…and learn how to love and accept myself as I am.
I am so grateful to the University of Tartu for this amazing opportunity to take the optional courses any courses that you wish for free. So, you can study Japanese, Italian, Czech or another language that you want, or watch movies about God (that I did last spring semester), or… learn how to draw even if you do not have any experience in this area.
After viewing different options that the freshly opened Center of Arts proposed for this fall semester, I decided to attend Comics class, because I am a big fan of Marvel and DC comics and I have always dreamt to draw my own one day.
But can I really make it?
I mean, I do not have any experience in drawing by hand, I have never learned how to do this academically and I will be definitely the worst in the class…
But life would be too boring if we do not face our fears, right?
So, I registered for this course, take my paper and pencils and go to my first ever in life creative class.
The first thing that I loved when I came was the building of Old Anatomical Theater itself where Center of Arts is located and where my class took place. When you open this door, you can feel and touch the history.
As well as you may see different paintings and drawings on the walls, sculptures around the building and all other creative things that students made. It inspires you and this is something unusual to see in the university buildings, right?
Our first class started from the theoretical question: What is Comics? And we discuss all these different features that made comics so specific between all types of arts. For example, comics are always the combination of text and images that both are important. Also, it should tell some story, so it is continuing in time.
Our teacher Rauno Thomas Moss brought us different examples of what we will create in the end. When I saw these amazing comics, my fears even became worse and I could not believe that I can create something like that in the end.
But the semester started, as well as we started to work. First, we made a lot of different fun tasks where we learned different principles such as how to draw the motion or time, how to organize the space of the sheet and how to create your own character and develop the story. Rauno was always very supportive and helpful. I noticed that other people also do not have any special artistic education, so I understand that it is never late to learn!
Together as a group we also did a lot of interesting tasks. For example, we created group comics – a fun way to create comics when everyone has only one piece and do not know where the story goes. We created a funny story about the man who met an alien friend on the new planet.
We also made a jam comics where everybody has to continue the previous picture only knowing a general principle. After we edited it and have our first one-page comics. My comics appeared to be about the hidden part of any artistic experience.
But in the end, we should draw our own story, so I was started to think about it. And because of my great teacher and classmates that taught me never to compare myself with others but only consider my own progress, I have drawn the comics about self-acceptance and self-love. You can read this story on my Behance or download a pdf in English or in Russian.
And never forget that you can make your dream come true if you only believe in yourself and accept yourself. Because we are already worthless and complete, so do not be afraid to try something new, do not be afraid to allow yourself do what you have dreamt about.
So, maybe it is time to buy a paper and pencil and attend some other creative class? 🙂
Anastasiia Babash is an International Master student in Philosophy. All the pictures shown in this post are taken by her.
