“It’s like this,” he said staring down at my art portfolio strewn across the floor for evaluation, “A piano teacher has two students, one beginner and one advanced. The advanced student plays all the notes fluidly and perfectly, the teacher sits beside them taking in the well played piece, entranced by the music. The beginning student plunks hard on the keys, stumbling and unable to find the right notes. The teacher sits there and…” my professor stopped and covered his ears dramatically. He looked over at me and said, “You are that beginning piano student in this art class.”

It was one of my toughest semesters yet, my sophomore year of college. I was majoring in Nursing. I was enrolled in microbiology, several required nursing courses, French and because I was at a liberal arts school, Drawing 101. Science was my love. I knew working in medicine was where I was headed, but I’d always felt I had an untapped creative side. A desire to be innovative. I put hours of work outside of class into my drawing portfolio. I couldn’t argue, my pieces looked terrible when compared to those of the students around me, all working hard and within earshot of this entire conversation. However, the progress I’d made was undeniable. I had gone from rudimentary nearly stick figure drawings, to using shading and adding dimension to my work. It was obvious I had put in significant effort to improve.

I had decided to take the drawing class as a break from the science heavy Nursing curriculum. Many of my non-art major friends had opted to take an interpretive dance and movement course that was designed for those of us less artistically inclined to fill this requirement of our liberal arts degree. I, however, had always felt drawn to art. I wanted a challenge and creative outlet. I knew I wasn’t good at drawing. In fact, my fifth grade art teacher had accused my mom of allowing me to use too many coloring books which they felt had “stunted my artistic abilities.” This was a sentiment further reinforced by my one and only college art professor.

I found myself in this uncomfortable predicament because it had never occurred to me that art would actually ever be graded on quality. My professor, felt differently. He absolutely had no problem grading the quality of my work. My midterm grade, was a C and as a Dean’s List student, that was unacceptable to me. Needless to say the professor and I did come to an understanding that while my artistic abilities were not great, my effort had been substantial. We parted ways at the end of the semester with an unstated agreement I not torment the art department with any further “bad art,” and with a grade that was more satisfactory to me than my professor felt I deserved.

I didn’t enroll in any more art classes. In fact, I honestly don’t know that I picked up a drawing pencil again for many years, I probably still haven’t done so. I resigned myself to being a right brained scientist. I briefly considered making a scrapbook for our wedding album, but honestly, the words of my art professor hung close for a long time and I opted not to.  

Fast forward fifteen years down the road. My daughter’s team got a last minute invite to play in a soccer tournament the weekend of Halloween. Here we were, three days before the tournament started and we were encouraged to have the players dress in costume for their games. The players and coach decided they wanted to be minions from Despicable Me. There wasn’t enough time to order off Etsy and my mom convinced me to buy a Cricut Maker 3 (affiliate link) and try to pull together some simple t-shirts.

It was a learning curve. A steep learning curve, with a time crunch. I am a procrastinator and am used to working on a short time limit. However, there was a lot to learn. We pulled off the project and the players were so excited for their costumes.

HTV buyers starting guide (with Amazon Associate links included):

• Cricut machine https://amzn.to/4hYSxNW
• Vinyl assortment https://amzn.to/3Oo12od
• Weeding Tools https://amzn.to/3AJSbtU
• Heat Press (this mini one is great for smaller projects or to take your crafting on the go https://amzn.to/3AUholi
• Heat Press (larger option if you plan to do bigger projects https://amzn.to/3OlZHhO
• Vinyl Cutting mat standard grip (If you plan to cut more glitter vinyl or woods you may want to go for the sticky grip mat. If you plan to do more crafting with paper and lighter products than you may want a light grip mat.) This link has all three: https://amzn.to/40ZJyGm