure honesty, I hate charcoal with a burning passion. It gets into everything that I wear, on the walls, in the car, in my portfolio case, on my face, and even in my fingernails! Artists use fixative, a solution that sprays on the charcoal and makes it “stay” on the paper, in order to preserve their drawings. Seriously, that shit never worked for me. It would still smear everywhere! Also I swear, I said I would never work in charcoal after 2006 because it was very frustrating.

Last night, I was looking angels online and stumbled on one of my favorite Florentine artists, Andrea del Verrocchio. He is an amazing Renaissance artist, sculptor, mathematician, goldsmith, and musician. I’ve seen his work in real life when I went to Italy, which is why I was surprised that I didn’t think of his work as I was checking on google. Today, I went to Blick’s and bought some charcoal pencils- a medium I’ve never used before. For the past four hours I’ve just been playing with them on a watercolor pad I bought. I’m such a dork, but I think experimenting with a new medium is so exciting. I didn’t have much of a direction, but I can truly say that I find charcoal quite beautiful. I just needed to get the “right” charcoal that suited me.

It’s times like these when I do question where my skills lie after two years of regular schooling. Re-learning how to draw is like trying to learn how to walk on my own after a bad sprain. I know what muscles to use, but I’m a little hesitant to put a little pressure on the foot. I’m a little worried what’s going to happen. The gradual growth is something that makes me so impatient with both science and art. I want to be the best “now”, not later. I want to show people my masterpieces “now”, instead of a year in the future. I get extremely demanding of myself and set the bar way too high above my reach.

Drawing makes me humble when I get to a point where I cannot succeed, both personally and mentally. It makes me think that do have to take life one step at a time. I’m not a rock star when it comes to art. I'm not the best. I have so much to work for that it causes great anxiety. In the art world, everything is competitive. It doesn’t matter if a person likes your work or not, an artist is criticized on EVERYTHING he or she does on technical terms. I remember that I was so sick of the critiques in graphic design; everyone was doing better than me. I was always ridiculed for my work. It’s kind of the same with Biology, but I know when I fail because everything is objective. Biology is easy in that sense. Failing my midterm is unusual in the worst scenario, but now I know that I still have to be submissive and do all the work I can in order to succeed in that class to bring my grade up. Art, God I need help with this. Art as a skill isn’t the same thing as regurgitating information on a test. It’s more work than most people know.

In the end, my fingers will just have to do the talking when success finally arrives.

Grayscale is timeless and intricate.