Michael D. Davis.

They say in preschool, I hated art. I detested coloring, and whenever the subject came up, I threw a fit. My parents say that when I came home from school and they asked about my day, I’d grotesquely spit out the words, “They made me color!”

Strangely, my art journey started with TV. Horrible allergies, relentless asthma, and constant sickness had me inside, and in front of the television while other kids frolicked outdoors.

Yes, I got schooled on the classics by my parents. I was the only 10-year-old who could quote Cary Grant or John Wayne, but it was cartoons that were my true pastime. And after years of Wile E. Coyote and Underdog, I felt like trying to draw the cartoons myself.

So, through a Scholastic catalog, I ordered my first “how to draw” book. The book that came had a cartoon bird on the cover, and that bird was the first thing the little book taught you how to draw.

I sat down on the floor using my bed as a table and tried to follow the directions. If you have ever seen a “how to draw” book, they are all the same. First, they want you to draw a circle for the face, then put a cross in the middle of that to determine where the facial features will be, and as you go along you slowly lose your initial lines.

I tried and tried again, and failed miserably until I ended this first drawing session with frustration and tears. I got up, I left, and a few hours later I came back to clear the stuff off my bed. As I closed the book, I looked at the cover again, at the cartoon bird. I decided, screw the instructions, and sat back down with pencil and paper. I just looked at the bird on the cover, and I drew what I saw, two eyes, a beak, some feathers.

And I did it. It still wasn’t amazing, but it was leaps and bounds better than when I tried to follow the directions.

For years afterward, I got hundreds of “how to draw” books, from animals to The Simpsons. I never once followed the directions. I always just looked at the last step, the final picture, and would draw what I saw.

I did the same thing with TV. The Toledo Library used to have The Looney Tunes Golden Collection. I would rent those out, again and again, two at a time. I would set up a little desk in front of the TV and pause the DVD, then I would draw Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. I also watched the special features on those DVD’s a thousand times, the interviews with Chuck Jones, and Friz Freleng, talking about the termite terrace.

That’s where it started, that’s where it began, forced coloring, a bird on a book, and the Looney Tunes. How is it going now, you ask?

Well, I have several art projects due next month, including a table. I have sketched, cut out, sanded, and painted a four-foot wooden skull. Now, most of the living room is covered in blue tarp as it lays jacked up on a card table. I’m in the process of covering the top in resin. However, as I learned only too late, I didn’t have enough resin, so it is currently only 25% covered. AKA mostly the right temple.

My experience with resin is only the briefest because in June at around 4 in the morning one night, half asleep, I bought a skull resin mold off Etsy. I didn’t realize I’d actually bought the mold until I saw the order confirmation in my emails the next day. It was only after it arrived in my mailbox, that I figured I should actually get some resin and start messin’ around with the stuff.

So, a giant skull is in the living room, four giant jugs of resin are being shipped to the house, and hopefully, before October, it should be a tabletop. That’s how it started, that’s how it’s going, and if I’m being honest, I still don’t like coloring.