This week has been a blur of sleep-work-home-sleep with no productive outcome. I spent about 3/4 of my work week in Photoshop compositing images for a client but we haven’t sold a concept yet. I broke up a three-week Scout drought for Wednesday’s commute, and was rewarded by a minor fender bender on the 395 onramp.

The keg of Dead Ringer IPA in the kegerator still hasn’t carbonated fully; there’s a hint of fizz in there, but not as much as I’d like. I have plans to brew with my neighbor tomorrow afternoon—he has two batches fermenting and a third to brew, as well as a propane-fired stove in his garage. He’s also my A/V expert, being an electrician by trade, so I’m going to finalize my television mounting plan with him.

I’m trying to motivate myself to start shooting pictures again. My commute has been a predictable figure-8 for the past three years, and as a result I don’t see new things for inspiration. The solution could be adding an extra ten minutes to my morning commute to find new routes into work, as well as more trips out with the girls to explore. I’m also considering the purchase of some 120 film to roll onto 620 spools so that I can shoot some black and white pictures of the girls.

Another good night at figure drawing class. We had male models this time, although one appeared to be a post-op transsexual (there were no dangly bits there, but hey, I’m not judging) so the body forms were different. The long-pose model I’ve had before, and he’s a tall gangly dude with skinny stick legs which never look right once they’re committed to paper, so I was happy with the short-pose model.

This mixed-media paper I bought is total shit for working with wet medium, so I switched to bristol and had better luck. Now, to see if I can get bristol in 11×14 sizes or larger.

And, after about ten years of attending these sessions (and seeing many of the same people over that period of time), I’m finally breaking out of my misanthropic shell and interacting with other folks in the class. Wow! Progress.

Last night went well, even though I tried out a new paper which didn’t lend itself well to brush and ink. On the plus side, the model was very good and the lighting was perfect, so my overall output made me happy.

I thought I’d try a Canson 90 lb. paper, looking for something heavier to resist buckling and (presumably) stay wet longer in order to work with ink, but instead it tends to dry out immediately, and the tooth sucks in ink without giving it back-much quicker than the thinner sketch paper I was using. As a result, I had to really think about what I was doing before I started using water, which was good and bad—good because it made me think, bad because I started overthinking. The two sketches above were both 10 minute poses, which seemed to be the right amount of time to work before I started adding too much.

This sketch was done on bristol, which behaves much better with water and ink, and was 20 minutes long. I need to find bristol wire-bound in a larger format (11″ x 14″ seems to be the ideal size).

I think my efforts over the last few sessions were getting too fussy and additive, where much of my skill in draftsmanship tends to be subtractive (choosing what not to include vs. adding every little thing), so going back to washes of a medium value highlighted with black details really works well.

One of the things I’ve been struggling with for years has been accurate drafting of facial features. I tend to use my mental library of what a face should look like, based on familiar shapes and lines I’ve used for years, vs. what I actually see in front of me (hence, getting out of my own head). I made an effort to slow down and pay attention to what I was seeing, and let that come through to the page. I had mixed results, but a few drawings were promising, and that’s my next hurdle.

I’m toying with the idea of bringing color next time. Which makes me nervous.

I tried out some new paper this evening. It’s a Bristol cold press, so it stands up to water better than sketch paper, and I found that it dries a little slower. The problem is that I’m overworking just about everything I sketch out, which means it just looks sloppy and fussy when I’m done with the brush. I look back at the first two weeks with ink, and every brushstroke is economical and assured. I’m not sure what to do.

Not as much luck at the studio this week. I’ve been fighting with the medium enough that any finished piece doesn’t look finished; I’ve overworked areas or haven’t been able to pull things together into a cohesive whole. I definitely need to find some paper that’s in between sketchbook weight and “watercolor” paper weight where it won’t dry immediately or stay wet for an hour so that I can stay ahead of it. I’d like to start working with colors during the next studio, so trying to iron out this issue will be the goal for the remainder of the fall session.

After a skip week last week where I was only one of two people who showed up for a class that never happened, I was back at figure drawing last night. Only one model showed up, and she’s someone I’ve drawn about ten times over the last ten years (plus two weeks ago) so there’s not much challenge as far as subject matter. I’m still working out the brush technique, and I haven’t done any research on paper yet, so I stuck mainly to the sketchbook and got a few decent poses out of the evening.

Meanwhile, my 8-year-old iPod is sick; any attempt to use a playlist results in a crash and shutdown. I put a new battery in it about two years ago but it’s not registering a full charge. I haven’t done any troubleshooting yet to determine causes, but I hope I don’t have to retire it.

My Smashing Pumpkin Ale kit is in, but I think I’m going to go all the way and brew it with real pumpkin (instead of pumpkin spice), which also means I have to run out and pick up some extra grains to boil it with before the extract goes in. I’m going to shoot for this weekend to get it going (first, I’ve got to bottle the IPA in the basement).

I think I need to find a paper somewhere in between sketch weight and true watercolor weight.

I haven’t been writing around here much; it seems like the days are flying by. Finn has been home with a fever and a cough since yesterday, and Mama and I both feel something in our throats too. Hopefully we can fight off whatever might be brewing in our immune systems.

Speaking of brewing, I have IPA in the basement almost ready for its second fermentation period. The foam is gone and the airlock is pretty quiet, so it’s just about time to transfer to a secondary carboy and dry-hop the brew for another week or two. The problem is that I don’t have another carboy, so I’m going to have to buy or borrow one in a big hurry. My neighbor is talking about replacing his single regulator with a dual-pressure version (for homebrew and commercial kegging) and offered his single to me—which constitutes much of the cost of a kegging setup.

Tonight I’m going to go back for my second night of figure drawing class this fall; I’ve got brushes this time, so I should be able to pick up where I left off in the summer.

I took in my first figure drawing class last night, and I was all ready to work with ink, but realized I’d forgotten my brushes. I started out really well, but got too much into my own head as the night went on, and my quality dropped off so I left 1/2 hour early.

No word from the roofing guys yet; I’m going to call them tomorrow and find out what the damage will be. Then, I suppose, I’ll call a few more to get some comparison pricing. I’m having them bid on asphalt replacement instead of slate; we just can’t afford new stone up there and the clock has run out. In the meantime, I’m doing some preliminary car shopping to see what I might be able to get for a Slattern replacement with four doors. So far I’m considering

• A Honda Fit: 31-38MPG, full hatchback, and about a million airbags
• A Honda Civic: larger interior compartment, roughly the same cost for a comparable Fit
• A Honda Accord: Even larger than the Civic with almost comparable gas mileage.

I’d like to say I enjoyed the latest DJ Shadow album (after sampling it on Spotify), but I didn’t. Pitchfork says:

…whether The Less You Know was intended to reestablish Shadow as a musician, as a producer, or even as someone with decent taste, he misfires on all counts.

I’d agree with their opinion that the beats are, as always, top-notch. Everything else falls flat, and the annoying insistence on finishing all of the tracks with a faux CD-skipping loop sealed it for me. I don’t need another …Endtroducing; I just want something good.