No need for drawing abilities when you can produce roses like that. I disagree that you don't have God given artist ability. You work with what you are given and develop that. Everyone makes mistakes and experiments. When you look at real flowers to produce your roses, in the artist world, they call it a 'Study'. How else does one learn? Haven't you ever seen paintings of bowls of fruit? the artist does not see the fruit in their head, it's right in front of them tempting them to eat a grape before the painting is finished.

Keep going with what you know and it will lead you where you need to be.
Paula
Guthrie, MN

Hi Joe,
The shape of your roses is impressive considering the time you say you`ve been working with metal. Hey, don`t block yourself, if you can`t draw now, you`ll be drawing soon. And if you still wouldn`t draw, you can still be a great artist. Different folks, different strokes. I couldn`t explain here what I learned in a few drawing courses I took in a City College. There you`re taught how to free your hands and get things going over a piece of paper. Don`t worry too much about what`s "supposed to" just do what you want with the medium you like, be it steel,copper,wood,etc. Work,read, work, check www for tutorials and tips, work, attend workshops, work,work,work, and mainly enjoy what you do! If you are critical about your own work, pay attention to details, and are curious about discovering new things, you are on the right track to discovering, and amazing things will take place right before your eyes. To me artists as any other professionals or hobbyists too, all we do is discovering. Creation already took place, matter and energy in all their imaginable manifestations exist and evolve. Its an infinite universe of possibilities, and all we do is discovering the unknown and then we assemble discovered parts together. That`s the challenge huh, discovering ourselves and what`s out there...too much! and too little time. Nelson.

Joe,

You obviously seem to be able to re-create something in metal that you can see in front of you, so you should be able to continue along those same lines as far as you want to go. I will say, though, that the ability to sketch or draw is a huge timesaver for most artists working in metal. Far faster to sketch on paper and makes changes there, than to do the same in the metal itself. I would be unable to accomplish half of what I do if I couldn't at least fiddle it into some semblance of order on paper first.

Drawing is NOT a natural "talent" for 90% of the artists in the world. Yes, there are a few who seem to have been born with the eye to see and the eye/hand coordination to commit that vision to paper on the first try, but they are few and far between. The rest of us have to plod along, struggling for a long time until we begin to learn to draw adequately for our needs. Some of us never do get very good at it, we just get to the point that will barely suffice for our needs and plateau there, content with that. Others persist and become very accomplished draftsmen/artists, sufficient to put their drawings in galleries. (Mine are best left in sketchbooks that only I see...)

You CAN learn to draw! A good teacher can be of immense help in getting you on the right path, studying how your mind and hand seem to work best and developing your latent skills. Most community colleges and universities have drawing classes in which you can enroll for a small fee, as do local artists' groups and clubs. Then there are artists in every community who are willing to give lessons for a reasonable fee. Your roses are plenty fine enough that you could undoubtedly trade some of them for drawing lessons, if you just offered.

Drawing is a learned skill, much more than it is a "talent" one natively possesses. Even those with native talent benefit from developing their skills, and those with little or no native talent can do remarkably well after just a modicum of good training. One of the better resources for learning drawing on your own used to be the old "Walter Foster" art books sold at craft shops. "How to Draw Horses" and titles like that, sold for a few bucks thirty or forty years ago. They were almost universally sneered at by the hoi polloi of the art world as being crassly commercial and trivial, but they actually conveyed the important factors of seeing what is there and putting it to paper. They did this without all the lofty mumbo-jumbo about "getting into" the piece or "feeling the essence" or any other artspeak. They just showed you what was needed to make a horse look like a horse instead of a lump, or a tree look like a tree instead of an abstract impresionistic mushroom. If you could find a few of them at a used book shop they'd be worthy find.

Talent or no talent, teacher or no teacher, the bottom line in learning to draw is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. It takes a LOT of practice to get mediocre, an incredible amount of practice to get good, and a lifetime of practice to get in the Louvre. Get a sketchbook, some pencils and a good plastic eraser and get busy - it WILL come if you're persistent and patient. Believe me, it will be worth the effort. Keep in mind what Thomas Edison said about genius - it is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. There's no substitute for persistence and a determination to succeed.

When you're not drawing, keep on cranking out the copper work - you obviously have the talent/determination for doing that well, so develop that along with your drawing. It will all come together, you'll see.

hi,
Was googling cooper roses and i came across your link. They are very pretty and I was wondering if you would sell me 7 copper roses. I would like to use them as an anniversary gift.

I'll check back in a day or so. If you are, how would you like me to make contact. I'm not sure if posting an email or a number is wise. Please let me know.

George