I love drawing. I’m not really any good but I do enjoy it immensely. I started drawing ever since I watched my first anime and haven’t stopped since. That led me to develop a particular style - one which many of my school teachers frowned upon but I never let that discourage me. At the time I didn’t really know how bad my drawings really were, yet once I entered high school I met many people who not only were better than me, but also planned to become professional artists and create art for a living. Now that I look back on it, I never really felt jealous of them and their drawing prowess actually motivated me to try harder and become better. While I still have a lot to learn and still make numerous mistakes in my drawings, I now have a goal and am slowly but surely reaching it.
What drew me to Japanese animation were my childhood friends and the breath of fresh air said cartoons were from the annual Disney-Pixar cash-grab of a movie. Rewatching old Disney classics now makes me appreciate them more and see them in a new light, yet for eight-year-old me they held little to no appeal. What’s more, I certainly had no interest in the history of classical European art - something I’ve only recently gotten into - and the simplicity of manga easily drew me - an inexperienced child - in. As most kids, I had a vivid imagination and felt the urge to put in on paper and since my limited vocabulary held me back from writing the many thing going through my head down, I decided that simple stick figures would suffice. As I grew older my fictional worlds and characters grew more complex and detailed. That pushed me to try and better myself in order to express it as closest as possible to how I saw it in my mind’s eye. These days my drawing style- influenced by many manga artists- “mirrors” theirs and I can’t get myself to draw anything resembling realism. I’m currently trying a different approach to drawing- a more realistic one- which proves to be very difficult and sometimes irritatingly futile, but once in a while a drawing comes out alright and I’m reminded that all the effort is worth it. This keeps me motivated during the hardest of times.
My favourite European painter is Vincent van Gogh. I really like his “Self-portrait”. Another favourite of mine would be Botticelli’s “Spring”. A Bulgarian artist I admire is Vladimir Dimitrov and Horikoshi Kouhei’s drawing style I really like and find myself occasionally trying to replicate.
Although I never attended any competition and don’t ever plan to do so, I think drawing will stay a part of my life in the foreseeable future, even if just as a hobby.
by Yoana Nedelcheva
Participant in
YE “Save our money” in Hungary