What is World Drawing Day?

The next World Drawing Day will be sometime in June, 2013. Nothing posted about this year on the site, so far.

“Drawing Day is a world-wide event encouraging everyone to drop everything and draw on one day. Simply draw, then submit drawings to our website or any of our participating websites.”

One day each year just pretend you can draw. Even if you can already draw, draw something more. Challenge yourself.

As a kid and a teenager and then a young woman, I always thought I could not draw. Even now, I know I’m not a great artist. It doesn’t matter. I can draw. I can draw because I want to. I enjoy drawing just because I want to do it. I don’t have to be great, I don’ t have to make masterpieces or get something in a gallery (other than the gallery I made myself).

World Drawing Day is a day for people who want to draw. People who wish they could draw and all those people who think they can’ t draw. On World Drawing Day you don’t need any special qualifications. Just draw.

World Drawing Day on Flick r | Twitter | Facebook

Places for Those Who Draw
deviantART
Art – community of artists and those devoted to art. Digital art, skin art, themes, wallpaper art, traditional art, photography, poetry / prose. Art prints.

Drawn
The Drawn Blog is your daily source of inspiration for illustration, animation, cartooning, and comic art.

Rate My Drawings
Draw online and learn to draw at RateMyDrawings using online drawing tools!

SketchCrawl
A communal blog for compulsive sketchers.

DrawHappy

An ongoing global art project on drawing your happiness.

I Want to See a Fat Girl

I want to see a fat girl in a leading role of a film.

I want to see a fat girl in a leading role of a film that isn’t about her weight.

I want to see a fat girl wearing mini skirts or just whatever the fuck she’s comfortable in.

I want to see a fat girl kick some bad guy’s ass.

I want to see a fat girl be the one that the guy/girl falls in love with at first sight instead of just the fat girl the guys all make fun of first before getting to the stereotypical blond, thin white girl.

I want to see a fat girl who isn’t the thin girl’s funny friend.

I want to see a fat girl love scene.

I want to see a fat girl be a fucking survivor of a god damned fucking zombie apocalypse!  Fuck you and your rule #1, Zombieland!

I want to see a fat Disney princess.

I want to see a badass fat girl who is sardonic and smokes, and when someone comments on her weight and how smoking makes it worse, she just blows smoke right in their faces.

I want to see a fat girl who loves to screw and isn’t ashamed of the fact.

I want to see a fat girl’s leading man/woman punch some guy in the fact for making fun of her.

I want to see a fat girl be something that is not her weight.  I don’t want her to be the butt of every joke.  I don’t want her to be the one who’s constantly rejected, or the one who has to fight to accept herself and have others around her accept who she is.  I’m tired of seeing roles for fat girls that are only about her weight.  I want to see a fat girl living her normal existence.  I want to see her know she’s beautiful and not have to go through some huge challenge of loving herself.  I’m tired of seeing horror films with only a thin cast.  Fatties can run, too, a lot of times faster than you can and I can guarantee fatties can probably beat a bad guy up better, too.

I WANT TO SEE A FAT GIRL, HOLLYWOOD!

via Internal Acceptance Movement, I Want to See a Fat Girl .

Young Women Riot and Older Women Give Them The Forum

5 Reasons Why It’s Important to Keep Talking About Pussy Riot | xoJane .

I’m just starting to read about Pussy Riot and find out what they are about. As I was looking at another post about them on another blog… I began to think – it’s always the young women doing the rebelling, the physical actions, the biggest voices and the most likely to be in the media.

For a moment I felt passed by, as an older woman. Not important any more. Then, I realized how important we really are.

My generation are the women who listen, but more than that, we are the people who give those young women a forum, a way to be heard, a place to speak from.

We are where they cane from. We are the trail blazers, still ahead on the path, holding some of the branches out of their way.

Just because we aren’t in the news, being thrown in jail or active in other ways, doesn’t mean we are in the background. We are a long way from becoming wallflowers.

The View from my Front Door Today

This morning I heard a police siren and ignored it. We hear them now and then as they head to some location in our small city. We live in the almost suburbs, a quiet area with four elementary schools on the same street I live on. Traffic is limited to 40K through the school area and only goes up to 60K farther along. This street has young families and older couples with empty nests. It’s not the street for turning up 20-something young women dead in a dumpster.

I wish I could talk to my Grandfather. He thinks the way I do, he doesn’t judge people too easily and he thinks well of everyone, expects people are basically good and care about each other. I’ve had some cynicism creep in over the years but, essentially, I still think the same way too.

My Mother is assuming the young woman was troubled, the type to be out drinking and screwing around. I don’t assume anything about her and I don’t feel like judging her or making any decisions/ predictions about who she was. I’m mostly angry, deeply, tremendously angry. I’m so angry I’m trying not to think about any of it too much.

I wish I could ask my Grandfather what he thinks about the world today, the “war against women”, the type of lives young women lead these days, the type of lives young men lead these days. I wish my Grandfather could tell me what he thinks. But he’s been dead a long time now. Cancer. So he can’t tell me a thing.

I don’t want to think about the women in my family, our experiences with violence against women. My own, personal experience. My sister who was raped and saved from being murdered and having her body dumped somewhere only because someone heard a noise and came to check. My sister has four children now, two of them are daughters. What will their future be like? In our family (my Mother, myself and two sisters) only one of us has escaped violence or predatory experiences by men. Not a great statistic for my sister’s two daughters. It’s not wondering which of them will be molested, raped or worse. It’s wondering if both of them will and will one of them be killed.

Like the girl, the young woman, in the dumpster today. Just three or four houses up from my house. I watched the police car parked to block the street all day. They left after 8:00PM. It was a long day to leave a car running with lights flashing. I wonder how they keep the battery from dying.

I don’t want to think too much more about it tonight.

Only One Thing Wrong with Her

In an email from my Mom:

She can deal with stress and carry heavy burdens. She smiles when she feels like screaming, and she sings when she feels like crying. She cries when she’s happy and laughs when she’s afraid. Her love is unconditional. There’s only one thing wrong with her. She forgets what she’s worth! Pass this to every beautiful woman you know. Remind her that she’s unique. I love you girl :). In twenty-five minutes something will make you super happy, but you have to tell ten crazy girlfriends you love them, including me. L-o-v-e-y-o-u. Today is ‘love u day’ send to everyone u love.

I’ve read a few versions of this over the years. I always like it.