Mountain Stream

Pencil sketch of a forest stream.
8” x 8”, drawn with a Blackwing Matte pencil on copy paper.

I’ve been unable to show up at the page the last two days but I have been sketching. Trouble is I was sketching to figure out the design for a bracket to securely hold a battery on my bicycle. I thought about posting it to supply evidence of how sketching spills into other parts of life aside from art. But the sketches were only to be understood by a sheet metal fabricator and wouldn’t be very interesting as a post.

So I dug around in my pile of old sketches and drawings and decided to post this one in the interest of keeping with the usual theme of drawing and sketching for enjoyment.

In 2019 I was still working full time and I distinctly remember sitting at my desk and doing this sketch, under cloak of looking busy, while actually having nothing to do during a particularly slow period of business. When someone would walk by (also craftily fighting boredom btw), I would shake my head at the paper and look upward as if working on a challenging price quote or bid. Other bids, long completed, carefully laid about near me, heightened the appearance that I was intently conjuring a way to produce yet another winning bid. I am sorry to say I had succumbed to walking the low road my friends. My addiction to sketching was affecting my life. I have since retired and sketch with free abandon. I find I miss it if I don’t. Damn the addiction!

Thank you for reading my confession. I feel so much better now that I’ve revealed my unproductive and clandestine behavior that day, while under the watchful eyes of my similarly task-deprived and fallacious coworkers. At least now, I can sketch free from guilt. As for those coworkers, I can only hope they too have vanquished their heavy burden.