Super! (Thanks for asking!)

If you'd told me yesterday that today I would draw a self portrait, I would have told you that I had no intention of drawing any representation of myself in this project, ever. But that, of course, was yesterday.

I was didn't feel very well today, and did a whole lot of feverish sleeping. I kept jolting into consciousness with thoughts of my to-do list, but a spinning head kept me from doing very much very well. This might have been the physical reaction to over three months of working 8:30 to midnight most nights, to working six days a week, if not more.... and then finally quitting my job yesterday.

If someone new had seen me today, would they think I was lazy? Did it matter how much and how hard I have worked in the past few months, when it has come to so little? Would it help if I told them that in that same time, I had run a marathon? Am I only superhuman if I am superhuman every single day?

I also thought fitfully about this project, and my relationship with drawing over the course of my lifetime (not something I'll delve into today.) I remember I invented a cartoon character called Super Nicky, and then wrote stories about him for my younger sister. I drew a rough remembrance of him. I think it was my own youthful geekiness, in combination with my inability to draw the muscled figures of comic books, that made my hero so scrawny. The person I felt compelled to add to today's drawing strangely became myself, about to go for a run. She eyes Super Nicky with affectionate (sisterly?) amusement. She looks as though she might have a better idea what a super hero is.

I wish she would tell me.

Blank Slate

I've been waiting for inspiration, and I fear I may have found it! "Fear," yes... It will mean a lot of work if I follow through. I hope I can!

A few years ago this brilliant gentleman committed himself to this brilliant idea which he so effectively popularized that it lead to the creation of this community.

For those not inclined to follow links- Scores of people have been taking photos of themselves every day for a year. Their perspectives are, literally and figuratively, a little wider than my first introduction to a 365 day visual project, which was this woman's time lapse of her own face over the course of three years (I just found one video I saw only once in 2006... MARVEL AT MY GOOGLE FU!)

I should also mention another project I first discovered in 2006- Playwright Suzin-Lori Parks' 365 Days/ 365 Plays project. Of course, she used her own language to write her short plays. I am not nearly so ambitious.

So just what AM I doing? I'll be drawing a sketch, every day for a year, and writing something about it. If there are other lex loci that I decide upon, I will let you know.

This sketch is a still life based in real life. I thought it appropriate to start with a blank slate, especially since I happen to own one that means a lot to me. It's in the style of an old-fashioned school child's slate (although whether it's a real antique or a real old fake antique I can't be sure.) It might have once been bound better, but now it's essentially two robe-bordered planks embedded with chalkboards and tied together with two pieces of string. One slate has a single long crack.

This object now sits on my nightstand (also pictured) but it once belonged to my grandmother (who bought it at a yard sale) and it sat on her kitchen table. When I lived with my grandparents I kept a very different schedule then they did, so they would leave me notes about where they were, what I should clean, and where I could find food. It would have been easy enough to distinguish between the handwriting of two people, but my Grampie, an engineer, made it especially simple by ALWAYS WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

This sketch took me longer to upload than to draw. Perhaps this project will finally teach me to use my scanner.