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.
Afterward, I took my new watercolor kit to the bookstore coffee shop to experiment and play with a new case I wanted to develop. It worked like a charm. I spent more time talking to a fellow “sketcher” than actually sketching though. He invited me to a life drawing group in Oklahoma City. I believe that will go. There is also a watercolor society, and colored pencil society that I have been interested in. It all sounds so reasonable until the wife pointed out how many coffees I would have to give up to be able to afford all of the membership dues.
While all I really wanted to do was lay down and crash in my big ol’ comfy bed, my beautiful young bride wanted desperately to have an adult conversation and get out of the house. So we loaded up and headed to our favorite haunt, the bookstore. Bookstore coffee is the most expensive coffee in the whole wide world. Of course all of the books that come with it make it worth while.
After looking at all of the things that 
