Sketcharound

Creativity and Deadlines

2011-11-13T12:52:00.001-08:00

My friend Rob found this video and it so perfectly expresses the problems we have as creative people with externally imposed, arbitrary deadlines. Tight, pressure filled deadlines produce mediocre work because there's no room for creativity.

It's true that many jobs really aren't concerned with getting really creative answers; they frequently just want the job done on time and within budget. Our culture makes it really hard to be creative, honestly; there's a very strong tendency to try to make kids fit their ideas within small pre-defined parameters that fit a standard imposed from some outside source. There's a lot of pressure to conform, to not be weird and unusual and odd. But really, creativity usually involves thinking outside the box, outside the cultural norms, outside the accepted set of answers.

It's really hard to make a living in this culture if you're stubbornly creative, stubbornly original and weird and don't fit into the norms. And that's really sad. Just think of all that we're missing out on. Clocks in your hand. Clocks within a cat. Time caught in a flower. Draw a clock. What does it look like to you?

Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite! | Video on TED.com

2011-09-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

This is for Debbie and me and everyone else who shakes their head when someone asks to see what you're drawing and dismisses it with a 'it's just a doodle'. Heh. Turns out it's an innate way of thinking and an important way to process information. Well worth watching. :) And maybe we can all just have more fun with our doodles. Thanks to Karen McVey for pointing this one out to me.

A Non-Digital Sketch

2011-09-22T13:00:00.001-07:00

Inspired by the Illustrator Intensive at the SCBWI Summer Conference in LA, I've been experimenting with non-digital (*gasp*) sketching. Paints are a very small/portable Windsor & Newton travel watercolor paint kit that Jeff bought me. The line work was done with a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, which was recommended by David Small during the Intensive.

Apologies for the slightly blurry photo -- I was experimenting with the Squarespace app on my iPhone, and I think I jiggled the phone a bit when taking the picture. The monster water container in the back is a handmade pottery piece created by my friend Luisa and painted by me. I have a bunch more one-of-a-kind pottery pieces that we made to put on Etsy; it's just a matter of finding the time.

Anyway, I had fun with this quickie sketch! I'm still way more comfortable with digital but figure it's good to always be learning new skills.

- Debbie

Everything On It

2011-09-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

There's a new book coming out of poems by Shel Silverstein, for anyone who hasn't heard about it yet. NPR books has an article about how it came about.

His family gathered together once a month for quite a while and read poems out loud to each other to winnow the 1500+ poems down to a manageable number to put into this new book. It's being lovingly designed to follow in the look and feel of previous books.

And it will include gems like this one, which you need to read out loud to get the best effect, just like all of his poems:

Italian Food
Oh, how I love Italian food.
I eat it all the time,
Not just 'cause how good it tastes
But 'cause how good it rhymes.
Minestrone, cannelloni,
Macaroni, rigatoni,
Spaghettini, scallopini,
Escarole, braciole,
Insalata, cremolata, manicotti,
Marinara, carbonara,
Shrimp francese, Bolognese,
Ravioli, mostaccioli,
Mozzarella, tagliatelle,
Fried zucchini, rollatini,
Fettuccine, green linguine,
Tortellini, Tetrazzini,
Oops—I think I split my jeani.

My guys have grown up on Shel Silverstein, so they're going to love this one. But they still think Shel was a little scary-looking in his pictures. I told them I saw a picture of him laughing once and he had a great grin.
You are missed, Mr. Silverstein. I'm glad we get to have another book of your poems.

Creativity - a Ted talk by Ken Robinson

2011-09-06T13:31:00.000-07:00

So this Ted Talk is moving, funny and really very important. Sir Ken Robinson talks about schools and what we value and how we teach our children to be afraid to make mistakes and how we kill their creativity. It's moving and powerful and even if you don't have kids I'm betting we all can relate to what he's talking about. Have a look, it's really worth it.

How do you encourage creativity?
Listening to kids and encouraging their interests, of course. Counteracting at least some of the messages they carry home about what's cool and what's a success and failure from school is also important, I think. Parents now were kids who went through the same system of squashing original, troublesome thought, though, and it's hard to break out of one's own programming to encourage wild creativity in your kids, especially when it gets you calls from the principal's office because your kid just has to get up and dance around the room when she's thinking, or draws wickedly rude, funny caricatures of his teacher or corrects the teacher's bad spelling in front of the class or yells at a mean kid who won't stop bullying a friend or bursts spontaneously into a loud song about Mr. Data's cat Spot during quiet time or writes a story about pioneers and kills off the main character at the end and makes the teacher and principal worried about why he didn't write a happy ending and he tells them it just had to end that way because the characters demanded it or...
ahem.

