Well, after basically a 3-year hiatus, I went to my local figure drawing group this week. As you can see, I've uploaded two of my sketches.

I was about 20 minutes into the first series of poses when I had this revelation that I was happy: utterly, completely, down-to-my-toenails happy. There are few things better than sitting at a desk drawing; it's even better that I'm in a room full of people who share the same love.

Now, the reasons I'd been away for three years were many: a few times I had evening class which conflicted, but those semesters which I didn't I was struggling with a pretty serious depression and what one might call a "difficult life situation." It's kind of counter-intuitive though, that if I were suffering from depression that I'd go out of my way to avoid something which I love doing, but that's the awful paradoxical nature of the beast.

Let's just be glad that I am back.

I noticed that my "life drawing muscle" in my artist's eye has atrophied through disuse. I had the damnedest time trying to get a likeness of the model's face during the 30-minute post. It was so frustrating! One good thing is that I know that if I stick with ti, improvement is a short trip away: no one ever got worse by practicing!

Happy painting!