Artistic Expression, Kate Style.

I needed a hobby, but today, sitting at my desk, in my spacious but barren cube, I realize that "Colouring by Numbers with Pencil Crayons" never turn out the way they look on the picture. I saw the landscape, full of English wildlife (as the company that told me that I could "create this masterpiece with (above stated) coloured pencils" is based in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England) and there are no species of mammal native solely to North America (like the raccoon).

There's a red fox, a quail, badger, red squirrel, an owl, a mouse (which may rightly be a rat due to its tail's prehensile nature), and birds, birds, birds collaged together to make quite a nice medley of wild species. I only need a toad to complete the casting call for A Wind in the Willows. And yet I look at the "main illustration on [the] sleeve," used, as the instructions said, "as [my] guide." And I'm disappointed in my efforts as an artist.

The shading and depth of my version of "Country Life" doesn't quite match that of the "guide." I coloured (for purposes of this post, I will use the English spelling, as I was trying to complete an English-produced piece of art) by number: my 8's matched my 8's, 3's went in to fill 3's. But maybe I was mistaken in the way I shaded the areas labeled (I'll use algebra to explain) x/y-- where x and y are two different colours. My balance did not match that of the guide. I assume x is applied first and y second, but somehow my pencil pressure did not match the colour shown in the guide. The next section I applied y first and x second, but the density of the colours which I applied with such dedication and what I thought was skill ended up looking like smashed cantaloupe on a bed of green olives. And this was supposed to be my regal fox, surrounded by his minions (that I have now imagined him to eat in a Wild America-esque fashion).

Except the badger, of course, because he's badass.

I read and re-read the section on "Density of Colour," trying to figure out why I can't "attain different shades of colour by applying greater or less pressure with [my] coloured pencils." Or how I can't "lighten a dark colour with the use of [my] soft kneadable eraser."

And then I realize that I'm not an artist. I never have been. Sure, I appreciate art in all of its forms: I take photographs, I played the piano, I visit museums. I visit museums. I don't actively draw or sketch-- although I doodle a hell of a lot (notice almost always straight lines).

I give you tenth grade:

I wanted to give my friend James a graduation gift. I got it in my head that a painting (by me, of course) would be the coolest high school graduation gift ever and he would hang it in his dorm room and it would be the palate for which he based his desk accessory and bed-sheet colours. A brash mix of a water-colour ocean and beach and a tempra lighthouse on a cliff complete with tufts of beach flowers and wild grasses and stepping stones matted and wrapped and given to James the last day I saw him.

An 8 x 10 piece of shit.

My name is Katherine L. Ray, I'm 22 years old and I cannot draw, paint, colour, shade, or bullshit art. Even by numbers.