Becoming a freelance artist

Mermaids, Fantasies and Art

Summary: So what happens as we grow older and those feelings of pretend and fantasy become dull? We find ourselves wondering what took away that spirit of optimism and adventure. When did paper toys appear only as paper, no longer something that fairies and mermaids and dragons became alive in? Does it matter?

About ten years ago I decided that when people asked me what I did or who I was, I would confidently reply, “I am an artist”. No matter how I was making a living or if my status was that of a ’starving artist’ or not, I would announce, “I am an artist”. I would proclaim what I had fantasized myself to be since I was a little girl.

I started to draw at three and four years old, in the back seat of my parents car as they drove from state to state, looking for rainbows I suspect. I was a little girl drawing mermaids, angel art ,fairy art, fantasy art in general. I tried as best I could to make that world alive. I made my own coloring pages. As I grew older I had free paper dolls available to me anytime I decided to make drawings or little paintings of them. Drawings of mermaids and fairies that I imagined to be just like Renaissance paintings. My talent was as good as I decided it could be. My free paper dolls were not paper toys at all, my paper mermaid once given a chance became a real mermaid. Fantasy art would one day be wall murals of a world I would create from my imagination . I did not know of Pablo Picasso; Kandinsky; Marc Chagall; or the softness of Mary Cassatt. I had never gone to an art gallery to see Salvador Dali paintings; Leonardo da Vinci paintings; or Claude Monet paintings. Such a world to discover ahead of me, full of fine art; paintings and sculptures. As a child I had my own fantasy gallery though and everything I saw became magical.

So what happens as we grow older and those feelings of pretend and fantasy become dull? We find ourselves wondering what took away that spirit of optimism and adventure. When did paper toys appear only as paper, no longer something that fairies, mermaids and dragons became alive in? Does it matter? Is it OK that that part of us that became Tinker Bell or a dragon is no longer there? Or maybe is it OK to try to find them again?

People tell me all the time that they cannot even draw a straight line.

Do you ‘want’ to learn how to draw though? Do you wish you could? Did you draw when you were little? Often the answer is yes.

When you were going to school