My Artistic Journey Since Lockdown Year (2020) Part 1.
Good Day Fellas,
After having these very long and deep thoughts recently, I've decided to highlight my life as an artist since the lockdown year (2020).
Since I was seven, I had made the declaration to my family that I was going to become a successful artist in the future. Though I didn't know what the profession entails as at then but I was lucky enough to had my family at the moment to say to me that they would always support me with whatever they gave and can to become a successful. I think to a very large extent, that's one of the few things that has kept me determined and consistent with Art!
With the age of 7 and 13, all I do was draw character ls from comic books and portraits of notable of iconic figures in the history of Nigeria.
Fast forward to 2020.....
Prior to the Lockdown Year, I was already do some advanced drawings but I never attended painting but few months before the Lockdown in 2020, I got into an art class as a University student. This experience made me meet up with a lot of like minds and I had the time to think about myself being an artist and how I could be different from what peers and what I could use to have an edge even in their midst.
I realized that we all had the foundation of drawing which actually solidified our interest in wanting to become artists. On the long run I discovered at I am a spontaneous artist, I draw so fast but were my drawings good enough?
Before 2020, amongst family, friends and peers, I was a great artist as far as drawing was concerned but I never got an applaud from a master. Maybe that answers the last question.
But as it would happen, 2020/2021 came with restrictions on people's freedom of movement and we all had to be indoors. I was lucky and wise enough to invest this time of isolation into my artistic practice to the point that I hard went a day without drawing or sketching. I did so much of this that I personally started to see vivid my growth as an artist that draws in the space of few months but because I was committed to it and I was consistent with it.
This act of commitment and consistency eventually led me to the sense of confidence an artist needs to remain not just an artist but to remain true to him or herself.
The share image above shows some of the drawing I had done between 2020 and 2021. I did a lot of drawings then and funny enough, I had never stopped. I am still drawing and it continues that way........
For me as an artist, drawing was my first love but painting had always been my superior destination. In the process of practicing the act of drawing and wanting to start painting, I learnt from many older colleagues that being a good or a great painter is as a result of first being a fantastic artist when it comes to drawing and so I should pay much more attention and even more try to enjoy the process of my drawings because approaching painting.
My first attempt on painting was in 2022. When I say first attempt, I actually meant professional attempt because I had had occasions where I used some student materials to try things out with colours and most of the time they were usually comic characters but when I actually had that professional attempt was in 2022.
It was sometime around August 2022, I was observing my IT (Industrial Training) at a senior artist studio and the experience was............. Guess!
Kindly share your thoughts as comments below, I'll be glad to read and reply them all. Thanks.