Last year’s new year’s resolution was to give up sugar drinks and candy. I’ve been doing really well, and I’ve lost a bunch of weight. Down to 210, only ten pounds over what I’m supposed to weigh at my age, and this year I’m taking the next step and doing meal prep Sunday. I need to eat healthier, this is the only life I’m going to get, and I’m not going back to the chronic heart pains that used to haunt me since I finished undergraduate.

But this isn’t my New Years’ resolution: instead I’m spending it learning how to art good. Drawabox is an ongoing art lesson made by a programmer who wanted to apply the same practical and analytical coding mindset to learning art. I’m really attracted by that attitude, so my New year’s resolution is to make progress on drawabox every day. (It was originally 1 lesson a day, but the website stresses that you shouldn’t put solid deadlines and schedules, and instead just focus on never falling completely off the boat.)

That being said, I blitzed through the first lesson because I’m not a complete newcomer to art. It was entirely drawing lines, something I’ve been doing in the margins of my schoolnotes since first grade. I was working in pencil right up until the part where he mentioned you’re supposed to work in pen, and it’s in a lined spiral notebook because I don’t have a sketchbook at my parent’s house. You’re supposed to turn your work into the subreddit, but I’ll redo the lesson on proper blank paper tomorrow and turn that in. I can’t properly do the work until I’m back home in Santa Clara.

But you nonexistant readers can still see it!

WordPress keeps forcibly rotating the image. It’s oriented properly when I upload it, I promise

Seriously took me like five minutes. The hardest part was the “ghosting” lines, where you place two lines and then draw a line connecting the two. I’ll put in more time tomorrow, this is really just to get the ball rolling. No time like the first of January, right?