So what is a solution for kids?

Well, I had a long rant about the school system here and the horrible budget cuts and the under-appreciated teachers and how parents are expected to make up the budget shortfall and what about the promise of free quality public education in this country of opportunity and all that. It's a fact that kids from lower economic levels get fewer opportunities than rich kids. It'd be so great if their schools could have the resources to encourage them, even if their parents don't have the means to pay for music or dance lessons and sports and all that. It's really crazy-making for a parent with limited resources, and when it comes right down to it, there are more and more of us in that boat than before.

But. Ranting here won't change it, won't fix it. Listening to the kids, encouraging them in whatever excites them and grabs their interest, that helps no matter what their circumstances may be. And it may not be much, it may not be enough, but it's better than nothing.

Doodle Questions

2011-09-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about happiness, enjoyment of life, what is fun for me. I started thinking up questions to ask myself and doodling naturally took over. It's amazing what sorts of questions come out when you tell yourself you're just going to draw them for fun and stop worrying about whether you have to answer them or not. ;)

I've been drawing silly and serious questions and letting them carry the same weight and the big questions keep sneaking in there.

Uncomfortable questions, things that we don't usually say to other people, secret stuff. I think maybe these belong in a private journal, I'm just not sure if it's a private journal of questions that anyone else might want to doodle around and write in and work on answering honestly or not, or whether it's just me in my own little run-around world who finds them interesting.

Why do you love that particular food? Why do you eat too much at one time? Why do you eat when you're feeling depressed? How do you change all of those things? Being uncomfortable isn't a bad thing, really, if you can look at those things honestly and let your inner observer and questioner speak up. It tends to be that quiet little inner voice that we often are so well-trained to squelch. What happens when you listen for it and let it speak clearly?

I think maybe if the questions are put in a fun, non-threatening way maybe they could become a real path for self-discovery. Of course it could be argued that its just another navel-gazing exercise in self-absorption, but I'm going to choose to believe that view is just that harsh inner critic trying to squelch the fun-loving, self loving voice.

We follow all sorts of rules all the time. We do things we hate because it's expected of us. We work jobs that suck because we need to make the money to buy the stuff and make our way through the materialistic world we live in. We teach our kids to behave, control themselves, eat properly and do their boring, rote homework and sit still and color within the lines.

What would happen to the world if we all colored outside the lines?

So I'm doodling more questions. If you think of any you want to add, just add in a comment here and I'll draw them up. :)

Doodlepost from Debbie

2011-08-30T14:45:00.000-07:00

Still learning Photoshop CS5. I've gradually been switching over from Corel Painter. Though I've been a longtime Painter user, I've gotten frustrated by the crash-y updates. In PS, I need to get better acquainted with the process of creating custom brushes. For this daily doodle (originally posted on DebbieOhi.com), I was experimenting with PS's brush presets.

Hicklebees

2011-08-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

Hicklebees is an independent children's bookstore in San Jose. I had heard of it from friends, since it's here in the San Francisco Bay Area down in San Jose, but somehow I'd never managed to get there before now.

up by the main counter

So, anyone who was at this year's SCBWI conference and heard illustrator David Small's keynote talk would know about Hicklebees; he talked about his fairly depressing experiences giving talks and signings at the big box bookstores, and then compared it with his happy experience at Hicklebees. He illustrated it with drawings and cartoons that made everyone laugh and applaud, and honestly it made all of us wish we could go to Hicklebees.

tucked away in a corner

I've mentioned before that all of the bookstores in our area have closed. Riley and I especially miss being able to go to our local bookstore and hang out and read. We usually went to Border's since it was friendly enough and we could get a hot chocolate and sit and read easily and the selection of books was decent, even if based mostly on sales status.

