Lately

For the past few weeks (probably 7 days out of 14- I wish it was more) I've been drawing. I was almost going to write drawing and sketching but luckily, I haven't done any sketches. I consider a sketch to be a plan, a casual note that you write out before you go to bed and highlights a few quick essentials you need to take care of. It might just say:
laundry
buy butter
mail letters

I've done a lot of sketches and I've have to put 99% into the catagory of Useless.

Because when I sketch something, it usually means that something doesn't end up as a fiished product. Usually one sketch will lead to another, more detailed sketch, then to a pile of them. I didn't used to sketch. It was something I picked up in high school, freshman year. We were told to keep sketchbooks and we were graded on them. This completely changed the way I made pictures.

It brought out one of my worst qualities: my laziness. I never used to sketch. I'd have an idea and I'd sit down on my bed or at my desk and I'd set out to make a finished picture, either in pencil, pen, colored pencil, or watercolor. Every once in a while I'd decide I could do something better and I'd re-do a certain picture, but that was it.

My problem is, once I'd done a sketch, a quick, sloppy, basic sketch, I lost the motivation to make my original idea into a finished picture. Why bother?

It was years, a lot of years, before I realized how bad things had gotten; how I had boxes and boxes of sketches but only slim folders of finished pictures.

That's why lately when I sit down to do something I just do it, like the old days.

This weekend I wanna do a picture, maybe a watercolor, involving water. One or both of the photos above might be the model.