Confessions of a researchaholic

The neighborhood black cat seemed to express his affinity by occasionally laying dead rats around the house.
I spotted this one in the backyard earlier this morning, but it disappeared when I tried to draw it in the evening; fortunately I have a reference photo taken earlier for backup.

I spotted a silverfish in the morning, which reminded me of those I constantly saw in my grandfather’s numerous ancient Chinese texts, which he refused to throw away any despite repeated demands from my grandmother. (Is this house for people or books to live in? 這房子是給人還是給書住的?)

He started to teach me classical Chinese when I was in kindergarten, and told me several important and unconventional lessons, such as: do not trust everything in the history books, better to beat others with my brain instead of my fists, and never let others control my thoughts and actions.

I saw this excavator claw sitting alone on the road side a few days ago, and walked back to sketch it.
The road is meandering and thus the car traffic can be a bit dangerous for pedestrians.
Fortunately, I can stand on the down-wind side of the claw, under the protection of its size and weight.

I saw this road roller parked at the corner of a nearby fire station, which has a nice low wide stone wall for me to sit comfortably while sketching.
The connectors between the wheel/drum axes and the body seemed obstructive while on site, so I skipped them but found them pivotal for the structure and composition after the first drawing.
I came back to add the connectors the next evening.

I was trying to draw a temple building but lacked enough time before the evening closure, so I switched to another nearby scene.

After eating the dragon fruit, I drew its peel to memorize it.

I went out after 8 pm to this interesting and yet unlit corner of my neighborhood, to force myself to either draw quickly before it was too dark and/or finish the rest from visual memory back home.

When I picked up this pine cone it was still oozing sap, and has remained on my desk as an aroma source and hand exercise instrument.