Never fear, dear reader, I didn't miss a day!
I had completed and photographed my sketch for 3 February 2021 by 13:44 yesterday, but quickly jumped onto a long overdue FaceTime virtual pint with my friend, Scott Hortop, moments later.
We nattered for a pleasant while, then I had a chance to catch Simon quickly on the phone before we both went to sort out food.
In my case, a shower and quick chill-out were also in order before I tackled applying for another job.
Fast forward to more than 12 hours later and I've finally had a chance to edit the photograph I took of today's object and the snap I took of my attempt at sketching it.
In case you haven't noticed, today's attempt was an epic fail.
It all started off well enough: I worked from the hexagon(ish) front and (almost) centre of the bracelet. I worked a little to the left and the right to recreate the front part of the bracelet. But it all went downhill from there.
Even with a bunch of erasing and 'resetting' of the back section, I still failed to get the proportions right. You can see my slightly worse attempts behind the off-the-mark final drawing.
I'm also conscious the drawing doesn't even vaguely appear three-dimensional.
I'm not sure spending more time on it in that sitting would have helped. I also didn't want to hold up my catch-up with Scott any longer.
What I'm sure of is that I will give this another go later today (after I've slept!) And I'll think about how I work with the proportions before I get started. I think I need to make some initial marks to help me 'join the dots' better.
I've also thought about the reality that maybe I can manage these things better using graph paper to draw on or behind a lighter weight paper. I suspect I'll have a better sense of things that way.
I'm also aware that many artists I know personally and whose work I admire worked heavily with overhead projectors when creating their paintings. (Am I showing my age?!) So I know none of these things is considered "cheating".
For now, though, I'm going to try to persevere as I have been as. Aside from anything else, the pages in my visual diary are too heavy to even see graph paper through.
Despite my use of the term "epic fail", I see days like today (and every day so far) less as failures but more as opportunities. Opportunities to identify what I still need to learn and the areas I need to focus on improving.
Also worth noting: Yesterday I worked from the photo I took of the bracelet, not "from life". Unfortunately, because my execution was so bad, I'm not sure that helps!
Thank you to Kenno McDonnell for the bracelet that inspired yesterday's (and what will be today's) sketch. Unfortunately, it snapped when my wrist landed heavily on an armrest on the Tube on the first time I wore it out and about. But I have some superglue to finally try to mend it, so I will do that once I've managed to render it better in a sketch! I think the break adds to the drawing.