At the SCBWI summer conference there was quite a lot of talk about Borders going out of business and why and what that meant for the publishing industry, along with the whole e-book revolution and how we all had to adapt. Some of the publishers and agents who talked were saying that with the loss of the big box bookstores, probably the big stores like WalMart and Target and Costco would step up and start selling more books. The impression I got from them was that they had little concern about what this meant for regular people; they seemed more focused on sales numbers and market shares. Perhaps their jobs are too many steps removed from the end consumers, but it revealed a shocking blind spot on their part.

And I'll be honest here: their apparent unconcern for the people who actually buy their end products (people like me and my family) made my heart sink; it felt like a slap to those of us who aren't in the upper economic brackets who nevertheless love bookstores, books, reading and the whole experience of browsing books. E-books aren't something my family uses; we have no e-readers, no devices to make it easy and we're not likely to spend a chunk of the limited money we have on something like that. My boys are avid readers; they say that those stores like Costco and Target only have the more boring grown up books or baby activity type books and nothing much inbetween, which is sadly true.

There's a huge difference between coming to a place like Hicklebees, shown here, and standing in a noisy crowded Costco aisle looking at a chaotic, disorganized pile of scattered books offered on 2 big flat tables. It doesn't make for a pleasant experience, let me tell you. This crisis for the bricks and mortar bookstores really does affect people, and kids most of all. Our local library has had to cut their hours and what books they can acquire, which really impacts middle and lower income kids. The school libraries are affected even more severely by budget cuts. The lack of an accessible, interesting library and no available bookstores means kids don't get to use, see, feel or read books, unless they have determined parents who can take the time and money to drive long distances to go to cool places like Hicklebees. All of these things make it a whole lot harder for middle and lower income parents to expose their kids to reading, much less help them learn to love reading. Reading is not fun at Costco or Walmart. At Hicklebees it's like heaven for kids. That's what my kids said when we went there.

So the boys and I made a trek down to San Jose. Well, actually 2 treks, since Riley and I went the first time as a one-on-one outing and we loved it, and we ordered some books that are hard to get, so when those books came in we all went back. The second time I took some pictures. :)

There are books everywhere, of course. It's not a huge place by any means and the outside looks like a little hole-in-the-wall store in downtown San Jose, but it's charming both inside and out.

There are a lot of special little nooks and crannies to hang out in and read or play with the toys.

knights and horses

pop-eye dinosaurs to squeeze

over in the crow's nest area

conversation with a dinosaur

There's framed art, letters and other goodies on every spare bit of wall space between bookstacks.

wall of cool things from famous artists and writers

in the back corner with the train table

And there are autographs and drawings in marker everywhere, especially on the back walls and doorways and bathrooms.

David Diaz- for Debbie!

Jules Feiffer

In a corner in the men's room

The names you can find tucked away are famous and legendary and amazing and.funny. A sense of humor is everywhere you turn and it makes you wonder why the rest of the world doesn't seem to be this way. Are childrens' book people the keepers of most of the playfulness and humor in the world?

Santa in the men's

look for the mouse...

by the back room exit

Otter!

I'm not sure what the solution is to the changing market for books, and I know we all need to adapt.

But I know with certainty that we need to keep the rare places like Hicklebees alive.

Creativity in unexpected directions

2011-07-20T17:06:00.000-07:00

Creativity comes in many forms, but some come from what we tend to think of as dry subjects. Someone who can make math fun and interesting is a real treasure.

Okay, I confess: I've never been good at math, never liked it, never 'got' it. But here's someone who obviously gets it on a deep instinctive level and loves to make it fun so others can get it too:
Infinity Elephants
(Please forgive the linkages rather than embedded video; sometimes Blogger just doesn't cooperate with embedding videos, so links will have to do for now.)
There are a lot of other fun videos that Vi has made over on her blog. Take a little break and go see some of them. It's even educational so you don't have to feel guilty about it.

Vi Hart is a musician as well as a mathematician. She's composed a Septet of seven movements, seven voices based on J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. She writes musical pieces based an geometric forms, showing the intimate relationship between music and mathematics. She's played with ways to cut fruit into mathematical forms. She's made musical instruments out of paper (and burned them). She's made music boxes with a mathematical flair and then plays several together to show how Pachelbel's Canon is constructed.

