Crooked Arrows: Graa-fight and paper.

One time when I was in junior high, I drew a picture of myself wearing my sister's sweater that I unashamedly coveted. I knew that if she would just let me have that sweater, I would look dang good, and my social life would improve dramatically. My social life throughout junior high was almost non-existent, and I blame it on the fact that my sister never let me wear her sweater.
This post is not about sweaters, sisters, social lives, junior high, or coveting. It's about the magic that occurs when you are holding a brand new artist-grade pencil in your hand. It's about the endless possibilities a blank sheet of paper can hold. It's about getting graphite all over your hands, smearing it on your face, staring at the same set-up for hours, and wearing your eraser down to a pulp as you try to get your piece perfect.
I believe that sketching, and anything that uses creative juices, is very therapeutic. It doesn't matter if you sketch with perfect realism, or if your sketches look like someone barfed graphite onto your paper. I love to draw, but it took me a long time to improve from the junior high drawing of myself to my final self-portrait in my university drawing class. The more I drew myself and other people, the better I got, and I gained a greater understanding of the complexity of the human face. (It may be awkward, but you should look at all the faces around you. Don't just glance; take a long, hard study of their face. Faces are composed of the same objects, and yet they are all so incredibly different. It's fascinating.)
The following are a few samples of drawings I did in my freshman year of college. They are nowhere near great, and a few have areas of graphite barf. But that's okay.