Finding my true North, or, the wisdom of trees.

One of the many things I promised myself that I would conquer this year was learning to draw.
I have dabbled with the HB pencil and scraps of paper throughout my life but have never taken proper lessons.
So I signed up for an online course that was recommended by my hairdresser about 10 years ago.
Better late than never.
I was happy to discover that the course website had not disappeared, and the benefit of waiting for 10 years was that it had evolved into an excellent drawing school and resource centre.
I wanted to start slowly so I clicked on the things-you-need-to-know-before-picking-up-a-pencil course.
No need to rush these things.
First course - "Learn how to use this site".
That sounded like very good advice.
The teacher suggested that I upload a drawing on their critique page to help them to understand where I would need to focus on strengthening techniques.
"No problem", I thought and then realised there was a problem.
I hadn't picked up a pencil in about 10 years (since having that conversation with the hairdresser in fact).
I found a rather old one (see above) that I did from a perspective exercise in a beginners drawing book I had long since lost, and posted that.
Ok - so far so good.  On to the next lesson.

Lesson 2 directed me to the "Recommended reading" course to read the first article.
"Easy peasy", I thought, "this drawing stuff is a piece of cake!"
In the article I was told to "find my true North"
I faced North and all I found was washing hanging from the clothes line, and the garden shed.  I looked in the garden shed.  Nope, no true North there.  Maybe I had better read the rest of the article.
"Ah Ha" I thought once I had actually read beyond the first paragraph.
It explained the need to set aside drawing time into two areas of focus.   Practice time and time to focus on a body of work, even if I don't intend to be a professional artist (which I don't), because creating a series of drawings of topics of interest will motivate me to learn more and hone my skills.
This leads me to the compass problem.  I need to find what it is that I like to draw.  My true North.

So what is it?
I asked Yolinda but she just wanted to paint Paris streetscape watercolours.
What are my passions?  How does one draw languages, or blogging (maybe a series of pictures of my laptop?) or reading.  Maybe pictures of people reading - on lap tops.

I changed tactics and thought about what paintings drew (pun intended) my attention most.
I like portraits, but portraits of people about their daily life, not the stiff paintings of royalty or the upper class.  I love landscapes, particularly European ones.  Living in Australia may be a problem with that one though.  Streetscapes also grab my attention and I realised Yolinda may have a point, though possibly a blinkered one.  Cartooning too.  Too many choices now and my head was spinning.

Than as I was typing the previous paragraph, I looked up and out of the window above my desk and saw the top of a beautiful gum tree from two houses down  and thought of what a lovely painting it would make.  And then I had my answer.  What if I didn't stress about finding North and just drew something that I saw that made me smile, no matter what it was.  At least it will make for some interesting blog pictures.