So much creative thinking in so many directions from one person. It's really pretty boggling to think about. Ms. Hart comes from a creative family; her dad is George Hart, a mathematical professor who's now heading up the Museum of Mathematics.Here's hoping she can achieve her stated goal: to make math fun.

portfolio crazy

2011-07-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

So I'm betting that any of us who are going to the SCBWI Summer Conference are going more than a little crazy trying to pull together a new, clean, awesome and Very Impressive Portfolio That Will Make Everyone Who Sees It Faint From Your Mad Skillz.

No pressure.
If you're already all pulled together and serenely getting on with your well organized and fulfilling life, I don't want to hear about it.

Lots of portfolio bits all over the floor. Yeah, like that.

So, portfolios. There's a lot of good advice about how to pull one together, what sorts of work you should include, etc. Debbie's own story from last year's convention was a real eye-opener for some of us (myself included). I came away from it all thinking that having and being brave enough to show your own original 'voice' had to be one of the most important factors in getting anyone's attention there.

It's a very specialized thing, this Juried Portfolio review at this particular conference; there are tons of very competent, talented illustrators entering it. There were so many portfolios at last year's event that it amazed and humbled me that the judges managed to even walk by all of them, much less give each one considered thought. What made some stand out and others disappear beneath the noise level? All of those various factors everyone gives advice about come into play, of course: quality work, ability to tell a story, consistent characters, style, ability, presentation. But there's got to be something extra to grab a jaded, tired judge or art director or editor or agent who's wandering through the 10th aisle full of portfolios and just wants to go back to their hotel room and crash. And of course that special extra will be different for each of those people, so it's not like there's a sure-fire answer to what will work.

So I'm going to be blunt and rude and say what nobody seems to come right out and admit: Many, if not most artists try to follow set guidelines with the result that a lot of our portfolios end up resembling each other and they all start blending together for a tired art director who's seen it all. Many of us who went to the same art schools tend to end up with similar looks and subjects and presentations and others can easily spot a characteristic 'look' and quickly and easily dismiss our work. This is regardless of the fact that in almost any other context for a working artist, that particular quickly overlooked portfolio would stand out, showing clear competence and talent. The overall level of ability at this show is exceptionally high and when combined with the extreme specialization for childrens' book illustration, it makes it much harder to stand out. The art schools tend to standardize their approaches, their rules and requirements for a lot of reasons and the end result can be that they tend to turn out artists with cookie-cutter portfolios; they can actually discourage an individual's unique voice, though that's probably not their intent.

At least for me, art school emphasized versatility and marketability for a wide variety of markets, and it worked quite well; I got paying work right out of art school and have been working pretty steadily ever since. My versatility was a huge asset, but it never lent itself well to developing much of my own unique voice, since I was always drawing someone else's ideas. People like me who have worked for a wide variety of clients and markets end up having a diffuse base of subjects in a wide variety of styles that really don't fit this particular Juried Showcase's criteria, unless we work hard to make a specific body of work just for this purpose. And as always, time and energy are in very short supply. Time constraints and wanting to make a body of work for this specific purpose leads right back into that nasty feedback loop of seeking the sure-fire answer to what They are looking for. Which leads back to the question about how you can pursue your own unique voice if you're always trying to figure out what the amorphous They want. The very act of worrying about it really stifles any chance for that quiet little inner voice to be heard; there are so many other factors that tend to drown it out at the best of times, let alone when you're putting your fragile little dreams on display for hundreds of critical eyes. Dance like nobody's watching, as they say. Easier said than done.

Let's just be up front and admit that entering that show is totally intimidating and makes some of us (well, me anyway) seriously decide just about every day for weeks before we commit to it that we're going to just forget it, we're never going to get anywhere with it, we don't need the stress. And actually, that's what Debbie wanted to do last year about this time. And look what happened there- she went ahead and entered, never expected to get any attention, much less win 2 of the awards and get a wonderful boost to the new illustration side of her career. :)

The SCBWI Juried Showcase was a big win for her in many ways, but let me also say that the awards just in and of themselves wouldn't be enough to send an artist skyrocketing into wild success. Debbie is highly motivated, talented, friendly and approachable, very appreciative of mentorship; she's ready and more than willing to work her butt off to maximize any opportunities that come along. Fortune favors the prepared is a cliche, sure, but the bald fact is that Debbie worked very hard ahead of time to prepare for any opportunities that might come her way during the conference, and she also followed through and made very good use of the opportunities that the SCBWI Showcase presented to her.

Debbie with her portfolio at last year's SCBWI.

