Nocturnal Artist

This was the quicker sketch for the day. I worked on another one for quite a while, but I completely botched it. Not used to the 3/4 view. I haven't messed up that badly for a while. Oh well. With the good comes the bad.

My last class involved profile drawings, and instruction on drawing eyes. That was a slow night for me. I didn't manage to progress as far as I usually do. The image above was a short value study. If I recall correctly, it took half an hour.

I did discover that newsprint is a better surface for Conté than the white drawing paper that we usually use. The image above is on the newsprint. The image below was a quick eye drawing on the white paper.
















I was so happy to be able to draw an eye in class!

I have a terribly small amount of experience painting, so I've been doing some practice work just to get used to the medium.















The painting above is a monochromatic painting (using only green and white) of my houseplant. I used acrylic paint on a simple sketch pad that my friend Ryan bought me a few years ago.

It's not complete, but rather abandoned. I could spend forever working on a single painting if I allowed myself. I decided it would be best to post it and move on to other projects.

A friend of mine said that I should name this painting Robert Plant.

My drawing class has recently moved on to drawing humans and studying values rather than perspective. That said, I should be updating more often with some of my classwork.

The image displayed above is a working drawing from class today. It was my first time using Conté crayon.

This is the first drawing I've finished in a while. Unfortunately, a great deal of the detail in the fingers is not visible because of my scanner, and the binding of my sketchbook.

Despite the quality of the scan, I'm fairly pleased with this drawing. It's just the product of having a sketchbook, mechanical pencil, and rather uneventful sociology class.

I've had some vivid reminders of death lately. A few relatives are slowly declining in health. Another few are not quite as lucky. I had a saddening but somehow touching instance at work today:

A middle-aged woman walked into the library with a small child by her side and several books under her arm. She set them down on the counter top and turned as if to walk away, but paused instead. The little girl looked up at me from below the counter with a look that I can remember so clearly now. It was as if she was sad, but there was some blankness behind the expression that seemed to indicate that she didn't quite understand what was happening. She only knew that she should not have been happy just then. When I saw her, I could tell that they weren't there just to return books.

When I put my hand on the first book, a glossy cover with some indistinguishable title and eyes that looked up at me, the woman started to speak. "My daughter used to go here," she said "but she passed away. I was going through her things, and thought that you might like these back." The woman looked down, as if about to cry. "I've returned them to you now. I'm sorry that they are a few years late."

I haven't written in a while. Amongst various reasons, I'm in a bit of a rough spot. I've started countless drawings and paintings, but I haven't been able to bring myself to finish them. My next two weeks are filled with final exams and projects, and to top it off I'm still undecided about where to go next year.

Despite the constant confusion, I'm incredibly happy. I'm not certain that much has changed but my outlook. Perhaps I'm just happy to have something to hope for, as distant as it may be. As strange as this may seem, I've never really wanted anything before now.