“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”

That quote from Hemmingway is one of my favorites.  I’d have to add though that unhappiness is probably the biggest motivator for intelligent people.

To that end, with my latest paint fumblings (see last blog post) I started over with some good old 2B pencil drawing.  I’ve had an image in my head for about 6 months of an octopus attacking a man under water.  I decided to conquer that thought with a drawing on Friday (a select few saw the tracing paper practice sketches in email last week).  The drawing took about 8 hours over Friday and Saturday but I think it is done (unless I decide to go back in with an eraser for highlights and a darker pencil… but probably not).  Unfortunately I don’t know how I can post an image here since I no longer have a scanner – and the drawing is larger than a standard platen anyway at around 6″x18.”   Why so skinny?  Because I want to try to paint this scene on one of the pieces of wood I had cut the weekend before last.

Progress on anything creative is slow right now as we’re hitting the heavy end of fall term at school.  I finished up a group presentation and paper last night, but I’ve still got two finals and two (lengthy and complicated finance) papers to write.  It’ll all be over in two weeks though – and then I hope to be able to produce a lot more (creative) work in the full month I have off (from school…not work, of course).