When I was a little girl, all I wanted to do was draw. My dream was to have a sketchbook all to myself and paper to draw on that didn't have a letter from an insurance company on the other side of it, or the envelop it came in. I also hated drawing on notebook paper as I knew "real artists" didn't use that kind. But I drew anyway. All the time. I wish I still had my notebooks from jr. high through college as I suspect there were some pretty good ideas doodled in those margins. That's the only time I liked drawing on blue-lined paper and it sure beat listening in class. From the time I was a kid, I loved illustrators like Joan Walsh Anglund, Robert McCloskey and Lois Lensky. I studied the drawings as much as the stories.
I was educated, but just barely. I went to Catholic grade school so I know a lot about the parts of speech and diagramming sentences but very little about science or math. I went to a vocational high school (in the art program)so I learned to draw really well, but again...science and math eluded me. The academic program was geared a tad on the low side so I got straight A's but I couldn't tell a marsupial from a metatarsal. I managed to graduate from college, with 2 years at the Columbus College of Art and Design (where I really learned to draw)and 2 or so years at a state university in Minnesota. Funny, science and math eluded me again. Thankfully I come from a smart family with parents who read (a lot) and my 6 sisters and I are all voracious readers. So I guess it all worked out and I can carry on a charming conversation as long as the topics stay away from science and math! But I still love to draw, some things were just meant to be.
