8B Pencils

I'm finally posting my drawing, unfinished, because I never finished it. I had said I'd post it soon. Sorry about that. Also, I meant to post the entire sequence, but our computer crashed a month ago and we lost everything, including pictures. The stuff was backed up, thank goodness, but we're not able to access it and haven't had time to figure it out. Yet.

 

Here are two. 

 

 

 It's a pretty small drawing. You can see, compared with the eraser. I wanted a small picture so I could draw it fast and, hem, finish it. Ah, well.

 



 

 

I enjoy, no I love, drawing shadows.

Thank you Mr. B (the best art teacher in the world)

for saying once (or maybe you said it hundreds of times),

"You can't go too dark!"

 

It's scary, you know, since it feels the blacker the lead, the more terrible the mess up, if you do go wrong. But, while I draw I hear that phrase echo in my head and I imagine you pacing the room, coffee in hand and I take courage. I scribble in the black with my 6Bs and 8Bs, pressing as hard as I can. And you're right, it only makes it better.

 

It's the contrast, the light against the dark. Light defines, but only if there's darkness. And the darker the dark, the brighter the light will shine.

 

***

 

Javier is quite the funny man. He always has an answer for a question, whether it's truth or he has to make it up. He also has a little round belly and seems to like it. This morning Calvin asked him, "Javie, what's your tummy doing?"

 

"It's working."

 

"What's it doing?"

 

"It's picking tomatoes."

 

Oh, really?

 

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