Art Advice From Long Ago

I remember sitting in my 9th grade art class trying to draw this kid in the front of the room.
Mr. Hockenberry would walk up and down the rows while he watched our progress.
I remember him telling us “Don’t think of what you are drawing as a whole. Instead, focus on the lines that happen to make up Mr. Seagraves over here. They're just lines that unite together to make a picture.”
It was what turned my world around. That may sound ridiculous, at first, but bear with me here.
Instead of drawing a tree with a trunk and a puffy cloud thing for leaves I focused on what really made a tree. The lines and shades that came together to compose the image as a whole. An actual tree in real life.
And somehow that also changed me.
I managed to translate that to my real life.
Instead of judging someone, at first glance, based on how they look and what people say about them, I focused on who that person was and how they came to be.
There are lines in people’s lives that make them into a whole picture.
Experiences they have throughout life that shape their personality for better or for worse.
By not seeing just a tree and drawing what we manipulate that tree to be in our heads, we can finally open our eyes and become real people.
Just make sure those lines are in the right spots ;)