So, back in my own little hovel, I've been very discouraged about entering, I admit it. I go through this each year I enter, so it's not new. It's hard to be in my own little studio space with nobody but myself to look through all of my work. My tendency is to lose confidence and second guess everything until I'm tied up in knots. So this time around, after thinking about it all and wondering what the heck to do about it, if I even wanted to enter at all (for the umpteenth time), I've decided to just let go of any wishes and expectations from it all. I'll go ahead and enter anyway, but this year I'm not going to worry or try to second guess what anyone wants. Putting together a portfolio can a valuable exercise in letting you look over your own work with fresh eyes and re-evaluate what you've been up to; it's never wasted effort, even if it can be hard on one's self confidence (and one's will to live, but I may be alone in that one).

So, in my attempts to sort through my muddle about this, I've been going through my work and I've discovered that I just don't feel very connected with my illustration work. Some of my illustration styles just take too long to create, some I've outgrown, and let's get real: I haven't had enough time to create a whole new body of work of awesome childrens' book illustrations. My life is just too crazy-busy these days. I love drawing and I'm not going to be giving that up certainly, but then nobody's trying to take that away from me.

So why enter at all? In an attempt to remove my own stubborn blinders, I reexamined all of the images I've been creating for everything I do. And I discovered that I have a whole body of work that surprised me: my photographs. I've been creating a ton of images in the course of just living life the past few years and some are manipulated photo illustrations and others are straight photos. But overall, the ones I really like seem to have a certain feel and a sort of consistent look. Maybe I've finally found my own voice, I'm not sure. I like them, though, they feel like me in some indefinable way. So those are what I'm going to go with for this particular portfolio. I don't care that there never seem to be any photographic portfolios in this show; there doesn't seem to be a specific prohibition against it. What do I have to lose? It may not fit what various people are looking for, it is very unlikely to get me new work, but that's okay. I can put out a simple portfolio of images that speak for me, and feel like I'm adding my voice to the chorus of talent singing out at this show. I feel at peace about it all for the first time in a long time.

-Beckett

Creative Collab Potential In Google+ Hangouts - by Debbie

2011-07-04T04:40:00.001-07:00

I recently joined Google+, Google's latest social media experiment. Yes, I know what you're all thinking:

I like the interface in Google+ much better than Facebook or other social networks, plus I like the fact that you can have overlapping Circles of people you follow. Uploading images. links and videos for sharing is a simple drag-and-drop.

The video chat Hangout in Google+ is also pretty darned cool. Easy to participate, no tech knowledge necessary. Yesterday I joined out that author Rebecca Woodhead had set up ("come join me!") and also met other Google+'ers from India and North Africa. Had an impromptu jam session with Rebecca (who sang from England) and Iyaz Akhtar from TWiT.tv (played guitar, though he had to leave early), Karim Benyagoub (North Africa) and Dheeraj Cheepati (India).

I like that the Google+ Hangouts can have open or closed invites. Rebecca had posted a public invite, but you can also just invite a small circle of friends (even just one friend). Major collab possibilities!

- Debbie

Drawing on the iPad: Review of Procreate app - by Debbie

2011-06-29T11:25:00.001-07:00

I created the image above using the Procreate app on my iPad this morning. For a step-by-step description, see my post on Pixel Shavings today.

-- Debbie

http://DebbieOhi.com

Drawing in Corel Painter: "Listening"

2011-06-24T13:56:00.001-07:00

I've started working on my SCBWI Illustration Portfolio for the Summer Conference, and drew this image yesterday as a possible piece to include. I've always liked images that tell a story on their own, but this time I'm also creating images before and after the one above to tell a longer story.

I created this in Corel Painter 11 (I have the newer version but it's too crash-y so am waiting until Corel fixes it) using a custom brush as well as the Flat Pen and Sponge brushes.

-- Debbie

Making a simple web page graphic

2011-06-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

I had a small graphics gig last week to come up with a graphic representation of Mission Peak for the MPUUC Website, which is being revamped. I designed their logo for them a while back, so I suspect I have become their go-to graphic artist. :) Jeremy asked for a simple, clean and crisp silhouette of Mission Peak to act as a bridge between the title header and the body of the text for the front page. So I thought maybe I'd make a little demo of how I made the graphic in Photoshop. It's simple and surprisingly easy.

