I have very much the sensation of having renewed connecti...

I have very much the sensation of having renewed connection with a lover from whom time and life separated me for decades: I've returned to taking art classes. I did art most of my life, drawing and painting, and I was/am a pretty good amateur artist. As I think I've said here a few weeks ago, I now have the opportunity to study it properly, under the guidance of a teacher who does (and does phenomenally well!) the kind of art that I've always most wanted to pursue: the extremely technical skills of a commercial illustrator. And given the opportunity to take his classes - in addition to writing full-time and teaching part-time and trying to do enough exercise per day so that I can stay healthy and sleep well at night - I thought, "If not now, when?"

And I'm happy with it, even though a) I don't have time to do the homework  b) the professionals in the class are WAY better than me and I'm envious and c) I have to go back to the very basics and I'm TERRIBLE at them. I know I'll improve, and I've improved even in the two months so far that I've been doing this. My natural skill (and I do have natural skill) has worked against me: most of my life, I've been able to slide by with my art, without the frustration of practice and study. That just means there's a lot of habits - particularly mind-set - that I have to un-learn, in order to progress. At the moment, I'm pretty much not very good. (And, I'm working on the rough draft of Benjamin January #13 and that takes most of my time and energy). (Oh, and there's two short-stories that I'm working on, for the Further Adventures website...) (And school prep...)

So today - AFTER I've written all that I usefully can - I get to do the thing I've avoided all these years: practice perspective drawing. It's always intimidated the hell out of me. I got a good book, so we'll see how it goes.