epic of awesomeness

I've settled into a bit of a pattern with my daily sketchings. There are two warm ups.

First, an Mbear drops onto the page for the opening ceremonies. As a default character, I usually use Mbear to mark the beginning of the day's work. Never holding a calendar or anything, but serving that purpose, separating one day from the next. Except since Mbear performs other doodle duties other than just that, it's not a pure mark of recognition when looking back through the pages, but it is a ritual of practice.

Second come timed, warm-up sketches, all referenced, usually figure drawing. Reading blogs is often one of the first things I do on any given day, and as I go through the dozen or so posts waiting for me, I open into separate tabs images I especially like and find inspiring. I download these images to later inspire me to whatever end, but the process of saving them takes between 10 and 15 seconds (firefox is laggy for whatever reason), and I use those 10 to 15 seconds to do brief, gestural drawings. Most photos for reference come from the Face Hunter blog. The first image here is a partial example of my warm-up page.



Mostly 20k in this second one, and recognizably so. But top right, bottom left, and sitting on a stump in the middle of the page... all those are from an episode of Wonderfalls. I watched 11 episodes of it last night and loved it. Great cast of characters, both recurring and episodic.



There was something vaguely intelligent I wanted to write about here, but I cannot remember what. I am very tired.

Did I miss an update?

I have no formal schedule, but it looks like I didn't post anything during "Thursday".

Here's a little comic I did on a paper towel while making mac and cheese for dinner.

Early posting

I'm posting a little early today because my brain is working differently today. Normally I spend my time drawing, reading, listening, thinking and make notes on post its that I stick to my walls. Over 300 sticky thoughts cling on various surfaces in my office, each containing a singular plot or idea I want to explore in the future.

Most of them are beginnings, some are character points, some are bits of dialog or quotes, and a few are just imagery or odd collections of words.

Today, however, I have been presented with, instead of 100 words or less of contained idea, broad themes with a variety of angels. I'm not on plot points, I'm thinking in terms that term papers are written about. Term papers, theses, dissertations. The big things.

I read about death at the Cabinet of Wonders that spoke in many ways about how humans look at death, both through the lenses of religion and capitalism. It made me both want to read more about death, and to cling to life by enjoying it with focus, especially with the people I'm closest to.

Now I'm listening to Charlie Rose interview the Dalai Lama, and I'm thinking about diplomacy and all the ways details surrounding Tibet/China can be adopted, adapted, interpreted, and spun. This interview is another something that makes me realize what big deals diplomacy and foreign relations are.

Also, more drawing. Drawing is still happening.

whew. cranky

it was an off day. Whenever I try to force my sleep schedule, I come out the other side with an "off" day. Thankfully I still got some drawing done.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get back on the wagon.

Your daily 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

With an excess of 40 pages in my sketchbook devoted to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, an oddly objective part of my brain tells me I have to ask myself if I'm getting tired of it. The part of my brain really is oddly objective, because most of my mind really doesn't care too much. I'm still enjoying the project and learning a lot, expanding my drawing skills a lot.

Sometimes I pull back and roll my eyes at page after page of drawings of these same handful of characters, but when I take it one moment at a time, one figure at a time, it's nothing short of magical.

Another day, another night of marathon drawing

All this drawing, and I'm still less than an hour into the movie. I'll see where I am at the end of the week, and maybe modify my practices. I'm practically storyboarding the whole dang thing, except bigger figures and not many backgrounds.

Actually, the top page is primarily unreferenced, sketches for a painting I won't do for another year. It's the mental picture that formed in my head while listening to the audiobook I've mentioned lately.

If I was a Sim, my diamond would be dangerously close to the danger zone of red.

Midnight hours

I really like the graveyard shift. With the great current trade-off of not being awake the same hours as my husband (and thus not sleeping the same hours either), the solitude does wonders for me. And I don't just mean the solitude of an empty house and a quiet out-doors. There's also the measure of online solitude when the blogs don't update and the email doesn't arrive. A forcible removal of distractions where I have no choice but to amuse myself.

Not that production comes to a stand-still as soon as the transmissions start trickling in again, but when I know that it's mostly pointless to check my friend's list or feed reader, I can sink into the flow for longer periods of time without needing to "breathe". That's what I call the release of checking my main 3 websites. A momentary distraction, refreshment, getting my bearings according to the rest of the world.

When I was a kid (okay, I still do it), during long walks from the ballpark to the car, or from the store home, I would close my eyes and hang on tightly to the hand of whatever responsible person was with me. For as long as I could stand, I'd clear my mind and walk into infinity, save for the gentle tugs to avoid concrete pylons, or the small reminders to step up a stair or down a curb.