I started by looking for some photos in my own archives of Mission Peak for reference. It's faster and easier if I can simply use my own photos, and I don't have to worry about finding another person's image for source material and possibly infringing on their copyright.

Starting with a clean new file in Photoshop set to the size and resolution specs given to me, I drew an outline of the hills with the pen tool, the polygonal lasso tool and the fill bucket using my Wacom tablet and pen, restricting the pen to only straight line segments to make a simple silhouette.

I decided to make the image wrap seamlessly horizontally, in case the web guru needed to repeat the image across the page. Simple enough at this stage to change the shape of the hills to match on either side.

I use a new layer for each new color or line and I label each as I go along with clear names so I can always go back and easily find which part I need. This piece ended up using around 10 layers, I think. And I save new versions often with new names in a series, which was learned through hard experience. That way I have multiple backups and I can step back through my process to earlier versions if I go too far or in the wrong direction.

I got up and walked around and looked at it again, and it seemed way too plain as a simple silhouette to put up on a website, so I wanted to try shading the hills a bit, but I still wanted to keep a clean crisp simple look. I decided to keep the colors flat and the shapes sharp, and limit the color palette to only a few fairly muted colors (always a challenge for me). A simple brown light on the lit side of the hills seemed to work pretty well with a darker purple for the shadow sides, but then (of course) I craved more.

I chose a deeper purple and a sage green to add deeper depth to the lights and shadows, and darkened the brown highlights to a more middle value so the green bits could pop more.

And then the edges of the graphic looked too stark, so I added water gradations at the bottom of the hills, as you'd see if you were walking over at Lake Elizabeth and looking up to Mission Peak. I used only web-safe colors, so the gradations are deliberately more abrupt and graphic, but I figured that suited the overall style. I wanted the bottom edge of the graphic to blend down gradually to the white that will get used as the plain background for the text of the page.

I dallied with adding clouds at the top of the piece, but it quickly began to look too busy, and the title at the top needs to remain clean and uncluttered, so a clear blue sky seemed most appropriate. Then I doodled with adding trees around the lake in front of the hills and though that added to the busyness, it just made the whole piece read so much more clearly to me as Mission Peak that I couldn't resist. This area has trees everywhere; once I'd drawn the trees in it just looked wrong without them, so I left them in. (You can see more detail if you click on the image.)

The site isn't done yet, so I can't post a link to the finished piece actually on the site, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks with all the text and other page features. Hope all the Mission Peakers like it!
-Beckett

Larry Moss's Balloon Sculpture

2011-06-20T05:05:00.001-07:00

Wow. What a creative use of balloons! For some of Larry Moss's other amazing balloon art, see:

Airigami: The Fine Art of Balloon Sculpture by Larry Moss

- Debbie

Itty Bitty Sculpture, Photography and Animation

2011-06-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

My friend Jan pointed me towards Steve Tomashek’s Miniature Menagerie.

Steve carves these really clever itty bitty animals and various odd critters and then with his friend Glenn Gordon, they set the animals in miniature domestic settings that not only show the truly tiny scale of the animals in a witty way but create visual puns and show a gentle, subtle sense of humor that really lifts your spirits.

Gordon writes about Steve's process, describing his simple, portable tools, his methods and people's reactions to the finished pieces. Steve gives honest advice about how to start carving.

Steve plans to move soon from Minnesota to Germany, where he has many fans. We wish him much luck with all of his endeavors, and look forward to more gentle wit from this talented artist.

-Beckett

3D Models and Lighting Study by Eliza Wheeler

2011-06-10T06:06:00.001-07:00

For illustrators looking for lighting reference, Eliza Wheeler has a great post about how she created a simple 3D model.

-- Debbie

The Little Red Plane

2011-06-02T12:33:00.000-07:00

I have to pass along this great animation made by artist Charlotte Blacker. She's a stop motion animator from Yorkshire. She created this little film as her graduation project for the University of Central Lancashire and it went on to win her a Royal Television Society Award.

All of the characters and backgrounds are knitted; Charlotte knitted everything with the help of her sister, mom and her grandmother, who taught her how to knit when she was a kid. :)

Good luck with all of your future endeavors, Charlotte!

-Beckett

Learning How To Make Illustrated Repeating Patterns - by Debbie

2011-05-31T04:12:00.001-07:00

After reading this great tutorial about how to quickly create patterns in Photoshop by Jennifer Morris, I made my own first attempt (above). Next, I'm going to try half drop repeats to make it look less grid-like.

