It took several weeks, but I finally checked out one of the non-instructional figure drawing sessions nearby. The session is held every Monday morning for three hours, and it’s a pleasant walk from the 24th and Mission BART station. If all the models are as good as today’s, I’m going to want to go every week. The lighting on strong musculature, and the props (ropes for the model to hold on to, allowing for very interesting standing and leaning poses), took it to a whole new level. Based on the owner’s warm welcome today and his teaching philosophy as outlined on his website and an American Artist interview, I’d love to take a class with him sometime, too, but the available times aren’t good right now.

So this was my day off so far: I went and drew for three hours, walked back to Mission Street, and finished reading Cat’s Eye over a lunch of ceviche tostadas. Yum on all counts.

Along the way, I stopped to browse at the outlet of a favorite clothing source, which I discovered by chance is right here a couple of blocks from that same BART station. The last thing I need is more clothes, but I do like them, and I’m going to use it as a reward: when I’ve gotten rid of those boxes full of old papers and stuff that are clogging up the garage, I can buy myself a few things there. It’s funny how we create these little games for ourselves. “Write for half an hour more and you can play a computer game.” It worked for my clean-out-the-e-mail-inbox project a couple of years ago (reward: fancy new planner), and just thinking about the clothes I saw today, I can feel my motivation to get into that garage rising.

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