It's beginning to seem like as though I'm going to need an actual human corpse to work from if I'm ever going to learn any anatomy at all. I have plenty of anatomy books, and they feature lots of pictures of heads and skulls and whatever-else-have-you, but it's really not a lot of help. In fact it's quite frustrating. The books feature plenty of pictures of heads drawn from different angles, usually neatly divided into thirds or halves or whatever that make human anatomy seem very rational. I've been studying those diagrams for a week and a half and I still have no real understanding of the shape of the human skull. On reflection I suppose that's not surprising, but these very rational diagrams do a very good job of misrepresenting cranial anatomy as systematic.

Perhaps I should take a few steps back. Two weeks ago I was working on a portrait adapted from a photograph as an exercise intended to see how far this sort of adaptive, derivative work could go; the idea being that taking a photograph and removing information permits you to refine the image until it's beautiful. It turns out that this works to a point; removing the dross does beautify the image, but the original photograph presents an inescapable bound on the overall beauty of the final product. So in essence I have to learn to draw if I want to get away from producing second-rate crap (or learn to take photographs that aren't second-rate crap; given the choice I think I'd prefer being able to draw). And so last week I did some drawing practice and it became quickly evident that my ability to draw heads and faces is in turn bounded by my knowledge of cranial anatomy. And trying to learn the fundamental shape of the human skull from a bunch of two-dimensional pictures in books is proving very frustrating. So now I'm looking at the prices for reproduction human skulls on the internet, for chrissakes, and trying to decide if $150 is too much for a goddamn plastic skull. I'm also kind of bothered that having that sort of thing in my bedroom is unavoidably going to seem kind of fucked up.

Well, I only hope that I don't wind up having to buy a whole skeleton. Those are $600. And don't even ask about the Feng Shui.

Also, I've concluded (this has been bugging the hell out of me) that seeing that people you know are online when you connect to Messenger and not saying hi to them (if nothing else) is kind of like seeing them in the street and looking at your shoes. It only seems polite to acknowledge their presence, and they are present, in a certain sense. I don't know. Although if you know the other party is at work arguably you should refrain. But yeah. Staying silent unless I have something germane to say has been really really bugging me.