I’ve been drawing a lot this year, but wasn’t seeing the kind of improvement I wanted. One hard lesson I’ve learned in life it that you can do something every day for many years and never get any better! You have to consciously decide to get better to have any hope at achieving it. So, beginning October 1 I used the Instagram hashtag “Inktober” as a framework to improve. I’m not satisfied with my progress, but I think you can see definite improvement over the month, the question is do YOU see the improvement? Let me know what you think!
Click on any image to launch the gallery viewer. Continue reading Inktober 2020
It’s been a full year since I started my sabbatical, while much of it was spent grieving the loss of my parents and brother (not to mention the pandemic), I was able to devote myself to the task of improving my illustration skills. No small task I can assure you, it’s been more than 25 years since I was serious about it – and I wasn’t terribly good then!
These drawings don’t fit into the other categories, so I needed to create a “kitchen sink” page to present them. The first 16 are from the past year, the others just randoms from the archive. This gallery contains a number of experiments I did in 2019 to get a sense of where my skills where. I tried some noir, some barbarian and some superhero styles to varying degrees of success. But I love them all for different reasons, mostly because I kept my pencils, pens and brushes moving while fighting the sense that I don’t have what it takes to be an illustrator.
I have a bad habit of abandoning sketchbooks, leaving many pages untouched. Another one of my goals for the year was to begin the habit of filling every page. Haven’t quite finished the 200 pages in this book, but it’s filled with a lot of ideas, practice and designs for future drawings. Also, I began poking around with digital coloring this year, using pages from the sketchbook as guinea pigs and some of those are included here.
I noticed on Instagram the hashtag “#Inktober”, which turned out to be artists creating on inked piece per day. I was just beginning my year of retraining, and this offered some much needed rigor. I decided to explore the inking styles of the master comic book artists I have admired over the years, and this turned into a rich experience. Beyond learning who used what tools for what effects, I began to learn how rapidly (most) approached the task of embellishing. It was clear their mastery was not only of form and storytelling, but hitting deadlines!
I’ve spent the past year focused on improving both my drawing and rendering skills, to varying degrees of success. I use my sketchbook to do day-to-day practice and explore ideas and layouts, but the big challenge is to do 11 x 17 drawings on bristol board. The earlier drawings are tentative, but I began to get a groove going these past few months.
(This is a note I wrote to myself; I’m sharing it in the off chance others might get something out of it.)
I haven’t written about my recent life, partly out of avoidance, mostly because the wounds were too fresh. I’ve lost three of the most important people in my life and it hurt a lot, more than I could prepare myself for. I’m writing this to draw a line in the sand for myself, to encourage a formal transition out of active grief and into what I intend to be a generative period. I’d also like to think by sharing my feelings, it might be of some small help to others.
I haven’t written much, if anything, of note in the past year. I’ve had a lot to say but not the words to express it, I still don’t, but I never will so I might as well get back to it. Both of my parents died, leaving me and my siblings orphans. My parents weren’t great the way Picasso was great, they were great the way milk is great. Nourishing, constant, available and kind of sweet. I won’t try to capture them here, they were both (individually and as a team) too much to do justice to. No, today I’m just working through the unanticipated impact of their loss, and what I need to do to honor the gifts they gave. 
Authors Note: Forgive me, this is going to be hilariously self-indulgent, but I need to walk myself through this process periodically to get my head straight. I share it in the off chance that, perhaps, you go through similar struggles and might pick up something useful.
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