If I was an accomplished seamstress, I'd SO be considering Spoonflower.

Avalon Rising

2011-05-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

Really looking forward to hearing Avalon Rising in concert tomorrow night at BayCon. I drew this little sketch many years ago, as they sang Kristoph's song 'The Merry Old Inn', based on one of J.R.R. Tolkein's songs in Lord of the Rings. (Correct me if I've got the details wrong, Kristoph!). You can hear this song and many other music samples on their discography page.

The Merry Old Inn

Avalon Rising will be releasing their long awaited new album at BayCon this weekend! In addition to all of her musical abilities, Margaret does amazing calligraphy and beautiful art as well as doing all of the graphic design for their various bands. The new cover here is by Peter Overstreet.They'll have t-shirts at the con...

Even if you're not able to come rock out at their concert, you can listen to their music on their site and I highly recommend their albums. It'll be so good to see them this weekend!

-Beckett

Sketching on my iPad: "Bunny With A Book"

2011-05-26T13:33:00.001-07:00

Did this on my iPad using the Sketchbook Pro app and a Pogo Sketch Stylus:

Beckett and I had a great phone call today, and we both agreed that we're going to start posting some of our doodles. Our blog IS called "Sketcharound," after all. :-)

-- Debbie

Chasing America- by Beckett

2011-05-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

The Utata Photography group that I enjoy acts as a very informative group mind, spreading news on interesting things occurring in the world, many related to photography. They led me to this fellow, who went chasing one of the American Dreams, and photographed what he found..

David Micheal Kennedy, Heather Howard and Henry Crow Dog.

David Michael Kennedy decided to rediscover his life and America in an old fashioned way: by traveling around the country with his girlfriend and his dog in a 1959 Airstream trailer. He photographed what grabbed his fancy with a handmade 4x5 camera, using film he developed himself in his homemade darkroom inside the trailer, using the antique platinum palladium process used by such photographers as Ansel Adams.

This NPR article interviews him and he talks about what started the idea, the sorts of places they went and how wrong turns along the way led to new discoveries.

Upon doing very little digging I found (to my shame at my own ignorance) that David Michael Kennedy is a famous photographer who has had a long, successful and thriving career as a photographer, a feat that's rare and difficult to achieve these days.

Muddy Waters

He talks on his website about how he managed to get into doing photography for album covers among other commercial work; it's well worth a read just to see how a real professional navigates around the usual barriers to getting regular clients and establishing long term working relationships as the photographer who gets called as first choice.

Bob Dylan

Kennedy offers workshops and has an active and thriving gallery presence. He lives in a small town in New Mexico and has been doing more personal and less commercial work, documenting people with environmental portraits, using his abilities and experience to support causes he believes in. His workshops sound wonderful; check out his video of his workshop, the development process and his house for a taste of what he does these days.

Seems like he's found a pretty good American Dream to me.

(All photographs are copyright David Michael Kennedy, please don't use without permission.)

Casey's Mother's Day Flowers

2011-05-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

Casey is guest blogging with a fun flower that you can make quickly and easily for your Mom, even if you forgot to get her flowers!

Casey:
You start off with a piece of paper, some scissors, a ruler and some tape.

Take the paper and fold it in half so it is very long and thin.

1/2 inch from one of the edges of the paper, take the ruler and measure 3 inches up from the fold. Then take the scissors and cut three inches up starting at the fold and cutting up. Scoot over 1/2 inch from where you cut, then do the same thing again.

Keep on going all the way across the length of the paper, making many strips.

Then, roll up the paper around a pencil all the way across the bottom strip.

Then take a piece of tape and tape around the bottom edge to hold it shut. You should have something looking like a flower.

Take the petals and open them up to make it look very fancy.

You can cut your strips smaller with more strips to make it more flouncy if you want. You can use colored paper and add flowers with glue if you want, too.

You can even put your flower in a little pot and paint it too.

Then you can give it to your mom and make her very happy. Riley says that if you don't have your mom around to give it to you can still make it and think about her, but don't cry, think of happy things about her.

