Day 50: Cake

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie."

-Jim Davis

This week's theme is yummy.

Day 49: Drinking Tea

"Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things."

-Chaim Potok

10 health benefits of drinking tea include:

• Tea contains antioxidants.
• Tea has less caffeine than coffee.
• Tea may reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke.
• Tea protects your bones.
• Tea bolsters your immune defenses.
• Tea protects against cancer.
• Tea helps keep you hydrated (unless you drink more than five or six caffeinated beverages at a time).
• Tea is calorie-free.
• Tea increases your metabolism.
• Tea lowers the chances of cognitive impairment.

Day 48: Smiling

You're never fully dressed without a smile.

Why is smiling beneficial?

• It makes people more attractive.
• Smiling changes your mood.
• It's contagious.
• Smiling relieves stress.
• Smiling boosts your immune system (most likely because you're more relaxed).
• Smiling releases endorphins, natural pain killers, and serotonin.
• Smiling makes you seem successful.

Day 47: Sunlight

"Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight."

-Benjamin Franklin

"In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!" And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see a whole lot better.

-Ellen Degeneres

Day 46: Teeth

"If suffering brought wisdom, every dentist's office would be full of luminous ideas."
Mason Cooley

I haven't had access to a scanner for a few days now, and so I've been taking pictures of my drawings instead. The problem with that is that even if my phone isn't being held exactly level, it warps the proportions Of the drawing get warped and make it look yucky.

Days 44 and 45: Broccoli and Sleep

"In sleep is the only place I get to see him, get to love him."

-Lissie, "In Sleep"

This is today's drawing. Sometimes I need to remind myself that sleep is a good thing.

Yesterday's, which I couldn't upload in the car, got super smudged overnight, not to mention that I could barely see when I drew it so I hate it anyways. Here it is:

Road Trip

Due to the fact that my family is currently on a drive from New Hampshire to Florida it is not possible for me to post my drawing for today (although it is completed). I'm very frustrated by this but there's nothing I can do. I guess I'll just post it when I get the chance.

Day 43: Stairs

Change happens one step at a time.

It's Saturday, which means it's the first day of a new theme. This week's theme is healthy.
Most of my friends (at least the ones that live on the fourth floor of my building at school with me) know that I highly dislike elevators. Not because of a phobia of them or anything, they just make me feel really lazy. So I pretty much always try to take the stairs.
According to a study done by the European Society of Cardiology in Munich (and common sense), people that use the stairs regularly have better fitness, less body fat, slim waitlines, and lower blood pressure. In the study, subjects' blood pressure, body fat, cholestrol, waist circumference, and lung capacity were measured, and were asked to take the stairs regularly rather than an elevator at work for three months. On average, then went from walking up about 5 floors to 23 floors of stairs per day. At the end of the study, the participants had better lung capacity, smaller waists, and lower body fat, blood pressure, and cholesterol. This equated to a 15% reduction in the chances of dying prematurely on average.
So I guess it's a good thing I like to use the stairs regularly. And on days when I've done nothing but sit in class all day so far, it's actually fun to get your heartrate up with a jog up a few flights of stairs. Not to mention the energy conserved by not using the elevator.

Day 42: Shadows

"A human being is only breath and shadow."

-Sophocles

I had very little time for this drawing today. Once again, I spent a lot more time working on other drawings.  So once again, this will have to do for today.

Day 41: Demon

"I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion."

-Nicolas Cage

I've been doing a lot of extra drawing lately to get ready for Christmas, so today I was not really feeling very patient when it came to my sketch for this blog. I just drew something from my brain instead of a drawing of a photo, and wasn't at all happy with how it came out, but I know that I won't be happy with my sketch every day. The important thing is that at least I did something, and that's still practice even if I don't like what I came up with.

Day 40: Footsteps

"Let me walk three weeks in the footsteps of my enemy, carry the same burden, have the same trials as he, before I say one word to criticize."

-Anonymous

Day 39: Child's View

"The ability to retain a child's view of the world with at the same time a mature understanding of what it means to retain it, is extremely rare- and a person who has these qualities is likely to be able to contribute something really important to our thinking."

-Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

Day 38: Underwater

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

-Andre Gide

Day 37: Coal Miner

"Fear has many eyes and can see things underground."

-Miguel de Cervantes

Day 36: Feeling low

"Happy is the heart that still feels pain, darkness drains and light will come again."

-Ingrid Michaelson, "Everybody"

This week's theme is down low. As you can see, my obsession with charcoal continues. Although, if I decide to draw something that includes a lot of small details, I'll definitely have to use graphite for that. For example, yesterday's drawing ("Tightrope") definitely had too many small details (the face) to turn out well with charcoal. But I think charcoal was the right choice for today's drawing.

Day 35: Tightrope

"A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life."

-William Arthur Ward

Day 34: Looking Up

"Cause when I look to the sky something tells me you're here with me and you make everything alright."

-Train, "When I Look to the Sky"

Day 33: Pretentiosity

"A proud man is always looking down on people and things; and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you can't see something that's above you."

-C.S. Lewis

I used charcoal again with this drawing. I realized the other day that lately I've been drawing only women. I think it's probably because it's easier for me since I'm more familiar with the features, angles, shadows, etc of a woman's face than a man's. So I decided to do something different today and draw a man; it was actually pretty difficult. To add to that, I also found it difficult to draw from an angle of looking up at the face slightly rather than looking directly at the face, so the proportions of the face were different than I was used to. But I'm pretty happy with the way this came out regardless.

Day 32: City View

"All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim."

-Christopher Morley

I'm in love with charcoal. It's my new favorite substance. More than chocolate even. In fact, I even accidentally let my hot chocolate get cold because I got so wrapped up in this drawing. And anyone who knows how much I love hot chocolaty drinks knows that's saying a lot. It feels so much more alive and malleable, you can shape it into whatever lines or movements you want to on the paper. Something else that I'm happy about is that I'm relying far less on the pictures that I use when I draw. Today, I used a picture of someone's profile because I struggle (a lot) with getting proportions right without looking directly at something, but I changed some things (such as the facial expression) and I didn't use anything for the background (ooooohh a bunch of boxes...I know, it's sooo impressive). One thing I did not change was the hair style, because I absolutely love this model's hair (I just changed the color; this model was bleach blond). I go home tomorrow for three weeks-ish for Christmas break, and I think over break I'll probably try experimenting with watercolors just to see what happens. 

And, as an added bonus, here's a big doodle I drew on a whiteboard while I was studying for orgo last night:

I'm so glad finals are OVER!

Day 31: Falling

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising ever time we fall."

-Confucius

I did this one in charcoal again today. Charcoal is fun! It's also kind of scary to work with because you can't erase it like you can when you use pencil. So inevitably, there are some things I would change about it, but I can't, so I'll just have to deal with it, I guess.