Tag: art
New art: Meeting
Still enjoying making art on my iPad. For this drawing, I wanted to try some of the real media brushes in Clip Studio Paint—I went with chalk for most of this piece—and I thought a children’s book illustration style would suit the tools well.
I’ll draw something other than a dragon soon. Probably.
New art: Upon the Porcelain Throne
I drew the album art for musician Jett Swole‘s latest release, Upon the Porcelain Throne.
I… really enjoyed doing the messy style.
New art: Solstice
I had a couple of reasons for making my newest art. First was that I got an iPad and Apple Pencil and was eager to try out both for art. I also received a free trial of Clip Studio Paint Pro, which I’ve heard good things about and which looked quite promising from the information I’ve read about it. I’ve much more to learn still, but am really enjoying it already.
As to why I painted this picture, that’s a bit longer story. I saw a few posts online a year ago about the origins of the cuetlaxochitl—or as it’s more commonly known in the imperialist West, poinsettia—but only this season did I read up on its true history as a plant cultivated by and sacred to Aztec civilization (along with the sordid personality of its English namesake). Combined with my usual annoyance with the unchallenged sexism, racism, ableism, etc. of many “classic” holiday songs, I decided to make a painting that incorporated as many Christmas symbols co-opted from other cultures as I could (and which my limited Google-fu came up with). And because I’m me, I made it a dragon.
On a more personal level, I have not enjoyed making art this much in a long time. I wasn’t only pleased with how it was turning out, I loved the process of working on it. I am greatly looking forward to making more art on my iPad.
Anyway, here’s the completed piece:
The future is now
I’ve been doing new year posts for a few years now. The novelty has perhaps worn off a little, and due to various reasons I’m feeling a bit cynical about celebrating the new year. But I don’t really want to get into it and I’m sure you don’t want to read it either, so I’ll move on to the whole point of these posts: goal-setting.
First, the wrap-up from last year. Writing wasn’t quite as successful as I’d hoped, as I haven’t quite gotten the draft of the final book of my Sisters of Chaos trilogy ready for beta readers yet. I have, however, completed fairly significant edits over the text from the first draft I finished at the end of 2020. In early December, after finishing the initial edits I marked out back in last January, I did another complete reread and noted just a few smaller areas of concern I still need to work on. At that point, however, the novel went on the back burner as other projects took precedence.
I rediscovered joy in art in 2021 in a way I haven’t in many years, and even used up the last page in the sketchbook I’d been drawing in since 2012. I also tried out/revisited media I hadn’t experimented with in a long time, and tried some new techniques that visibly improved my art even in the few drawings I did last year. In fact, I have some other artwork, from as far back as last summer, that I’ve yet to share here. Obviously, adding posts to this blog hasn’t been a priority for me of late.
Music also became a stronger focus this year as I worked on learning both piano and guitar (and even got a fantastic new guitar as a birthday/Christmas present). I even recorded and shared a few covers and started composing an original song. I’m slowly making progress on both my instruments and with singing.
I ended up reading 52 books last year. 12 of them were graphic novels and 45 were middle grade (four of the remaining are classified as teen/YA books, all of those graphic novels). I’d been wanting to delve into middle grade books and found some absolute treasures among the selections I read.
I didn’t end up playing through as many video games as I wanted to this year – in fact, I fear I may have added more acquisitions than I completed. But, I had the opportunity to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon: Zero Dawn and am making my way through the original Final Fantasy VII.
For this year, I want to say I want the third Sisters of Chaos book to be completed and ready for publication by the end of the year. I don’t have much editing left to do on it and hopefully I can have it out to beta readers by the end of this month. What transpires past that point is difficult to predict, but it shouldn’t be a stretch to have the manuscript finished within twelve months.
Art I’m going to indulge whenever the mood strikes me. While I am enjoying both the act of drawing and improving my work, I have no goals.
The same goes for music, though I’d like to be more consistent with my guitar and piano lessons. Much as I’m enjoying recording new video game songs, I want to focus more on just playing instruments rather than trying to learn arranging, mixing, and mastering as well. I say that, of course, as I continue working on my most ambitious song yet.
I don’t have any specific goals I’m trying to achieve with reading, so I’m going to once again set my reading goal to 30 books and see where it goes from there. My TBRs have started to collect again after some purchases last year, though it’s only a handful left after reading the graphic novels this week. I’d like to expand my scope a little, perhaps start getting into some of the many ebooks I’ve purchased/downloaded. That said, there are still at least eleven middle grade books I can think of off-hand that I’d quite like to read (two of them scheduled for release this month).
As for video games, I’d just like to get into new ones quicker. I’m finding anymore that it takes me a while to get truly invested in and comfortable with new RPGs. Case in point: I just reached the second disc of Final Fantasy VII yet have only really gotten emotionally/intellectually involved with the story and game play in the past handful of play times. I like the story – liked it from the beginning – but it took me so long to get the hang of the game play and trying to figure out what’s going on and what I should be doing that it’s taken months for me to feel like I’m really playing it; the same was certainly true of Horizon: Zero Dawn, and was a large part of why I didn’t play more games last year. Considering how many games I have to play for so many different systems, I don’t think I have the luxury to take my time each time I start up a new game. I don’t really know how to overcome that, but I’ll have to figure it out somehow.
If nothing else, writing, art, reading, making music, and playing video games help to distract the mind. On that note, I think I’ll go start up the Playstation Classic.
New art: Flights of fancy
My daughter asked me to draw her as a magical girl, and I decided to take that a step further with some additional drawings.
