Put It In My Veins

Sometimes it amazes me how much drawing is like a drug. I haven't had time to do more than the occasional sketch or doodle over the past few months, so tonight, going to a figure drawing session that Rob organized on campus for his students, I was pleased nearly to the point of mania that I was finally able to take a break from everything else I've been doing and exercise the old drawing muscles.

And it IS like a drug. Really. I'm an addict. It doesn't even have to be a GOOD drawing session for me to think, AAAHHHHHHH, that's the stuff. Fortunately, tonight was pretty good. Not outstanding, but good, considering I'm a little out of practice. I've seriously been jonesing to do some artwork for months now. Luckily, I was at a good breaking point in the revision, having just struggled through rewriting a chapter that seemed to have nothing right with it and everything wrong. Now, I'm hoping it's more good than bad.

Anyway, here are a few of the drawings I did tonight. The two using Conte pencil on toned paper are just 20-minute sketches, and the large charcoal drawing (left) took a little over an hour. I'm pretty happy with how that one came out, considering it took me 10 minutes just to get started because I couldn't figure out what medium I wanted to use and because the pose was surprisingly challenging. But I loves me some vine charcoal. Once I got started, it flowed pretty well.

I'm looking forward to getting back in the habit again.

My Virgin Ears

Strangely, I have not listened to an actual audiobook yet. Nope, not once. There's no one particular reason I can point to. I tend to prefer listening to music on my iPod, but I'm not anti-podcast, for instance. I like books. (That's obviously not the problem.) It's just that I have an uncanny ability to forget about the possibility of audiobooks when I'm planning for a long car trip. I'm not in the habit, so I don't think about it until it's too late.

Well, NO MORE! I have officially checked out my very first audiobook from the library: White Cat by Holly Black, narrated by none other than Jesse Eisenberg of The Social Network movie fame. It's a book I was interested in reading, so I'm hoping I get just as much enjoyment out of the audio version. And it's just a slight bit longer than my drive down to SoCal is likely to take, I think, so it should be perfect. It was a pretty exciting day for library pickings, actually: Magic Thief Book 3, Northlander Book 2, POD by Stephen Wallenfels, Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus (YAY YAY YAY), and the first book in a new series by Herbie Brennan (author of the very funny Faerie Wars books) called The Shadow Project.

Not that I'll have a huge amount of leisure reading time for the next few days, buried as I am under articles to write, art appreciation essays to grade, and a big revision I foolishly thought I could get done much more quickly. I don't even want to THINK about Christmas shopping yet, although I did get a little of it done already. There's not even any time to shop online. My so-called free time is generally devoted to cooking ('cause you gotta eat) and cleaning (just enough to not feel like we're living in a pigsty) and sleeping (because that is non-negotiable). Every time I check something off the list, I want to celebrate with great jubilation.

Oh yeah. No celebrating for at least 5 days.