Quick sketch dump

I've been trying to make myself get up early and spend a little time working on studies before I go to work. Mostly I've been using Panoramio to find landscape reference. I try to keep most of them to thirty minutes or so, but here are a couple I enjoyed enough to spend an hour or two on.

 I also discovered a great Tumblr blog for facial reference - http://humanae.tumblr.com/. Not ideal if you're looking for dynamic angles or lighting, but great for practicing skintons and looking to study different facial features. Like a lot of artists, I catch myself painting the same faces over and over so this is good practice for me.

I also tried to make myself get up a little early to go for a run on alternate mornings. That...has not worked out so well. My motivation to go outside and move my feet is apparently at an all time low first thing in the morning. But it does make getting up to sketch, knowing I can stay in my pajamas, much more appealing!

Update on the State of Me

Firstly, an update on Duck Dive, which is progressing nicely from the blocky scribble I started with (after much ado about posing, and a few quick studies trying to capture the motion -  I'll post those another time). I know, I know, the poor mermaid has currently sacrificed her arms. I'll either get them right soon or call it "creature design" and pretend it was on purpose. Shh, don't tell.

Secondly, I'm working on another commission for my wonderful friend Grace Draven (who I illustrated Entreat Me for, as well as Master of Crows) and after a round of thumbnail sketching, here's the final concept that I'm currently working from!

 

I took a much needed holiday last month to visit my friend and talented comic artist/illustrator Becca or Pika-la-Cynique, as followers of my art might know her better by. We ate barbeque and crepes, went hill-walking and took in the views of southern France, enjoyed Feminist Artist Rants in person instead of on Google Hangouts for a change, and also drank until giggly. There might have been dancing.

I also applied for an awesome training course in Glasgow to kick my senior artist skills into touch, so I'll be travelling down once a month to learn more about the digital arts business, company management, public speaking and presenting (which is something I'd like to get a lot better at, for teaching and workshops and so on) and lots of other good stuff. AND I get to go on a trip to San Francisco with the others in the programme in February! It'll be my first time visiting, and we'll be seeing a lot of awesome Silicon Valley companies so I am very, very excited!

On Gratitude

I got a really lovely comment the other day. I get a lot of really lovely comments (yes, you can go ahead and call this a humblebrag if you like), but this particular one really touched me.  It came at just the right time - I've had a few tough, hard-working, disappointing and quietly emotionally taxing months, and at this particular moment I either needed some words of encouragement or a kilo of ice cream - and it was worded just right. And I kept coming back to it and it kept making me smile.

"This is so beautiful its breathtaking. I cannot tell you just how much I love this - thank you so much for sharing this amazing picture " ~SeaPiper -

That's it.  Just some simple words, but I know that feeling of seeing something so beautiful it takes your breath away a little bit and right now it just blows me away that someone else could feel like that at something I've made.  That they could like it so much they actually thank me for sharing it.  That's kind of amazing.

As artists, we're under pressure to constantly Do Better. Learn more. Grow. Improve (faster). That thing you painted yesterday is now worthless, why haven't you moved on yet? Be your own toughest critic. Change it up (don't let me catch you looking back at your comfort zone in longing!). What do you mean you aren't going to shell out $300 for this Essential Workshop - doesn't your craft mean ANYTHING to you? Don't forget to watch every single one of this artist's educational livestreams, follow all these blogs WHILE memorising Loomis' entire works AND doing at least a hundred gesture sketches, a self-portrait and a still life study every day, and if you don't post all those to the meanest, most hardcore art forum you know and let them tear apart your latest work six ways from Sunday, well then, you're not REALLY committed to improving are you?

Basically, it can be REALLY hard to stop and appreciate a positive comment when someone out there probably thinks an "AWESOME!" is one of the seals that opens the Gateway to Artistic Failure! (Next step - actually liking something you painted a year ago. Oh, the horror!)  But sometimes, we need to be told that someone finds something that we've done awesome, just as it is, imperfect as it is.

Encouragement is not the devil incarnate.  This has made me very aware of how bad I am at realising this, and how ungrateful it is to the people who are trying to encourage me.

So this is me saying thank you to all the people who have told me that my art is beautiful, that it made you smile, or chuckle, that it reminded you of something, that it made you want to draw, who ask about how it was made, who just took a second to hit Favourite/Like/Reblog; for saying that something I did, whether it's five minutes or five years old and when it's far from perfect, had an teeny positive impact on your day.  And thanks especially to ~SeaPiper, for prompting this (and also for some Tumblr discussion from *MelissaFindley and *juliedillon on accepting critique, which factored into my thoughts).