Figure Drawing

In Birge Harrison's book on landscape painting, he tells a story of a young painter who came to him and told him he was quitting painting. For months this fellow hadn't turned out anything worth looking at, and he felt it wasn't worth trying anymore--he was throwing in the towel. Birge replies, "My dear fellow, I congratulate you. If your pictures had not already shown you the consummate painter, you have just given me the most inconvertible proof of the fact. You are simply soaked in temperament. Get down on your knees, my boy, and thank your lucky stars for that. If the pendulum has swung unconscionably low at present, you may rest assured that it will swing all the higher on the return stroke. The only man who never doubts himself, who plugs stolidly on to his goal, deviating neither to right nor to left, is the man who is born wholly without temperament. If he never falls to any depths of despair, neither does he rise to any heights of glory, and if he is never supremely miserable, on the other hand he is never supremely happy. He is simply the good, honorable bromide; the very salt of the earth, if you will, and its balance-wheel; but never by any conceivable possibility could he be an artist. Your present depression is simply the price that you pay for the immense joy which is yours during the full tide of creative production. So take your medicine like a man. Also take a drink if you need it, but let us hear no more of this drivel about giving up art."

Thankfully, I wasn't feeling quite as unsettled about this last night as I sometimes do. I realized the other day that amid all the crazy end-of-summer busy-ness and flurry of out-of-town visitors, I hadn't made time to run for a few days. Exercise didn't used to be all that important to my mood, but it really has been the past couple years. While I don't love running, it's definitely worth it for the extra endorphins. And if an occasional fit of depression is the price I have to pay for having a little bit of the "art spirit" running through my veins, well, I guess that's worth it too.

And this drawing--ha, I probably should have drawn in the props here, because he's looking like he's just balancing on one foot (or maybe about to squish a bug?), which is kind of funny :) He was holding onto a rod and resting his foot on a cinder block. But just getting the figure in took me the full two hours this time--there was a definite lean to the pose, which was making me feel like it was off balance. It took a while to get it right, and I didn't have time to do a lot of refining.