I am eyebrow retarded.

Looks like the Sparrow here's gone and got herself something new to talk about. World take caution, because Alicia has very kindly offered to try to teach me how to draw.

I figured I'd let you guys in on the training process (seeing as about 25% of you guys is already part of the training process) by posting periodic updates on my training. So here, without needing to abandon my last shred of self-respect because that shred has long since been lost, is the product of the first lesson. Click for bigger.

All right, so I won't be joining the ranks of the great romantic I mean impressionist masters anytime soon, but I think even this is a step above my customary doodles and wing people. It's obviously not finished yet, but already it could use a fair amount of cleaning up: the nose is rather wider and more bulbous than a human's ought to be, the face remains disconcertingly androgynous (recognizable as female, but only just), and the chin and cheeks look like the subject needs to bathe once in awhile.

However, let us examine the compelling evidence for this lesson having helped me: it's fucking shaded. For me, a pencil has always been something you sharpened after you broke it crossing out the last three paragraphs of your work, and only after you broke it crossing out the last three paragraphs of your work. Now here I am learning that the side of the pencil can be useful too. Whoodathunk.

In other news: My brother's guppy Diana gave birth to twenty little fry on Sunday. We wondered for awhile whether the one that we'd found was going to be an only child, then we found three more, and then it all went 101 Dalmatians. All I've got to say is that we better be careful we don't wind up with guppies in jars all over the house, like in that story we read in primary school.

And yes, she is named after the moon and fertility goddess (Roman equivalent of Artemis). The other three are Athena, Venus and Poseidon.

Too much too much.