Thursday, May 09, 2013

Zen and the Art of Supergirl

Pre-Work Doodles: Supergirl

If I get to work early enough I will usually do one of two or three things: sleep, draw in my sketchbook, or drink coffee and listen to the radio. Which one I choose to do depends on how tired I am, how early I managed to get to the parking garage for the office where I work, and whether or not I have a clear idea of something I would like to draw. To be honest I mostly end up sleeping

No matter what I'm doing I use the time in the car before work as a kind of pre-work-day meditation. Most days this is the last quiet time I get all day. Weird as this is to say about a parking garage, it's very peaceful. If I've decided to sleep I'll lay my seat down as far as it goes, cover up with a blanket I claimed from the pile of the things that my daughter will never use, and shut my eyes. 

When I draw I set the same alarm I use if I'm sleeping, and use it as a timer for when I need to put everything away and go to work. I can usually get at least the basic pencil work done for a drawing before I have to pack it in and go inside.

When I sit and sip my coffee while listening to the radio...that's pretty much it. Though I do usually zone out and daydream. Sometimes that helps with the process of coming up with topics for this blog, or ideas for Geek Speak. 

Today was a drawing day and I decided to try and draw Supergirl. I got about halfway through drawing here before I had to pack everything up. I finished the pencils and the inked lines later in the day. 



She's caught in a quiet moment hovering high above the earth. Maybe she's thinking about lunch, maybe she's trying to remember the location of a clean bathroom in Prague. Whatever she's thinking, it's a moment that the dangers and stresses of her day-to-day life are (literally as well as figuratively) miles away.

The time I take for a quiet moment in the morning is kind of like that. It's a moment of relative peace before I have to return to the melee. 

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