First of all:

My back started to hurt as I moved further up the page, so I had to curtail my drawing efforts for today. I've been going back in half hour increments because I can't do much more than that before I need to take a break. If only I could suspend myself over the paper a la Maude Lebowski, though with less velocity it would solve a number of technical problems.

Before and after:

I started moving up the right side of the page as well, to give my back a bit of a break. It's hard to see fine detail with the camera, but I did a lot of blending in the bottom/middle of the page as well. I started around 3 PM today. One of these days I have to get a stopwatch and time myself. I think that rather than naming my pieces formally I will time how long each one takes and name them that way. For example, "3:23:48.22" 3 days, 23 hours, 48 minutes, 22 seconds.

The process is therapeutic and the conceptual side of each piece is mostly expelling neuroses and the necessity of drawing. I think that all artists, musical or otherwise fall somewhere on the savant scale, where their talent needs to be flushed out of their system through the act of drawing or playing an instrument... whatever it might be. The savant feels a compulsion, and I think that every artist or musician feels this need to a greater or lesser degree determined by how alike their neural network is to that of a savant. It's not a totally baseless theory. For me it's the way I feel serenity after working for several hours, and how unhappy I am when I haven't been working for any period of time. For a savant this feeling is unbearable, and they have to exercise their talent no matter what. For me it's just a mild discomfort, and I'm obviously not nearly as gifted as any of those individuals. This conceptual labeling of my work is something that's evolved over the course of the last 7 years, since I first picked up a pen and drew cross hatched lines, and there was always a sense that something inside of me was getting out through the pen. It's been a steady uncovering of meaning and refining of technique that has clarified what I'm doing and why, rather than taking a concept and trying to create an expression of its essence.


I did 2+ miles on the treadmill today, alternating walking and running. I'm definitely out of shape, but I can feel the stamina that I used to have before I started smoking. It's clear that my greatest struggle will be with lung capacity. If I could get more oxygen I could have run a lot longer, like I used to. In high school I ran 6 and a half minute miles. I guess that's stuck with me, although I've lost some muscle mass, because I haven't felt nearly as sore as I thought I would the day after.