Drawing day is there to remind us of the time when we were too tied up in the amazing and beautiful things that came out of our imagination and onto the page to be self-conscious about them. We weren’t worried about how good we were or weren’t, we just knew that it was time to take our inner worlds and bring them out in glorious color. Some of us were amazing, to begin with, some of us got there drawing after painful drawing, and some of us let the artist within us die out under a wave of “not being good enough.”
Drawing Day reminds you that everything inside you is worthwhile and worthy to be shared with the world. It’s also there to bring much-needed appreciation and awareness to illustrators and artists. Anywhere you see a picture, from a business card to a beautiful mural on a painting, to every birthday card you’ve ever bought, an artist was designed in making it. The best way we can thank these intrepid creative souls is by picking up the pencil and making some noise for the lost and forgotten artists of the world. And maybe find a few more in the process.
How to celebrate Drawing Day
Drawingday.org is the originator of this amazing holiday, and you can go there to find ways to help celebrate this amazing holiday. Each year they aspire to create a million drawings worldwide to help raise awareness for artists and illustrators. If you want to help in their efforts, then all you have to do is draw something and share it with the world, or you can go all out and organize a Drawing Day event at your local school, or even your workplace! Sit down and draw with your children, encourage them to keep working on art and creativity and bringing out their inner self onto the page.
- Picasso could draw before he could walk, and his first word was the Spanish word for pencil.
- Leonardo da Vinci was a vegetarian and animal rights activist. He bought caged birds and set them free.
- 4 of the 21 most expensive paintings sold at auction are by Van Gogh and 4 by Picasso.
- In 1961, Henri Matisse’s painting Le Bateau was hung upside down at New York’s Museum of Modern Art for 46 days before anyone noticed.
- When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, the empty space it left on the wall attracted more visitors than the painting had.
- It is said that the average pencil can draw a line 35 miles long, although this has never been tested.
- Before the invention of erasers, writers and artists used bread crumbs to erase mistakes.
- Famous transcendentalist author Henry David Thoreau designed pencils at his father’s pencil factory before retreating to Walden.
- Pencils can write in zero gravity, and were used on space missions by American and Russian astronauts. They can also write under water!
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