Last night when I read ahead in the art book I saw one of the next exercises. You know those drawings you did as a kid, with the ground at the bottom of the page and the sun and sky at the top? It wants me to make one of those. This morning when I thought about doing the exercise, tears sprang to my eyes suddenly, because I pictured all the people I might draw in it, and that made me think of everyone in my family who is dead. I miss them all so much. For a few minutes the weeping was incessant. It started up again as I wrote this.
The thing about grief is that it fades into the background but it's always there. And sometimes it emerges from the most random thing imaginable to dome you across the skull with a metal bat. A commercial on TV. A song you haven't heard in a while. A familiar scent. A task to draw a child's picture. Grief is a sneaky bitch and everything in your life is fair play. And when it comes, all you can do is pick up the brain matter and try to crawl out of the hole it just knocked you into. For me, weeping is involved.
I hate crying so much. It's messy and it screws up my sinuses and the way my eyes feel for hours afterwards. I get that it's natural and necessary but damn.
Anyway, after hours of mourning on and off every time I thought about the exercise, I decided to skip it. I pictured myself in an in-person classroom with this author-instructor and having this reaction to the task and thought, She would probably let me skip this one. So I'm skipping it. The next exercise is to draw my hand while never looking at the paper. Holy hell. "Your left brain is probably not going to enjoy this," says the book. Ya think?!
LATER UPDATE: I won't post the results of the pure contour drawing, which was exactly the mess the book described it would be, but I was talking to a friend and she proposed that I draw Gaius and Lena for the child drawing instead of myself, and I thought this was such a good idea that I immediately went for it.
My heart feels a little lighter. Thank heavens for my friend. In the jaws of grief I never would have thought to do this.
Spent over 6 hours hanging out in Adam's stream and chat. I moderate over there, but usually nothing happens because it's a very chill environment and we don't get assholes in there, generally. He was playing Elden Ring with a weapon that I want to try now that I've seen someone body the game with it - the Great Stars, pictured below. It's huge. It absolutely demolishes enemies' invisible stagger bar and lets you wail on them it's so (f)unfair. But then I think of all the areas I don't want to play through again and I'm like... "Maybe not." I still have games I was actively playing that I need to finish, so I feel obligated not to try a new Elden Ring playthrough yet. Maybe when the DLC comes out?