Trying to do it alone produces a small, enjoyable amount of fear. Walking home from the bus stop or out to the mail box, I'd close my eyes and try to walk straight on the sidewalk. I would see how long it took me to fear stepping into the grass or bump into a hazard.

In both cases, flying solo or with a guide, I sometimes open my eyes for a brief moment to check my gauges and take note of landmarks. A reverse blink. Most of the time, especially if I'm holding someone's hand, I berate myself later for my lack of faith, as the lapse destroys the potential totality of the experience and can appear to be a mistrusting of my guide.

I mention this because it's what my internet checks during long stints of drawing are like. Quick reverse-blinks, letting in harsh reality to the world of fancy, impossibility, and imagination behind my eyes. I don't need to. The internet and the people connected to it will be there when I finish building my palace of dreams, and there are miles of empty field ahead. I don't need to worry about falling off. yet.




All 20K. The text on the last one is truncated and should read, "A good sounding deal that ends as a death sentence." It was in reference to (aka: reminder of) something I heard in a podcast (or, more likely (since it was yesterday) in Areas of My Expertise) about a deal-with-the-supernatural/devil situation where the bargainer thinks he's getting the better end of a situation, but the "reward" ends up taking many many many years to experience.

Mixed Bag

Two pages of stuff. Yesterday was horribly productive, but I made the mistake of taking it at a sprint instead of a marathon a day actually is. So more day-old scans. It's like day-old bread, except not.

For your daily dose of vagueness, today had some really excellent talking and some really excellent listening. Is it a little egotistical to say I had good talking? Let's modify that to "conversations". On the intake end, I found a way to listen to podcasts on my ipod without stopping and choosing a new one in between each. *flex*flex*

I may actually catch up on 'casts this way.

I'm coming off two 20-minute sections of yoga, so there's a bit of an endorphin rush, hence the falling-down of my usual candid candor. I actually think I'll go for a third helping. Maybe it'll help me wind down for sleep. The Polyphonic Spree can wait until tomorrow.

A day to be proud of

I planned on being proactive and being all "caught up" on posting older pages, so in order to have something for tomorrow, I must draw today.

But for the latest batch, I got 5 pages.

I guess I can tell Reagan to be more selective with what he pulls out for posting. :)

As promised, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I'm really starting to love this movie, as I watch it in 15-30 second intervals. No joke. I can identify more than 15 pages of 20k material, and I'm 50 minutes into a 127 minute move.

...

That's more impressive than it sounds.

The last of the reserves...

The two last pages before I need to have my sketchbook admitted for scanning again.

Top is a compilation including two bears (very top) that I really like. Bottom is an uncut page... in the lower right corner you can see the beginnings of the "story" posted yesterday.

Next time I post sketchlings... expect to see lots of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

and then we start all over again

I was listening to a Pilip Glass song on repeat for about 20 minutes and doodled this out in my sketchbook.

It's the beginning of something, but I don't know if it's the beginning of something I will continue.

Minimum Day

Today was not the best day ever. I woke up with one plan, and acted on not one item of that plan. On the upside, I spent a good chunk of the day hanging out with some local friends, helping one get here computer working again.

Part of the downside is that my desktop now isn't functioning properly.

I'm calling it a minimum day and planning to turn things around after a nice long sleep.

The little bits of drawing I did today are not in my sketchbook, which is still over in the scanning sector, revealing its secrets to the light. Here are two scans from a few days ago.


I don't quite remember why I chose this exercise, but I was drawing faces from Entourage while watching an episode. Dear old favorite, Great Italian Films at the bottom, not in squares.




Primarily Lone Wolf And Cub, with a West Wing cameo (feat. Laura Dern)* near the lower edge. I'm not sure I know who that is because I remember drawing it, or because I believe in the resemblance.



Tomorrow will be a better day.

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* I chose that link because it was one of the first personable link in the google search, and luckily it has a photo of Richard Schiff and Laura Dern. Unfortunately the text of the site downplays my favorite aspects of the episode (Toby and the Poet Laureate), reducing beautiful scenes of solemn flirting to simply having "a mutual admiration society". :P

I do believe!

Nice relaxing day, I think.

Sleep has become something I only do when it's absolutely necessary. When the sleeping begins between 1 and 4 pm, it only lasts four or five hours, making me get tired earlier the next day, but that usually precipitates a full 8 hours. After that much sleep, I'm awake longer, until between 1 and 4 pm... its a vicious, confusing cycle. Or something.

I wonder if heaven is like this, where you can't tell when one day ends and the next begins.

Today I spent some time reading Believer. In the middle of an article, right after I turned the page, and right before I finished the sentence, some hidden alarm went off in my head. The conversations, bits of books and magazines, and various thoughts that had been entering my brain all day boiled over. The boiling over, a mental sign of "done-ness" set off that hidden alarm.