I do intend to add backgrounds to the latter two, but I scrambled to get these done in time for her birthday, and now that that’s past, I have two other goals I want to achieve before the end of the month, so finishing these is going on the back burner for now. (Along with getting better scans.)
All images done in marker (with backdrop on the magical girl picture in pencil crayon).
July update
Here we are, halfway through the year. School is out and summer weather is upon us. And it’s time for my (mostly) monthly update.
Didn’t progress quite as much with book three of the Sisters of Chaos trilogy as I had wanted to, but as might be evidenced from the last few posts, I’ve been engaged with art lately. I’m also working on a few bigger pieces at the moment, much as I would like to continue doing quicker sketches. I’ve really been enjoying doing art over the past month plus and it’s a lot easier to sink into when I’m not feeling writing, as I have been a bit of late.
I didn’t accomplish much else in June. Failed to keep myself off YouTube videos. Rarely touched the video game I was playing or either piano or guitar. Still haven’t finished the miniatures I was trying to finish painting. I’ve mentioned before about how I have too many hobbies, but lately, they’ve all been clamoring for my attention more than usual.
On the bright side, my plants are growing well. Last year’s jalapeno plant sprouted a flower that hung on long enough to become a full pepper, which is ready to harvest any day now. The tomatoes that a month ago were maybe four-inch seedlings have now surpassed the height of the tomato cage, and have bloomed their first flowers. The bell peppers are a little behind them, but love the hot weather we’ve had of late and continue to grow as well. One lettuce container is crammed full and has made a few delicious meals already. The other is much more sparse of plants, but those growing in it are quite happy with the additional space.
In the garden, of the seeds I planted, only the zucchini took off, but boy did it. Each plant has several eight-inch leaves and is sprouting a lot more. A little bummed that I won’t be getting pumpkins again this year, but not overly surprised that nothing else grew.
I didn’t quite reach my yearly goal of reading 30 books by halfway through this year, but I’m only one short, and I certainly want to start reading more. Summer holiday means checking out plenty of books from the library for my daughter, and as they’re middle grade books, I’m quite interested in reading them as well. Perhaps one of these days I’ll also get back to the many ebooks I’ve downloaded or least sampled.
For this month, I’d really like to kick my perfectionism to the curb. It’s been taking time out of everything I want to do. I can’t just do something; I have to do it well. I have to do it right. This makes everything feel intimidating – such as the video game I’ve been playing, which feels like a huge time commitment, yet when I sit down and play it, it’s just a fun story to sink into, and there’s even frequent enough save points that I don’t have to devote an hour or more to play. The end result of feeling so intimated, however, is it’s easier to just watch videos than do something productive.
I’m tired of doing that. I can just sit down and play a few minutes of my video game. I can open up a book and read a few pages without having to devour the entire thing in a night. I can pick up the guitar or sit down at the piano and just practice a few bars of a song. And even if I only write two sentences in an evening, at least it’s progress.
And I really want to finish this novel. I’ve almost finished my first edit of the third POV character’s scenes. That only leaves two to fix up afterward, one of which is only going to have an handful of scenes. If I actually sit down and work on it, maybe I could even have my edits done by the end of this month.
So, here we go again with the same goal from last month: just do more. I’ve seen plenty of memes and threads and inspirational quotes about perfectionism, but right now, taking a cue from Disney’s Luca, perhaps a simpler message would help me just do the things I want to do: Silenzio, Bruno.
May update
Writing:
- Finished initial edits on two characters’ scenes in book 3 of the Sisters of Chaos trilogy. (Not as big an accomplishment as it may sound, as one of those characters only had a handful of scenes.) Still have some edits to do on one character’s scenes because another character I haven’t tackled yet is going to affect them. I do, however, feel vindicated in my approach of editing one POV at a time, as the one I’m working on now had a timing issue I might not have noticed doing the entire draft in order.
Art:
- I’m doing it. More importantly, I’m enjoying the process of making art and proud of my results, more than I have been in many years. Also really enjoying trying out new techniques and media that I haven’t touched in years. I mentioned in my last art post that I recently watched a video about the benefits of keeping a sketchbook and have been inspired to do more casual art/art for its own sake/just experimenting of late. My recent drawings have brought me within ten pages of the end of my current sketchbook, which I have been using since 2012. I’m looking forward to filling up those last pages and looking for a new sketchbook, one better suited to mixed media so I can continue to experiment with watercolour and other media.
Reading:
- Slowing down; only read two more books this month, both middle grade. Still greatly enjoying those. I am, however, getting back into the habit of spending at least part of most evenings watching YouTube videos, rather than reading or doing something else productive. Although, said videos have inspired the motivation to do art lately, and I have watched a few tutorials on art as well, so I guess it’s not a total waste. Still, some of those videos could be time better spent.
Video games:
- Avoiding commitment. Tried to overcome that by starting Horizon Zero Dawn last week, though I haven’t touched it since after realizing that game is definitely a commitment, not just in time but in play frequency.
Music:
- Fell by the wayside with the increased interest in art. Need to just sit down and practice more.
Garden:
- A cool month had things going slow and a few plants spending quite a bit of time inside. While the progress of late came after the end of May, a few hot days had my tomatoes and peppers springing up. Last year’s jalapeño plant has even bloomed several flowers now. The first fell off at the stem before it could create a pepper, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed on the next ones.
Goals for June? Just do more rather than resort to YouTube. Perfectionism keeps making me think things are harder/more work to do than they are and I need to take my recent accomplishments as proof that it’s wrong.
Jinxed 