As I mentioned in my last, non-gallery, post, I’ve been presented with some snags, or challenges recently that impact of my sketchbook projects. They have essentially shutdown everything I was working on. Yes, it is frustrating. It’s been interesting and I have had to do some adapting.
How did the snags/challenges come about? The first day of January, in an effort to relieve some hip pain that I thought was being caused from sitting too much, I decided to raise my desks to standing height. To do this I used my body as a floor jack, something I had done a year before. In the process I identified what I had done, a year before, that was giving my right wrist some problems. And I made it worse.
Treatment for the wrist has been partially successful; however, it has also revealed, or triggered an additional problem at the base of the thumb. The treatment for this additional injury is to shut down all thumb and wrist activity. Who knew how much just holding a pen or pencil could irritate things, and so badly? Yes, you guessed it, as I am dominantly right-handed that meant/means no writing or drawing. Or anything else with that hand.
To add insult to injury, the standing at my desk didn’t help the hip, it irritated it even more. Which meant the desks had to be lowered again. I was smarter this time and called a neighbor who was kind enough to hep me. And I’m getting physical therapy for the hip. I’m on the road to recovery for the hip for sure. The road to recovery for the wrist feels like someone set the speed limit at five feet and hour.
There is some good news. I have been able to carry on with many things including Taekwondo. I am fortunate to have a capable left hand and can do most things I need to with it, including, typing with one hand, writing, and feeding myself. Though none of these things do I do with the same level of speed, refinement, and dexterity of a lifetime of practice with my dominant hand. When eating, I feel like a child just learning to use their utensils. And while my writing is actually legible, it is slow. I’m glad I don’t have to take lecture notes.
Learning to do so much with my non-dominant hand has been quite an eye opener. I’ve learned quite a lot and run into many more things that I have had to learn to do differently. I could write a whole post about it. I won’t.
Before I realized I would have to stop drawing so that I would be able to rest my thumb I attempted to draw something with my left hand. I was surprised that it turned out as well as it did though it isn’t near as good as what I can do with my main hand. Yes, it could get better with practice. However, the frustration level and how hard I grip my pencil make it somewhat less than enjoyable.
Since drawing, an activity that was taking up a good amount of my evening time, wasn’t really an option, I needed to figure out what I could do instead. My options: I could read, I could watch programs that I have been meaning to watch, and I could work on online courses. I have got in a fair bit of reading and finished an online course for the day job. But I have not even begun to catch up on my viewing. This was fine for a while, but I felt bad, I wasn’t making art. I’d done so well in keeping up a consistent practice and I hated to lose the momentum I had built up with the art. I don’t want to stop, start again, and have to re-learn the last six months.
I thought about it and realized that I can mouse reasonably well with my left hand so, I can do 3d modeling on the computer. It’s not the type of practice I’ve been doing but it is art. And I’ve been meaning to get back into Blender since I did so little with it most of last year. This would be a good opportunity. Also, Blender 3 came out with a lot of new features, so, starting a tutorial or two that have been updated for the new version might just be the way to go. I’m working on it. I have nothing to show yet.
I still want to do regular art though. I thought maybe painting would be an option. Not. That turned out to be a big frustration. I’m a little awkward holding a brush in my right hand, it was worse in the left. Pass. Drawing lines and trying to shade with the pencil really gives me trouble. It’s so awkward and uncomfortable. I decided to try stippling. Dots. Maybe.
For my main hand stippling projects, I usually sketch an outline in pencil and then fill in the rest with the stippling. That doesn’t work for me right now, the pencil outline. My approach so far is to use the finest point pen that I have and create an outline and/or rough blocking. I have finished one piece this way and I am working on a second piece. I got over enthusiastic when I figured out this might work, and I decided to do a furry teddy bear for the second piece. It is taking much long than my initial piece which was a snowman.
So, for now, I have a plan forward for the art, and the current circumstances, it just won’t be happening as quickly as it was. Until I can get some practice anyway. I want to try one of the ‘body in motion’ poses and some ‘people’ ones in the stippling. I would really like to see how they come out. If I can do it, it may be that my sketchbook projects change from a drawing a day to just filling the book with a particular subject. It would be great if I could get to where I could do one or two a week. Though as slow as this teddy bear is progressing it may be a while before that happens.
So, a snag or challenge depending on how you want to look at it, but not something that has to keep me from art or much of anything else, things just take a little longer or require a different approach. And as I re-read this before posting I realize that the optimistic and maybe matter-of-fact tone belies my frustration because I know things could be so much worse. But, I am frustrated. Some things are difficult, and many things are slow. And I don’t know how long things will take to heal. So, I do my best to not let that frustration get in my way.
I am including a variety of pieces some from the delayed sketchbook project and some left-handed work. As I get more things complete, or even good ‘work in progress’ shots, I’ll share.