Reflection on Stretch #4

Drawing is not my forte; I can do flowers and rainbows all day long, but drawing even semi-human figures takes some skill that I do not possess.   I love and appreciate art, so to try to replicate someone as renowned as Picasso was scary, and then to turn his picture upside down added a layer of difficulty.  Though I started strong and confident, I ended my drawing with a recognition of my skills in the area of attention to detail, patience, and planning.

The first thing I tackled when drawing was to section off a piece of the painting, so I only needed to focus on about a 4 inch by 8 inch slice of the photo.  I began drawing and realized that I was starting at the top of the paper, but I needed to start at the bottom since I was drawing from the top of the painting.  Drawing the top went quickly; I assumed it would go slowly as the faces are at the top, but the speed might have related to my confidence and excitement, which was quickly eroded.

The next thing I tackled was the bodies of the women.  I felt good about my plan to section off pieces of the painting, but that plan fell apart when I got to the bodies.  I noticed how the painting's focus on the human figure distorted my ability to draw bodies.  It was easy to focus on faces because they were pretty standard with eyes and ears.  However, the bodies became a tangled mess as the eye travels to the bottom of the image.  That complexity was a detail I missed in my planning; I didn't fully absorb the painting right side up before turning it upside down.

As I neared the bottom, my quiet space became filled with noises of "what's for lunch" and "she's being mean to me."  Losing my train of thought, my patience with my poor planning, and my patience with my noisy environment, I quickly wrapped up what I saw at the bottom of the painting.  I had lost all interest in the ability to execute this quickly and accurately, despite knowing that I am not a trained, or even semi-trained artist.

While Picasso's goal of this painting is empowerment in simplicity, his figures are not simple to recreate upside down.  Changing perspectives did offer a new-found respect for his technique.  However, much of my battle was not drawing upside down, but for not studying the painting and all its small details.  I thought since I had viewed the painting a hundred times before, I knew what the painting contained.  I quickly realized I didn't know the painting at all.

Working on assumptions is a major weakness for a researcher.  As a researcher, I will need to be sure that I bring no assumptions to my observations, so that I can see everything that is there.  I additionally cannot give up when I cannot "see" things the way I want to see them; I need to have a plan AND be willing to alter the plan, so that I can gather accurate data.