Back at it...?

Ideas pop up in the strangest of places.
I was sitting at my desk looking through my favorite Instagram account, @theweirdandwonderful, and saw a female Rhesus macaque skull pictures on their site. It took me back...waaaay back to my late college days of pouring over paleo and physical anthropology books. That is when my love affair with skulls took place.

Concept sketch on a sticky note, sitting at my work desk

I remember an old sketch I did of a female Australopithecus skull I found in one of my old textbooks. I remember just shading and highlighting my way through the page. It was so fun, yet so technical. This skull was unique. The skull had dimension and purpose. It was more or less a challenge for me, but a challenge I loved and wanted to perfect. 

To this day I still challenge myself with skull art. There is nothing scary or macabre about skulls to me. They belonged to someone or something once. To a creature with its own personality, and habits. That's how bone is built. That's how skulls should be expressed in art, to me, at least. 

"Late Bloomer" acrylic on gallery canvas, 10x10"

So I reverted back to an idea I had over the summer. I was going to stop pretending that I somehow needed to impress myself with new challenges, but, instead, go back to the things I am familiar with. I needed to find comfort in my art because my attempt to reinvent myself in some weird, impossible way was not working. After all, I am doing this because I love it. Why not continue painting or drawing what I love?