I can't draw a straight line with a ruler
By makingpots
@makingpots (11915)
United States
May 17, 2007 1:28pm CST
Have you ever said that before?I have heard so many people try to say that they are not an artist by saying "I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler". It always makes me laugh when I hear that. What kind of artist would you really be if what you liked to draw was straight lines using a ruler. An architect, yes maybe you would want to rule that out as a profession, but art is about way more than that.
To me, art is about making squiggle lines or blobs or even just a dot and being proud of the way you were able to express yourself.
Are you an artist?
3 people like this
9 responses
@artguy (1474)
• United States
21 May 07
Actually what kind of person period would you be if you can't draw a straight line with a ruler. Just put your pencil against the ruler and follow it. I am an artist I do surreal and comic book character paintings. Take a look at my blog at http://myartquest.blogspot.com I has links to my other art sites.
2 people like this
@makingpots (11915)
• United States
21 May 07
Thanks for sharing your art. I enjoyed looking at it briefly. I will revisit it.
1 person likes this
@tinamwhite (3252)
• United States
18 May 07
I am really not much of an artist....LOL
While I can master a straight line (with a ruler)!! That about covers it for me...instead, I am an appreciator of art...I am fasinated by the way an artist can take a blank canvas and turn it into something of beauty....or a clumo of clay and tuening it into a statue....
@makingpots (11915)
• United States
21 May 07
The world needs appreciators of art as well.
I am a clay artist myself. I do sketch out my designs, but it is just for the visual in my head. My sketches are scary and you would never believe that the pot I made and the sketch of it are one in the same.
1 person likes this
@margieanneart (26423)
• United States
1 Jun 07
I am a professional artist. I do many mediums. I can draw a circle and a straight line freehand. It is just an expression that people that don't draw or paint use. You are right, art is not a straight line unless you are an architect. Art, to me, is creativity. And, it must evoke a possitive or negative response to the looker. It needs to touch one emotionally no matter what the subject is.
1 person likes this
@makingpots (11915)
• United States
2 Jun 07
Well said. I think your art is beautiful.
1 person likes this
@crazynurse (7482)
• United States
2 Jun 07
Well, sadly I am one who has used that phrase many times! I have used that phrase because I really do have very little artistic talent! I wish that I had nurtured that part of myself more when young!
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
2 Jun 07
I am not an artist myself but I really admire these people. I think artists are real cool. ;-)
Artists - good ones - should be creative so even if you give them a ruler, I think they will deliberately draw non-straight lines. :P
@mummymo (23706)
•
17 May 07
I would love to be artistic but I am afraid - yep you guessed it - I can't draw a straight line with a ruler!lol I know what you are trying to say but I am ok at drawing stick figures but that is about it! I would have to be very,very abstract - and that isn't really my type of art!
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (157551)
• United States
4 Jun 07
I learned as an adult that I have a lot of artistic and creative abilities, I also have a lack of discipline or attention, but I love the feeling of creating, whether it is with sewing projects or arts and crafts things at my house, or decorations for different occasions I share with friends. I understand what you are saying, I also appreciate the things I am continuing to learn as I get older.
@huggiebear22 (2007)
• Canada
2 Jun 07
Yup know that feelign cannot draw a stick man to save my life or hum a tune if it came to it
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
12 Aug 07
Yes, although I don't feel that blobs or squiggles express me very well, so I personally use tools and labor over my drawings. It is good that everyone should feel comfortable doing art, but just as anyone can throw some food in a pot, yet not everyone is a chef, so, too, with art, I don't think that just doing it necessarily makes one an artist.
On the other hand, a "bad" drawing does not break and ruin everyone else's work the way a piece of pottery might if rules are not followed in a community kiln, for example. So for those it pleases to draw wobbly lines, they should keep on drawing.
