Who I am and What I'm Up To

So, I'm a 40-something in California. Today it's August 8th. According to my sketchbook, on July 23rd of this year, I started aggressively studying art. On my own. Using... YouTube, CNTRLpaint, and a book called "How to Draw WIthout Talent" by Danny Gregory. I've been loving a YouTube channel called Sketchbook Skool, particularly the videos featuring the aforementioned Danny Gregory. 

I'm starting with the fundamentals. Perspective. Geometric objects. Visual measurements. Hatching. Light sources. Color studies. I'm certainly doing a lot of observational drawing, but right now the passion I have is for illustrative drawing. I enjoy drawing from life. I find it peaceful and absorbing. But the desire I've always had is to be able to draw from imagination. 

For a long time, that seemed almost like magic to me. Impossible.

But as soon as I figured out that I could learn perspective and place simple geometric forms within it to create the beginnings of a sketch. my understanding exploded. 

My hands haven't caught up yet, but they're starting to. RIght now I'm doing tons of technical exercises - gray scales, perspective studies in single point, two point, and three point perspective, and simple observational drawings while I visually measure every single angle. I'm also drawing what I see on the table in front of me, or placing my phone at different angles and positions and drawing it twenty times, each time in a different position. 

Now I'm starting to add some candy - for example, I'm learning how to color with colored pencils, which feels more like fun to me and less like work. 

I'm starting my art studies by drawing in a sketchbook. This way all my drawings stay in one place and I don't have to fish around for paper. It's also making a fun artifact - a journal of my progress from complete beginner to... wherever I get at the end of the sketchbook. And beyond, to the next sketchbook!