Rashmi Bajoria shares about her experience taking an art class for the first time.
Every year end, I get introspective on my own life and what I want to accomplish. This precedes my birthday, my husbands’ birthday, our wedding anniversary and the holiday madness. I have a fulfilling and wonderful professional career, a supportive husband and two fierce daughters. However, as a mom and wife, I still feel at times that there’s so much I give to others that I forget to focus on myself.
This year, my goal was to learn something new! I had never done any drawing before or had any formal art training. But then, I decided to sign up for a portrait drawing class through our city’s rec center programs. The timings miraculously worked out with my schedule.
However, on the first day of my portrait drawing class, my daughter woke up sick and had to stay home from school. I missed my first class! I was devastated and once again, it felt like my role as a mother trumped just being me. Next week, I made it to class and instantly fell in love with sketching.
It was a deep dive into the pencil strokes and how the graphite hits the paper. I was so immersed that hours would pass in an instant and before I realized, an actual image appeared on the sketch paper. I started practicing at home with encouragement from my daughters.