Stepping off the edge

Last night was really hot, my brain was fried from work and even though I’d had a very restorative dinner with Mom and the sunset I saw afterwards, my thoughts were everywhere. I had a postcard to write and get out to the mailbox and now, I had an “optional” pre-class assignment for the drawing class I’d signed up for. Damn. Maybe just do the postcard. Maybe bail on the whole thing and go to sleep. Damn.

Part of my purpose for signing up for month-long things like NaPoWriMo and NaNoWriMo is to get me to set down and do stuff every single day. Every.single.day no matter what. Sure stuff happens sometimes but you need to prioritize and get it done. Just like quilting, if you do a little bit today, that’s a little bit more than you HAD done yesterday and you can add to that tomorrow. You don’t lose, generally, by committing to getting even a small bit of something done. Whatever moves you forward.

So there I was, hot, frazzled, a little angry and disturbed. Damn. Well I said, you could go to sleep but darn it all, you signed up for the postcard thing and other people are waiting for those cards. YOU signed up for the drawing class and YOU are counting on you doing that. Don’t let yourself off the hook so easily.

Part of me grumbled: this is supposed to be a class, where is the instruction if I’m drawing before I get some information on how-to? There was a low rumble of mumbling along these lines.

I went downstairs and put some ice in a big glass and poured a beverage, slightly adult over the ice. Went upstairs, washed my face and wrung out a washcloth with cold water and put it on the back of my neck. I put on a clean dry shirt.

Went back in my workroom and wrote a poem. Not a great poem, but a poem, and it was put onto the postcard along with a stamp and bam. Done. Strangely it was about “Do the Work”.

I looked at the spanking new, really big hardcover sketch book. It looked back at me and it did not blink. OK, I thought, time to do the work. Got out my bag of pencils and conté pencils and prismas and looked at the selfie I was supposed to convert to a drawing. Like in the watercolor class I reminded myself that if I wanted it to be realistic, by george, I would take a photo – this was a drawing, not a photo. And I drew this, mostly with the prisma sticks and conté.