Fall is officially here. Summer activities are no longer in the way, and the weather isn’t completely frigid yet, so it is the perfect time to sign up for a drawing class. The School at the Art Institute of Chicago offers evening and weekend drawing classes, and I’ve been toying with the idea of taking a drawing class for a while now. Classes started on the first of October; I am enrolled in ‘Beginning Drawing’.

I drew these eggs last night as part of my homework. This week was our second class, and the topic was shading. We spent the bulk of the class drawing white objects on a white surface. As boring as that sounds, it turns out to be a great way to learn to see subtle variations of tone; and as you can see, white can actually be pretty darned dark.

My hand-eye coordination still needs some work — the egg on the left is a bit misshapen. But I feel like I am improving even after just a couple of weeks of class. If nothing else, I am becoming much more comfortable with charcoal.