Day ninety-two of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I was looking for a word to describe how I've felt for parts of the past 48 hours.
The word my mind curled around was melancholia, but it's not quite right in that it's a longer-term, more pervasive form of depression.
From my understanding, it's a more extreme version of the anhedonia I was diagnosed as suffering from in 2007.
But the origin of the word still kind of fits with yesterday's sketch.
My attempt to delineate the leaves from the background to better define them (in my mind, at least) makes it look like a bird (or bird skeleton) bursting at the beak and "seams" with black bile.
If you can see two leaves curled into each other in this sketch, then all I can say is that you're in a better place than me.
curling into you was the title I used on Instagram in September 2020 when I shared the source photograph for this sketch and a similar one. The only "bad" thing about that day - apart from the pandemic (though we were able to "eat out to help out" then) - was that I decided not to take my DSLR with me.
And that's why I know I'm not suffering from anhedonia or melancholia right now. Even though I feel exceedingly flat and teary.
Because these thoughts trigger feelings of nostalgia. An urge to return. Thoughts of wandering through Hampstead Heath Extension; exploring the area; discovering a never-opened Tube station; and eating one of our first pub meals after the first lockdown. It still brings back feelings of pleasure.
I guess that's one reason to be thankful. Even if my psyche is a mess of emotions now and on and off for the past 48 hours.
Yesterday was the first time in this year's project that I let myself start again because my first attempt was incredibly off. Not only that but, after the second attempt - starting from a different point - was clearly not going to work, I allowed myself to choose a new source image.
I "wasted" a page (both sides), but it just wouldn't come to me. Not even in an amateur way, like the tuxedo cat.
Maybe it was because I was tired, emotionally distracted or slightly tipsy. (Though that hasn't been an issue in the past. From the point of view of correct perspective, sure, but not to the extent I just can't). Or maybe I just wasn't actually able to process the specifics of the source image.
Maybe I'll try it again before I finish the project. We'll see.
This sketch was drawn with a 4H pencil then overdrawn with an H pencil, a 2B and an HB. The darker shading was done with the 2B pencil.