Yesterday, I found a new-to-me blog called Between Fact and Fiction and I instantly fell in love. Natalie has a regular feature called Saturday Sketch where she displays her (awesome) sketches. From what I’ve seen so far, her sketches vary between characters in her novels and stories, characters in other books and stories that she’s read, and a few other surprises in between.

Seeing this, I was not only blown away by her talent, but I was inspired to dust off my own artistic skills which I’d kept locked away since high school. Specifically, it was her post on practice that gave me the idea–I’d love to start my own regular art feature here at Today, I Read… (and possibly at Today, I Wrote…, which I’ve been totally slacking on, but that’s going to change soon).

Getting back to drawing (and watercolor painting) is something I’ve been meaning to do for a very long time. Plus, I’ve been meaning to keep up on my Sunday Salon posting, so doing a Sunday Sketch feature would help. (Saturdays are too busy for me, plus I’ll be too busy checking out Natalie’s sketches. Sundays are the days that I usually lounge around reading and pretending to get things done.)

To help me practice and refine my hand-eye coordination, I’ll start sketching the characters of the book I’m reading and publish with my Sunday Salon post. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to look back at my first sketch and laugh.

* The picture above is a 5-minute sketch I did around 2 o’clock this morning (couldn’t sleep). It’s the MC in a short story I’m writing called The History of Objects. It was drawn in my Moleksine notebook, which has off-white pages and, since I felt lazy, I took the picture with my web cam, so please excuse the picture quality. I promise to avoid laziness for future sketches.

** I owe a huge thank you to Natalie for the idea and inspiration, however, Natalie, if you have any problem with this whatsoever, please let me know.