JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Son, 3, helps dad regain desire to draw

by

1057 days ago
20220816
A Dwayne Mc Dowell artwork of his now 4-year-old Zane Mc Dowell who inspired him to regain his passion for drawing when he was three.

A Dwayne Mc Dowell artwork of his now 4-year-old Zane Mc Dowell who inspired him to regain his passion for drawing when he was three.

blood­san­dral@ya­hoo.com

“Since the age of five, I loved to draw. My mom al­ways praised my work, even though it would be a sim­ple thing like box cars,” ex­pressed artist and en­tre­pre­neur, Dwayne Mc­Dow­ell.

“As I grew old­er, I worked hard and im­proved on my God-giv­en tal­ent but nev­er took the time to ad­mire any of my art work. I al­ways ap­pre­ci­at­ed oth­er peo­ple’s work but nev­er found that mine were great enough to com­pare.”

Mc­Dow­ell said all this time he was still at­tend­ing pri­ma­ry school, ea­ger­ly await­ing to reach to sec­ondary lev­el so that he would be able to of­fi­cial­ly choose art as a sub­ject, in or­der to pur­sue it as a pos­si­ble job in the fu­ture, but un­for­tu­nate­ly, the ju­nior sec­ondary school he en­tered did not pos­sess the re­sources to earn a full-time art teacher.

“I was un­able to get the for­mal train­ing I so de­sired. I lost all in­ter­est in art. Sports and oth­er typ­i­cal teenage ac­tiv­i­ties then led me.

“Up­on grad­u­at­ing from that school, and en­ter­ing se­nior com­pre­hen­sive lev­el, I was of­fered a pack­age to choose my sub­jects and I was most ex­cit­ed when art was dis­played as one of the sub­ject choic­es, but to my dis­may, I was not ac­cept­ed in­to the art class.”

Mc­Dow­ell said he be­came dev­as­tat­ed, and to his rec­ol­lec­tion, it was main­ly based on the fact that art has lim­it­ed space and since it was full, he was forced in­to tak­ing busi­ness sub­jects.

Artist Dwayne Mc Dowell

Artist Dwayne Mc Dowell

“This dis­ap­point­ment left me dis­cour­aged to the point where I did not even want to con­tin­ue to draw dur­ing my leisure time. I pro­ceed­ed to pur­sue bas­ket­ball as a re­place­ment for art, and even dab­bled in an­oth­er art­form, singing and chant­i­ng.”

Thir­ty-nine-year-old Mc­Dow­ell even­tu­al­ly be­came a fa­ther 11 years ago in 2011, but it was not un­til last year when his last child, three-year-old Zane, asked him to draw a car for him that he so much as picked up a pen­cil to draw again.

“I no longer had a sketch­pad or prop­er draw­ing uten­sils, but I made do with a copy­book and an HB pen­cil. Zane adored and loved the sports car and I, my­self, was a tad im­pressed with how the sketch came out. His ad­mi­ra­tion of my work led to a re­newed de­sire for me to start back draw­ing, which en­cour­aged me to seek the tools I need­ed to pur­sue my ini­tial dream of be­com­ing a suc­cess­ful artist. I then drew Zane!”

Mc­Dow­ell is cur­rent­ly putting to­geth­er his col­lec­tion of art­work to have his first ex­hi­bi­tion in weeks to come. His genre of art is pen­cil black and white medi­um of por­traits and na­ture.

“I learned how to eman­ci­pate my­self from men­tal slav­ery. I’m a very peace­ful and hum­ble soul. I’m steep in my African roots, and my art is in­tend­ed to cre­ate peace and cause peo­ple to re­flect on the beau­ty of life that which God has cre­at­ed. Life is art and we are the mas­ter­pieces of the grand artist – our Cre­ator.

“I give thanks for all knowl­edge. I live and learn, and we must learn and live well.”

Calming the Senses

Calming the Senses


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored