I hated basketball.
The ball, not the sports. In fact, I love watching the NBA when I was younger and had a lot of time in my hands. But I hate basketball, the ball.
When I saw the reference I used for this portrait (this one, from Pinterest, and I think she's so pretty!), all I initially thought was I'd love to draw this. So... I did. When I started painting the basketball, however, I was taken back to more than a decade ago, during my elementary years, when I just grew to hate the ball.
I hated basketball, but I enjoyed drawing this portrait.
That one traumatic time someone hit me with a basketball.
I don't understand why basketball had to be part of my PE curriculum in fourth grade. Heck, for someone as tiny as me (I was tinier in elementary), the ball was a giant I would rather not play around with. The school had me do it, anyway, and I hated every second of it.
I remember one PE afternoon and everyone in class was in the gym. There was a practical where we were required to shoot the balls from the free throw line. If we could, we could try for the three-point-line. Of course, I wasn't able to shoot any, and I felt horrible. I could barely pick the ball, let alone throw it. But if the boys in my class were worms, they were the kind of worms that would wiggle endlessly when showered with a dash of salt. They were relentlessly energetic, and it was their giant energy that got me caught in getting hit by the basketball not once, but two times. In the head.
Imagine a maybe barely four-feet-ten stick of a little girl getting hit by two consecutive balls in the head. It sent me to the clinic for a while, and I remember my father, who was fetching me from school, having to find the clinic to get me. Ah, memories.
Anyway.
Finishing this one took quite a while. I barely had the time or energy to do this, but I had to if I wanted some fun in my life. (This week was horribly... spent. I am just so glad I made it out alive.)
Some zoom-ins.
Halfway through drawing this, an update in MediBang was published which included a timelapse feature. I was so happy about it! Moving on from where I was last, the timelapse recording started, so I decided not to do the usual progress shots. However...
The timelapse wouldn't export. So the GIF was a little lacking. This bug was in my tablet, and it seems I wasn't the only one experiencing it. I think it also has to do with the fact that this one required quite a lot of memory to export... maybe. It worked well on my Note, but I have to figure out yet if I could transfer the timelapse from the tablet to my phone. If i am able to, I'll make sure to update this post.
Meanwhile, here are some progress shots I was able to save.
Notes
I couldn't be bothered to be more detailed in this work. I think I may have lost the drive to draw. Which is bad, because drawing is supposed to be therapeutic to me. I hope this doesn't last long!
