Things That Frustrate Me - Rantlet

I love art.  I love drawing and am successfully pursuing a career in illustration.  It’s like, the best thing ever.  I see art that inspires me and want to draw stuff.  I see flaws in my work and want to get better.  I have 500 ideas I want to bring to life. 

For me, curling up and putting on some background tv and drawing for hours is pretty much the ultimate. 

And I feel like my brain should realize this and WANT to draw all the time.  It is logical.  

And instead I’ll spend hours on a day off just poking around the internet aimlessly, rather than working on anything, just because of a general feeling of ‘don’t wanna’.  

It makes me want to punch past me in the face.  Especially when present me has reached a point of ‘no more time to work on anything because I have stuff to do now’.

Now, it's not like I'm utterly lazy about it...it is possible that, right now at least, part of the problem is that I AM burning my creative candle at both ends and in the middle...I work a 10 hour creative day, work on freelance or personal work over my lunch hour, and then after going to the gym, coming home, doing quick chores and throwing something quick in my stomach for dinner, I go back to freelance or personal work.  So, by the time my first day off rolls around my brain is tired.  I want to sit on the sofa with cats on my feet and browse tumbler and read smutty fan fiction.  So, I generally spend a few hours doing exactly that.  

And I know brains need breaks.  I get that.  

But since I love art so much, I think that spending time doing art should constitute a break.  Maybe.  Or my brain could stop whining and grow a pair and I could spend the morning being productive rather than feeling depressed and guilty over doing nothing of consequence for hours on end.  

What is the up

Spring is here, conditionally at least.  I mean, we practically had no winter.  So I've made many many arts full of winter and, though blossoms are bursting everywhere, I continue to stick snow in all my pictures.  

A group on DeviantArt, of which I am a member, has started doing monthly themes (theme posted at beginning of month, draw something for theme by end of month) and for March, it was 'A Dream of Spring' -- stolen from the name of one of the upcoming Song of Ice and Fire books, because we are, largely, a bunch of geeks.  I actually had a couple of ideas, both of which include an amount of snow.  Hey, I'm just trying to pretend it's a normal March.  That's all.  Last year it was snowing until the end of April.  

This is the first of the two -- the second is still in progress, but I'll probably post some WIP pictures tonight.  

In this, I am clearly still trying -- and failing -- to do interesting and accurate things with perspective.  I swear, I'll see other artists' work in which the angle is like, some crazy 'above to the left and upside down' thing with multiple characters, and it will be perfect and like...a sketch.  Just some doodle.  'oh, I just thought I'd spend five minutes making some crazy perspective drawing of these characters for no specific reason and it was totally effortless'.  HATE them.  Whatever, plugging away here, forcing myself outside of my comfort zone.  

Well, except for my second 'ADOS' painting...it is really pretty un-daring...which is probably why I chose to develop this one first.  I'll be playing with color and value and lighting a little, but it's going to be pretty fast and dirty.  Well, hopefully not too dirty.  We shall see.  I need to finish it before...what...midnight Saturday.  And on Saturday night I'll be drinkin'...so really like, noon Saturday. Or something.  Busy weekend ahead.  

Busy everything lately.  I've discovered that I can get by on 5 or less hours of sleep a night, so I've had a little more time to work on stuff at night...but that results in me pushing it a little further each night.  When I go insane from sleep deprivation, it will not be a surprise.  I actually got 8 hours of sleep one night this past weekend and being so rested felt...very strange.  

So, I've been using my extra evening time to work on personal art and some writing (along with the requisite goofing off on the internet, obviously), and am still working on the freelance project with my friend from California, though things are going slowly, since there has been a lot of back and forth regarding the base for the packaging design, and it is really hard for me to commit to a design direction without knowing what it is going on...and yesterday I got contacted for a potential very exciting opportunity that I won't say anything about until I know more, but could be a VERY cool something and would probably result in me just writing sleep and social engagements off entirely, but I'm pretty much okay with that.  

I have now arrived at the point at which I have no more to tell, but no elegant way to wrap up this particular entry, as I suck at planning ahead in my journals.  So instead, I'm going to cop out by posting some BBC-inspired warm-up sketches from this week.  

Oh, and also a few quick studies of girls doing archery because, yeah, watched The Hunger Games and now want to draw girls doing archery:

 

Doctor Sketchy's

Last night was the grand re-opening of Doctor Sketchy’s Pittsburgh chapter after something like two years.  I have been wanting to go since first hearing about it through some other people who go to chapters in their own cities, but by the time I knew what it was, the PGH DS was no longer running.  So, I was pretty thrilled that it started up again. 

I was also terrified and surrounded by strangers and horribly socially awkward.  

I also got to draw models dressed as The Baroness, a "Japanese Tourist" and a sexy burlesque dancer (who just happened to be a fire dancer as well).  

I also got chosen for audience participation during the fire dancer performance because I looked terrified of getting picked.  

I also won an adorable vinyl Elvis for my final drawing of the night.  

I also got home at nearly 11pm and still had to shower and feed cats and fish and go to bed with wet hair. 

I don’t think I can go next month, as it is on a Sunday and starts late, but I definitely want to try to make it in may.  Any Pittsburgh-centric art people who want a fun place to draw stuff and drink booze and see people draw some stuff that may not be family friendly at all should really consider checking it out.  

Anyway, here are a few of my sketches from the longer poses: 

A little sumthin' sumthin'

A a late birthday present I made for a friend of mine.

progress of a quick, just-for-fun doodle

I made a pic of my bff and I, currently divided by most of a country, but each with a red scarf stolen from the other.  It's a silly bit of fun in which I tried to play with dynamic poses rather than static, perspective (badly), anatomy (badly) and the effect of lunging for the last cookie on a too-close cup of tea.  But I shared my process on Tumblr, and thought I might do the same here, as I had the files on hand and because, as I love seeing other artists' process pics I always try to share my own when I get the chance.