The quest begins...

Giorgio Morandi, an Italian still-life painter, once said, "A sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on to canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is, in itself, a living thing." I have always thought myself a good artist. I always excelled in drawing classes and was more common than not the best in my classes regarding structure, understanding form, light, shadow, and color. However, every once in a while my ego deflates. I realize that I am not as good a drawer or painter as I pretend I am when I hear not rude, but revealing comments that unveil the truth to me. I stand back from my easel and look around at those surrounding mine. If there is one thing that my art lacks, it is character. Character in line and shape, the way an object is formed. My pieces lack the very life Morandi claimed to be in a sincere artist's work and I feel that I have lost the extreme love for drawing I had back when I was younger. I am turning twenty in a few weeks and feel that I am not at the level I hoped to be. I feel like an old hag.

The purpose of creating this blog is to manifest for myself an obligation to come to frequently throughout the week. I will upload pieces I have done, talk about them explaining the goal, and then leave it to be critiqued. I hope to better myself as an artist and learn much more than I thought I knew.

As far as introductions go, my name is Robyn Lott. I was born in Oklahoma and lived there for six years before moving to Maryland in 1996. I've wanted to be an artist for as long as I could hold a crayon in my hand, but never fully realized this until late middle school. I spent several of those years drawing horrible quality anime characters either relating to Pokemon, Digimon, or my own creations. A few years ago, I realized how very little I had progressed and decided to drop almost all of my notions of anime and manga and work harder.

I never had any proper formal art training until I left high school and went to Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). I spent one year at the college studying in foundations classes - Drawing I, Drawing II, Figure Drawing, 2D Design, Color Theory - but felt that I was not advanced enough for the school (even though I had won a scholarship) and decided to come home. I now go to my local community college and am continuing to take foundations courses hoping to transfer later this year to University of Maryland Baltimore Campus (UMBC) with an exceptional portfolio... and here we are at the present.

With my intentions, I hope to become better than I am and possibly make a few friends while on blogspot. Thank you for reading my rather superfluous first post and please stay tuned for more.

(Pictures to right and above are recent pieces; from oldest to youngest - feel free to critique)