Apples to apples to better apples
Prompt
Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn't go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?(*) (200-250 words)
Response
The answer to “How ’bout them apples?” is that apples are hard. Seriously, drawing apples was hard. Trial after trial, I would draw that apple for four hours. Even then, my drawing portrayed a lifeless lump of dough. Consequently, the crux of my art odyssey was dubbed “The Enigma of the Apple.”
I scoured the web. Apples. I go to a grocery store. Apples. I open my AP Calculus notebook. Apples. Terribly drawn apples, but still, apples. I don’t know why I draw any more than I know why there are apple sketches in my math notebooks. I just keep drawing. This past summer, I finally completed a pencil sketch of a hand holding an apple, but this “Mona Lisa” achievement was monochromatic without the sanguine of a Red Delicious.
In my AP Art Studio class, I found myself facing an apple on my desk. Not good enough. Thus, I spent an hour rearranging the apple — now accompanied by a wine bottle, cloth, and roses — as the centerpiece to an elaborate still-life. For the next month, I grounded my Prismacolor pencils into my paper until my piece was replete with a glossy, waxy finish.
I took it home to show my parents. They stared at it in stunned silence for a while. I fidgeted with my fingers. Did I mess up? My father asked, “Did you paint that?”
I realized how far my apple drawings have come.
I laughed and said, “This is colored pencil, not acrylic.”