Do you know what they call an injured runner? A bicyclist 😂! Seriously though, I’ve written about getting through injury stretches (with the associated depression and grouchiness) before and it can be frustrating. If it’s a minor, lower-limb injury that keeps you from running, at least you can hop on the bike and keep the sweat, summit and sunrise awesomeness going. What if it’s something else? Like a busted shoulder, partially tearing the deltoids and supraspinatus and not being able to lift your arm? Well, that happened to me earlier this year when I tripped on a downhill run, face planted and over extended said shoulder parts. Not only did it take me weeks to get full mobility and strength, my downhill running has slowed down a lot with the PTSD. I’m sure it’s the age too, just gotta be less reckless now if I want to keep running. So that leads me to Sketchalogue, a new hobby and a skill I’ve started cultivating (or perhaps bringing it back from childhood days).

Sketchalogue

I remember I used to draw/sketch quite a bit when I was a kid (maybe we all did) and kinda lost touch with that part of me in the adult phase. A couple of years ago, my wife gave me a John Muir Laws sketchbook for my birthday and I dabbled a little here and there, but nothing consistent.

Running, lifting, being outdoor and overall fitness have always higher priority than sitting down and doodling on something. Well, I suppose there’s a silver lining to getting injured. I’m sure my wife can attest that I can be the grumpiest, most irritable, grouchiest human being when I can’t run, bike, lift or get some high that comes from physical exertion. So summer of this year, once the shoulder, knee, ankle (yeah those happened too) all were on the mend, I started sketching. And after some exploring, the medium that I’ve really latched on to is using an iPad, Apple Pencil and Procreate. I have to say Procreate, to me, is the best thing since sliced bread. What an amazing app! More on that in a later blog.

Sketch: The Flute

My kids used to play this in middle school, I think? Anyways, it was lying around and I started doodling this. It’s probably one of my earliest Procreate sketches. Mostly used the “Narinder Pencil” brush, with some hatching and smudging.

This was only 18-minutes of sketching, but totally loved it. Maybe it’s my mechanical engineering undergrad where we used to draw engineering/industrial/perspective diagrams, I feel like I’ve still retained a good part of eyeballing proportions, angles and ratios pretty well. And here’s the time-lapse from the 18 minutes. Being one of my first sketches, looks like I was dabbling on a few other things before finally drawing the flute. Oh well.

Oh and the seal to the lower right? My wife’s uncle gave me that name (高思) and my wife drew this stylishly on Procreate and I exported that into a transparent image that I can drop back on to my finished sketches. Just a fun way to mark the completion of a sketch. Or when I think I’m ready to move on.