That Perfect ____

What's this? Two posts in one day? Well, I was inspired a little while ago to go digging in my plan file drawers -- these monstrous thin flat drawers made of oak (stacked about a foot taller and three times wider than I am) for storing artwork, which I was fortunate enough to inherit from G.P. (see earlier That Perfect Rum post) -- and I ran across many many many old drawings from when I was in art school. These date from 1995 to 1997 or so, when I was taking life drawing classes. For the elucidation those of you who had "normal" majors in college or didn't attend at all, life drawing classes (and all studio art classes, for that matter) at UT Austin (and elsewhere, I'd assume) consist of 4-hour class sessions twice a week (usually MW or TTh from 8-12 or 2-6) for three hours of class credit (yep -- so if you had a 12 hour semester, that amounted to 32 hours of class time, not counting outside work that was required, especially in the advanced classes). We'd spend the entire four hours drawing nude models. Oddly, you forget they're nude while you're drawing -- honest -- and just focus on the folds, wrinkles, lines, shapes, textures, and expressions. I snapped a few digital photos just now of some of the old drawings I did in my undergrad studies -- they're below. I'm not sure what That Perfect ___ this post is about, but there was a feeling of something perfect that swept over me -- either in the drawings or in my reflections upon them. Don't know what to call it, but something was perfect in that moment of my looking back at these sketches. I'm not including any of my "sophisticated" later work here... just some charcoal and pencil sketches. Some finished, some not, most done in life drawing classes, a few done just messing around at home. There's a million billion trillion miles between who I am today and who I was when I drew these, but I've been trying to narrow that gap as of late. I just dusted off my old prismacolor pencils, and it turns out that going through law school, being a lawyer, and being a pretty demanding toddler's mom hasn't made me forget how to draw after all. And so, since I don't know what That Perfect this post is about, it's up to you to fill in the blank this time....