Last night, I took a sketchbook that was 5.5″ x 7″ and my new watercolor kit to the bookstore coffee shop to test drive it.  I found that holding the sketchbook and kit in one hand strained my hand and I couldn’t do it very long comfortably.  Most people probably would have just “sucked it up” and strengthened their hands.  I, however, decided to modify the kit.  I found an old CD case and mounted all of the necessary equipment into it and ouah la, a mini portable studio.  I have spent much of this evening customizing this.  My wife says I need therapy.  She says that as though she were the sane one.

I have outlined more of the details on a page titled “Mini Sketch Kit”

Tonight’s EDM challenge was to draw what I am afraid of.  I know a lot of people can put spiders, snakes, crowds, etc. into this category and just draw a picture and be done with it.  Once again this boils down to an abstract for me.  The things I’m afraid of aren’t things.  Like most people, I’m afraid of losing my family, my job, my home…  The thing that I fear the most, however, is the loss of my faculties.  A traffic accident, a work injury, or just growing old, the loss of my ability to listen to music, see and read, walk, run, dance, and romance are the things that terrify me.  So tonight I chose a subject that most represents that to me, a rocking chair.

EDM
EDM 70: Draw what you’re afraid of

My beautiful young bride is a Halloween nut!  If it’s creepy, ghouly, bloody, spooky, she’s all about it.  We used to start planning our Halloween parties in March.  This is the same woman who will stand on a pile of books and shriek until I come pick up the spider and take it outside.  If she walks through a web, if a grasshopper jumps near her, if a moth wing brushes her skin she will run away, arms flailing, screaming in a pitch that only dogs and dolphins can understand.  She has never seen any of the Friday the 13th, Halloween, or Nightmare on Elm Street movies.  That is why I call her my Halloweeny.  Tonight’s EDM challenge was to draw something related to Halloween.  I just grabbed the nearest candle holder and off I went.

As for tonight’s Thing-a-day, well, it’ll all work out.

I once read an article lamenting the fact that it was hard to make a black and white rose look soft and not look like concrete.  Tonight’s EDM challenge was to draw a piece of fruit.  How do you make graphite fruit not look like concrete?

We had a lot of fun tonight with the thing-a-day!  We broke out the clay and Girl2 and I played for an hour while my beautiful young bride took pictures.  All of the best focused pictures are up in the thing-a-day gallery.

Here is a parting shot of the dynoramic result.

EDM
EDM 24: Draw a piece of fruit