At age seven, I received the greatest piece of mail I could possibly have imagined. No, it wasn’t my premature acceptance letter to Hogwarts (although, I did apply early decision because, like Northwestern, Hogwarts loves those ED wizards), and no, it wasn’t a response from Hilary Duff on my desire to serve a guest spot on an upcoming “Lizzie McGuire” episode. It was better.
I was going to be in the art fair.
The annual district art fair featured the best art produced by students from kindergarten to eighth grade, and second-grade me was mega-pumped to be in the showcase. I wasn’t exactly shocked my work was selected; after all, I had made a snowman out of paper snowflakes and pipe cleaners. It’s pretty tough to top that kind of artistic vision.
On the day of the fair, I proudly showed my adoring fans (see: parents) around the gym to my artwork. They responded accordingly as I beamed with pride. This moment was the pinnacle of my artistic career.
I was in second grade, and my art has been going all downhill ever since.
With that in mind, I turned to Pinterest to try to salvage some of the artistic magic I was able to capture 12 long years ago. I found a seemingly simple tutorial on how to draw a cat, and the pin was even described as “elementary drawing lessons.” I assumed I would be able to keep up.
Of all the things I have attempted to recreate from Pinterest, this was, perhaps, the venture into which I entered with the lowest expectations. Outside of my exceptional snowflake snowman and a few painted ceramics courtesy of The Painted Penguin, my artistic ventures have resulted in vastly subpar work.
Nonetheless, this cat drawing looked so easy that even I could create something that at least partially resembled a feline. I began with step one by drawing the three concentric circles outlined in the pin. I erased and redid this step multiple times until I felt my circles would result in a correctly sized cat.
Step two was more difficult, as I needed to draw the cat’s paws and tail. I floundered. My drawing suffered. My cat was now lopsided with creepy looking feet. I shook my head and moved on to step three.
I adorned my feline friend with a face and erased some of the guiding lines I had drawn in earlier in the process. After step three, Muffin, the name I decided best fit my cat’s essence, was finished.
Did my final product look like a fat cat, as I had desired? To some extent. Muffin beamed back at me, and I realized that the Pinterest instructions were quite helpful. Though they did not have words, the visual step-by-step definitely aided in my lukewarm success.
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Twitter: @heyhay94
