Don't Be Silly, He Said

This is the next drawing in the sequence, complete with pencil scribble lines that I haven't rubbed out yet. The thumb print on this one is out of shot; the other drawing has a thumb print on it too. I just get inky fingers when I do these things.
There are at least ten tracks on the album, so that's lots more drawings to do. After a stressful day at work (but I did manage to get an ultra-serious student to smile the other day) getting into a drawing trance is a perfect way to spend an evening, with a pen gliding over the surface of perfect, smooth paper. This photograph looks tinted. The actual drawing is black on white.
I used to think the drawing was already in the paper and you pulled it out with the pen, and some sorts of drawing still feel like that. But these feel as though I'm skating, sweeping across frozen, hard white ice, the first skater of the day to slice marks into its surface. I feel confident on paper in ways that I don't in life; the characters are like friends who populate my imagination. I recognise them, as though they have always been here.