Seven Drawing Lessons Remain

This weekend, I took my car, "Frauline", to the Rockies. Fabuloso! I had a chance to speak French and German and not hike, bike and, yes, sketch. 

After a beautiful bike ride solo around Lacs Boisvert, Annette and Edith, I sat on a shade chair, ate me whole wheat bread with aged cheddar cheese, a sliced Gala apple and sliced red pepper. Super!  

While sitting, I sketched what I saw before me, deciding to create some of the perpective that I had learned in the Udemy course. Objects that are close appear much larger than those in the background.  You would be polite to say my drawing is good, but I do have to say it provided an absorbing 40-minute, or so, activity. 

My "take home" is that when I challenged myself to take this short journey on my own and live through my fears, doors to language and to creativity opened magically. 

Ideas for a future language-learning related blog rose with ease and joy from my inner center of creativity. 

Lovely. Lovely. 

Active Memory

I found some CDs offering Spanish practice. There are chances to repeat words and phrases and quizzes to evaluate learning. Well! I thought, though I have only used these as video files, perhaps they could work as audio files to accompany me on longer driving trips. 

A Lake at the end of my Road Trip

Here is what I observed: When I listened and repeated in my mind the phrases, my active memory still contained enough 'space' to pay attention to the road conditions, other drivers,  and signage. When I attempted to repeat the phrases out loud, my active memory could not accommodate both tasks at the the required optimum levels. I found myself missing signs, forgetting to signal, etc. 

Drawing, too, takes up most of my active memory. This is perhaps why I find it such a relaxing diversion. In both cases, times seems to pass without my being aware of it. 

Instructor's drawings

I find this extremely interesting.  I wonder how much RAM is available? 

Wood Texture

Free Drawing to Create a Male Figure 

Joy

  JOY This drawing is super pleasing to me. I have walked by my desk and several times, and for a moment thought there were two sets of ribbons. One on the book where I usually keep them for a bookmark, and one on the desk.  This photo does not capture this, but it is true!

Today, I found a wonderful quiz on SpanishDictionary.com on indirect pronouns - just the pronouns that I had recently realized I needed to understand better. So fine. (The explanation before the quiz.)

I attended another Meet-up meeting for Spanish learners. Biking there, meeting new people on a warm summer evening, experimenting with Spanish- could it get any better?!

Feeling Lost

It is easy to feel lost in  the process of living out one's dream to learn to draw or to learn a language. I have felt so during the weeks that have passed since my last post. 

I reminded myself  to keep on doing what is before me to do: keep on drawing as often as possible even if I was not consistently following my Udemy course; and keep on practicing  some Spanish every day. 

Today, I got back to my drawing course and enjoyed creating the textures following my instructor's direction. Yesterday, I spent an hour or more on the FutureLearn Spanish course and today I remembered the phrases I had had to repeat in the numerous practice quizzes! 

I also kept up with my meet-ups or language exchanges. Sharing learning with other like-minded  people is a strong motivational factor. When I lose sight of my goals, the 'community' motivates me to continue.  

---- A few days after this post, I asked for suggestions from fellow students taking the drawing course. One fellow learner suggested darkening lines to show more contrast as a way to improve my brick texture.