A Tail of Epic Proportions

 As this semester draws closer to its end, I have a better understanding of the extent of the academic workload of a graduate school student. It has definitely been a taxing and extremely overwhelming adjustment period, but I have found some benefits to the change as well. First, it has required me to evaluate my priorities in life. With school dominating my time and energy, I have had to become more intentional with my time when it comes to family time, my marriage relationship, and personal obligations. Although this has been challenging, I found that it gave me a better appreciation for each experience. Secondly, I have engaged in many new activities that I would have otherwise never experienced. One of which has been creating and developing this blog and its content. When this semester started and I decided on drawing as my chosen occupation, I expected it to be just another item on my already too-long weekly assignment list. However, as I developed an understanding of the process and experimented with my personal style as well as different techniques, I have grown to enjoy this new hobby as a consistent source of leisure and enjoyment. I actually plan on continuing this blog even after the semester ends. The writing obviously won't be as academically focused and the frequency of posts will be more sporadic than the weekly rate I've maintained so far. Still, I am happy to have a place to document my progression. I have also decided to change the name of this blog (TBD) to something more relevant to my content and style (currently accepting recommendations). My ever-developing personal artistic preferences have changed over these past few months through experimenting with different techniques and subject matter. I have found that I prefer drawing things from nature and living creatures more than inanimate objects. The imperfection of organic subjects gives me leeway with minor mistakes and dissymmetry. The added challenge created through balancing the proportions of moving, changing, and unique subjects is a process that I find fascinating and pleasantly engaging.  I also learned the difference between using colored pencils and drawing with the standard black and grey palette of sketch work. I was surprised to find I have a strong preference against incorporating color into my projects, favoring instead to focus on the detail and shading techniques to make the image become more lifelike. I look forward to continuing this new artistic endeavor and finding many more unique concepts to bring to life on my paper. This week I chose to draw another (presumed) mythical creature and I absolutely love how it turned out. I think the fantasy genre might become a frequent niche for my future sketches. Now it’s time to DIVE in and show off my lovely rendition of mermaid royalty!