Middle of a sentence in Believer Magazine, I noted the page number (and promptly forgot it), ran to my office, and printed out the first draft of my Cheetalope story and started going over it again with a fine-tooth blue pen (no red available). The current thought is to do a second draft, script it as a comic, and give myself a week-long crash course in how to draw felines.

Maybe if I give myself actual projects instead of the amorphous directive that is "practice!", it'll sketch boundaries in time and mind. That may help me to say "This is for this, and that is for THAT." Maybe.

It's possible I've lost all coherency. Here, have some pictures that emerged from that amorphous directive that is "practice!".




Mostly Lone Wolf and Cub. Oh, and I want to do that too! and more 20,000 Leagues!

Celebrating with a look at warring natures.

For at least a month I've been worrying this train of thought, and I'm still not sure if it goes anywhere. With 50 posts under my cap, I cease my active avoidance and tackle head-on putting form and word to thought.

All my life, "writer" has been my default position, default self-description, even when I didn't actively pursue it. I've been lax about honing the skills I've naturally found in the arena, but I figured it's where I'd end up, sooner, later, or somehow. Ideas come to me easily, I can view 200 of them at a quick glance up from my computer, but few of them grow to be larger than a breadbox. I water the garden, but don't weed or otherwise tend it much. Wilderscaping.

To put it in quantitative terms, I'm 6 units away from being truly confident in my writing.

Now things have taken a different turn and I am, with the constant support of my husband, pursuing personal definition as an "artist". This pursuit has twin roots with my writing spirit, but emerges in a different place and demands different practices. I cultivate these visual skills with dedication, returning time and again to the drawing board (literally!) to seek out my style and develop my skills in the craft. I feel behind the curve, that I'm showing up late to the game in some cases. Most of my artistically-inclined peers have been at this a lot longer, and that is one of the few thoughts that prevents me from developing an inferiority complex.

In quantitative terms, for comparison, I'm 18 units away from being truly confident in my art.

Ultimately, I'd like to be writing and illustrating my own work in sequential form. I look up to many of the people I meet in Reagan's Flight circle, and dream of being able to do what they do. I want to be able to pull an idea from the well and develop it, craft it into whatever form it will take best. I'm just not sure how to get there from here.

A couple months ago, my simple plan was "draw draw draw, and in 2 years we'll see where we are." But recently I've double the number of epic ideas I want to explore, and the strongest contender is a text-based muse, and I don't know how to please her.

I feel caught between two masters, between two large, unfinished projects that, on the surface, utilize very different muscle groups, and both consume endless amounts of time. Granted, I know I'll never be "done" developing either, but I believe there is a sweet spot, a realm of surplus, in which I can keep two plates spinning simultaneously. Reagan would describe it as a place of muscle memory at which an artist can not draw for a few days then resume without it looking like said artist didn't not-draw for a few days.

Maybe I'm waiting for that: for momentum I can coast on if I need to, for a certain measure of predictability. I tell myself, "Then I'll write all those stories. Then I'll dive into that epic."

I don't know if I'm being realistic. I don't know if I'm making good decisions, or even if there are good decisions. I don't even know if there are answers in the future, or just results.

At the end, when all the rambling is exhausted, and every tangent is explored, and every thought has been voiced, at the end, there's nothing to do but get back to work.

Not for lack of working

At one time I didn't post regularly because I had no art to update with. Now I have too much art and not enough days. Or something.

I'm pondering about an alternate solution for displaying work, except it's the journey that is important to me, not the minuscule "finished" works. Granted, they're only finished in the sense that I'm not working on them (or planning to work on them) any longer.

Over the past few days I've finished up Italian Film and started going through 20,000 Leagues. At least as interesting as the movie itself is the audio commentary/interview with the director. I've learned about Walt Disney, movie-making in the 50s, temperaments of actors, and the process of adapting the book to film.

These are page I've drawn along the way:




And a few doodles of mbear for good measure.


... and I still have 5 pages of unposted scans, and soon I will have several unscanned pages of raw material.

It's so tough being me.

mid-day delight!

This is part new, part old, brought to you by the noisy, noisy workmen who woke us up after only a few hours of sleep.

On the left you see a couple of yesterday's drawings, notably a guy dancing with his scarf (or at least that's how I see it), and a couple standing, nearly kissing, in a pool of water.

On the right, you see that same couple. The difference is (other than the omission of water) that the second iteration of those faces is several months old. I wish I could date exactly how old... but no.



Both of these are referenced from my dear Italian Film book. The photo appears on the title page AND on page 247 (of 252 pages).

Oh my, am I lacking for words.

But... a side-by-side "then and now" for you.

