I am attempting to improve my drawing skills. My shortcomings in this area have long been a source of embarrassment to me; a fine-motor coördination deficiency prevents me from being as precise as I'd like. I can see what I want to draw, my fingers simply won't do exactly as I tell them; it's like the drawing equivalent of a speech impediment.

I took up calligraphy when I was in elementary school, as a big "fuck you" to the doctors who told my parents I'd never be able to do anything that required precision. To this day, I still have trouble drawing true vertical lines and keeping the letters exactly the same size. And it hurts like a bitch; in order to retain any semblance of control over the pen, I have to grip it too tightly for comfort. As a consequence, I don't really enjoy calligraphy.

Drawing, on the other hand, is something I long to do; not out of spite or stubbornness, but as a means of expression. I've wanted to draw ever since I was a child, but I quickly curtailed my efforts every time I attempted it, because I couldn't manage to execute my desires to my own satisfaction. But that only compounded my problem, because even with perfect coördination, I couldn't hope to improve without plenty of practice.

But I'm determined this time, and each time I fail, I keep going instead of quitting in disgust. I've finally reached the point where, while I know my work is still far from perfect, it doesn't cause me to cringe and immediately crumple the paper.

So. Tonight I tried a pencil sketch of a woman I'd seen on a Fark link. It didn't quite look like her, and there were some definite problems, but it also didn't look like it had been drawn by a retarded chimpanzee. So I inked and shaded it, and it still didn't look too terribly bad.

Like I said, there are several things wrong with it, but it's a start. Next time, I'll try working a little larger (I left my sketchbook at work, so I did it on the back of a bank deposit slip — so the drawing's only about two inches wide) and I'll avoid the blue pencil (which doesn't erase nearly as well as a "B" lead). But still, I'm happy; I'm a lot better at it than I was even a couple of weeks ago.