Monday, I went downtown to get my car inspected for annual state vehicle inspections. While I was waiting, I walked the long way from where the shop was to the VCU campus and visited some of my old teachers. In particular Daniel Robbins (www.facebook.com/artofdanielkrobbins) really gave me some good advice on accepting commissions when I told him the tale of my Legend of Zelda painting. In general, getting to chat with him and also Bob Foster and Josh George (www.joshgeorge.com) really gave me some good motivation to work at this art thing harder.

Fast forward to the Tuesday evening. Tonight was the perfect crapstorm against my chosen path of digital media. I forgot my Cintiq Companion charger at home, and when the figure drawing session started I was at 22% battery (I had been using the tablet from last Thursday through Monday without charging). I got a decent drawing in during the first main drawing phase after gestures, but that save file corrupted when the tablet went into low power mode at the sub %5 battery. The two other artists that attended, Tim and John, they were generous and let me borrow paper, graphite, and a kneaded eraser. Wacom Bamboo preserved the gesture drawings, but they’re nothing worth showing in my opinion (although one of the tools in Bamboo has this cool ink effect for really nice line quality). As we left the room at the end of the figure drawing session, the AFO teacher across the hall was giving a critique to a student in the hallway. It was bullshit about how the student was starting to get some good shadows and contrast in the drawing but need to develop it further or something. Standard first year shitty critiques that are sort of but not really helpful. I should probably look into getting a teaching job for AFO because I guess in my head I could do a better job, but I digress.

This phone camera capture is all I have out of the evening. Oh well, better remember to bring the charger next time, and pack more traditional supplies as back up.