My apologies for a two-month absence from posting, but I’ve had an autumn which has been filled with distractions — some work-related, yes, but others more enjoyable than that. I had the pleasure of editing a fascinating chapter of a good friend’s upcoming book. I caught up on the first half of the first season of Mad Men. And I finally began to make steady progress on a newly-adopted hobby: drawing.

I’ll tackle the “why” in a later post. For now, glance at the scrappy little drawing above, which for all its lack of polish and professionalism nevertheless marks a breakthrough for me. Until this picture, I’d been drawing faces with pencils (good ones, mind you), and the precision of these tools had encouraged my involuntary tendency to produce fussy little pictures that lacked any shreds of the visual impact that I’d been seeking. The people I drew, however beautiful in reality, consistently ended up narrow-eyed and unattractive on paper.

Finally, I decided to experiment with the big chunks of graphite and charcoal that came with my Derwent sketching kit. I worked carefully, but with increasing pleasure. Thirty minutes later I was finished, and thrilled. This was the look I had been searching for. There’s a real joy that comes with achieving even a modest victory when you’ve had to build your skills up from nothing.

What now? Be assured that I haven’t given up one love for another — I’ll start re-engaging with this blog in upcoming weeks. But over time what I’m hoping to do is to experiment a little with working illustrations into my essays, to see where that leads, whether it improves the final product, and whether anything fun and original comes out of it. I very much look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions as I go along.