Tiny things on my desk

As I’ve been experimenting with a flex nib based fountain pen, I’ve sunk more heavily into ink as a medium than ever before. There’s an intense amount of pleasure derived from scratching the thin steel tip of a pen against different kinds of paper and seeing an image appear. The visceral nature of it is something I miss as a career digital artist.

So I have found myself obsessed with drawing again. I need to draw this rock, or that leaf, or anything that demands intense attention to lighting and detail. Paint allows for a broad picture view of a subject, but ink is my medium for intimacy.

There’s no fun to be had quite like a thin scratchy line.

Good also is its encouragement for tiny, loose drawings of fashion or forms.

Or I guess in the case of some of these doodles, bitty tiddy sphinx ladies.

And internal angst.

Time’s Horizon

As work on Lackadaisy nears its final month, I find myself with less and less time for personal things. Even my Thanksgiving was mostly sleep and whatever I could toss in the oven for an hour or less. The sleep was the luxury. I had just wrapped up the very last shot of the project (which ironically, was the first shot) and following that marathon of animation I wanted nothing more than to pass out for multiple days.

Alas, my brain was still on fire as I worked out the schedule for December. Everything has to come at a certain day, at a certain time, with a liberal amount of wiggle room for inevitable delays. The plague has taught me: plan around the worst case scenario. If it doesn’t happen, you’re fine! If it does happen, you’re still fine. And then add more time still because you never know when an apocalyptic disaster will hit.

That comes off as very bleak, but my confidence has never been higher. Flexibility means that much to me. It’s when I lack choices (or those choices are out of my hands) that I get nervous. The inevitable creep of the new year approaches; its trials rising ominously over time’s horizon.

I’ll start plugging my Patreon, then.