Something as amazing (to me) as the progress I've made in the past few months is the fact that as I was startled awake by loud banging noises, I had another large story pop into my head, and demanding I write 1000 words about it before returning to sleep. *sigh*

Dont you know you're yesterday's news?

That's not from today. Although today I landed 8 pages. Two of them were at the park doing life-doodles, which served as a nice jump-start for the rest throughout the evening. Gotta say, though, Savannah outdoors in August is not how it looks in postcards.

Outside that excursion (although part of this tale includes it), today was still an eventful day. Sometime around 2am we decided to take in a few meteors as part of this year's Perseides shower.

While we were somewhere down Highway 17 (somewhere past Richmond Hill) looking for meteors, our romantic evening of inaugurating the usPod, relaxing in the darkness, and stargazing was cut very short by clouds of mosquitoes. I obviously haven't had enough mosquitoes in my life prior to this point to be able to spell it properly, so it should be no surprise that I got more bites in the few minutes (possibly less than five minutes) that we reclined on the trunk of our car... than I have gotten in my previous 23 years on this planet. I was looking forward to some relaxing and marveling at the vastness of the universe and the enormity of things that take place without me, but the clouds of biting insects were too much.

I wonder if we get a prize for having the shortest complete, yet unsuccessful, spontaneous adventure. Reagan says I can't call it a failure because it was fun to drive around and talk for the 90 minutes or so we were out, but he actually saw a meteor (I was dealing with the ipod and the excess of bugs it drew to me), so I'm not sure that's fair. ;)

In short... Universe, you owe me one

Nothing like setting out to have a cosmic experience, complete with soundtrack, and being chased away by mosquitoes.


Tune in tomorrow to witness the amazing transformation from early-drawing-days to modern-drawing-days on the Annielution timeline.

Nothing like sunday morning

There's nothing like notification of comments on a slightly neglected blog to be a motivational kick in sensitive places, which, when kicked, rouse me to resume posting on aforementioned sightly neglected blog.

Well... Now... now that's out of my system, and for the rest of the day, all my sentences will be comprehensible and grammatically intact!

We hope.

Since that fateful day Wednesday, there was the celebration of a birthday, a viewing of Stardust, a cleaning of my desk, a screenplay outline, and some epic sleeping. All those together served as a reboot for my system, and I feel 200% better.

This post would contain another glorious, sweeping image full of drama, intensity, and movement, but I'm on my "pleasure machine*", and scans are on the laptop. Yes, yes, I'm working on a new system, but before it is completed, i must spend a modicum of time working for The Man.

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* Most of my pleasure in naming something the "pleasure machine" is being able to call it my "pleasure machine". In the new System, I'm going to work sitting at my desk like a good schoolgirl, and the PC is a side-location where I take breaks and do fun things.

Great Modern Thinkers have told me that if I'm to work at home, I should create some way to distinguish "working time" from "playing time". I divide my computers and my chairs thusly.

Hating on "days" like this

I'm in a perpetual state of tired lately, and wake up too soon when I sleep, even if I don't need to. Result: lack of drawing even when i have free time.

Reagan got me Phoenix Wright for my birthday, so I'm going to play that and sleep. Hopefully tomorrow won't be such a hassle.



I'm always the promise of tomorrow

This is actually a good thing

My sleep schedule has ceased to resemble anything recognizable as days, so I can't really count consecutive days. Even "waking periods" would be misleading, as sometimes I'm awake for 20 hours, sometime I'm awake for 4. Perhaps "per core sleep"?

I'm (mostly) looking forward to August 19: my last day at my current job. There's a very good chance that the weeks following that will be unbearably productive. It would likely be wise for me to make a list of things I want to get done *before* that date rolls around so I can be free of the "now that I have more free time, I've got to do all this cleaning" burden.

I thought there would be updates before now, but, like my mango, those good intentions were overcome by errors in scheduling and downfalls in health. On the upswing, I have five full pages of scannies to post. As that's too much for one post (but I can ignore the accolades of my swami), I'll spread them out over the next days.



Sick days were spent with Lone Wolf & Cub. LOVE drawing from those. It's a simplified style, but still anatomically correct, so referencing those helps me practice what looks and feels right for proportions and faces.

There's a lot on my mind right now in terms of artistry. Too much for the sleep-needing I've got. *sigh*

No scans today...

Since I've been close to back on track, being at home and all, I've been feeling less-well. I think this is what they call a head cold. I am congested, and there was a little bit of throat-suffering, but other than that, I'm feeling fine. Unfortunately, not being able to breathe easily puts a damper on many other activities.

Restricted airflow results in restricted idea-flow for me, but I've been copying from Lone Wolf And Cub to great success. I'm interested to see how the loose and dynamic style translates back to photo-ref drawings, or unreferenced doodles in the next couple days.