I was sorting through some stored old papers (like you do), and I came across this sketch I made when I was 17-ish back in 1979.

Lindsay Wagner, 1979 - 212 x 277 mm (8.33 x 10.9 inches), graphite pencil on paper

The subject was Lindsay Wagner, who’d only recently finished working on The Bionic Woman. It was done with 2H and  6H pencils, aided by a pink eraser, on government bond paper. The paper clearly was acidic as it is now yellowed and amazingly stiff — you can feel the fragility.

I may not have been aspiring to do art for money at the time — my focus then being on physics — but it was a fun way to pass some hours.

Sometime I’m going to try to dig out my old toy box/storage chest. I think I know where it is. Maybe there’s a pad or two of sketches that remain from when I was but a kidling. They’d be on newsprint, though, so even if they do exist, there’s no telling what sort of condition they’d be in.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to catch a glimpse of one step in my informal training in art.