Keeping the spark alive- by Beckett

2011-05-03T20:13:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some research, looking at what's out there in the world of on-line sketch journals and blogs. Let's just say there are an infinite number of them, and a lot of them are really, really good, fun to read with great, fun drawings. I find my taste in illustrated blogs is different than I would have expected; the serious, fine art style blogs that have lots of well drafted travel sketches just don't hold my interest as well as ones with lots of color, funny, quirky ideas, a mixture of photography and drawing, lots of ideas to go along with the drawings. I crave some writing along with their drawings to give glimpses into the artist's life and viewpoints, though some of the sketchblogs can keep my interest pretty well with regular sketch pages of things going on in their lives. I guess I crave that personal touch.

Location sketch in oil pastel; Union Square

One result of surfing around looking at other people's art is that they can really inspire me, make me want to try new things (in my copious spare time, yeah, hahah). To be honest though, more often blog surfing can quickly make me rather depressed at my own mundane or meager art efforts. I suspect the sketchbook blog surfing is something best done in moderation lest I start thinking too closely about pitching my computer and my sketchbooks all out the window.

Grumpy.

That comparison game is always a dangerous way to go, though, regardless of what medium you work in; there's such a fine balancing point between looking at the work of artists who are way better than you are; you can learn a ton from it, but let's get honest here: it can also plunge you deep into the depths of despair over your own abilities. It's hard to see your own work with clear vision, whether you're overly self-critical or whether you're too emotionally attached or whatnot. So do you go look in moderation, try to learn and be inspired, and then try to pull up, pull up, before it's too late and you go into a nose dive?

So I got to thinking about what things I do to try to stay productive and keep going. Debbie and I were doing a regular sketchbook for awhile (until my schedule got too crazy and I dropped the ball). That's actually great since it keeps you honest; having a buddy who's checking on whether you're going to do it is great incentive.

I used to do a lot more regular drawing, now with my crazy schedule and all the other projects I have going on I find that more difficult to keep up on. But other things seem to fill in the gap; photography has stepped in as a quick and immediate medium of creative vision, certainly. I'm addicted to my camera and what I can capture with it. It's a different sort of creativity, certainly, but very satisfying. I'd never want to give up either drawing or photography, actually, since they feed different aspects of that craving to create.

Then of course there's the crafting, making books and sewing, knitting and other goodies. Those all fill other creative cravings and which ones I want to work on changes frequently. They all feed my soul, to use that old cliche.

My point here is to explore and try new things, go and look at other people's creative efforts, but try to avoid comparing yourself with others. Seeing others' work is such an important tool for getting knowledge and new ideas, but at some point you need to just go and create for yourself and let go of thinking about what anyone else will think. Just let go and enjoy yourself. And I guess if you choose to share it on your blog, have fun with it and don't be too serious, which is advice I am giving to myself. ;)

Creating A CityScape In Corel Painter - by Debbie

2011-04-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

A while back, Beckett mentioned that I do Daily Doodles. I post some of these on DebbieOhi.com, but some I just keep to myself.

I find that drawing something purely for the fun of it every day helps keep the joy in my art (including work-related art). Sometimes I do a quick sketch while other times I take longer and do some experimenting.

Today, I decided to experiment more with textures and layers. Most of my pieces are created entirely digitally, and I did this one in Corel Painter. Just in case some of you out there have Corel Painter, I'm going to mention some of the specific brushes that I used.

First I created a layer above the Canvas and colored it a pale blue. In the top half of the image, I used the Sponge brush (one of my faves!) and several color to create a textured sky. Next, using the Flat Color brush, I drew a silhouette of the cityscape.

I selected Preserve Transparency in the cityscape layer so I would only affect the silhouette, then used the Sponge brush again to add more color.

After adding some windows with the Chalk brush, I copied the cityscape layer, flipped it, then pasted on top of the previous cityscape layer, dragged it down lower and offset a bit horizontally to give the impression of more buildings.

Then I selected the cityscape layer in the back, copied it, and flat-colored the copy entirely grey. I also decided to experiment a bit with a watercolor effect near the bottom with the "Just Add Water" variant of the Blend brush:

The background grey layer looks ugly, right? But remember that this grey layer is directly on TOP of the real cityscape layer. Watch what happens when I select Gel for how this layer interacts with its neighbors:

Pretty cool, eh?

At this point I realize that the whole watercolor thing doesn't really work, so I crop the image to cut off a lot of the bottom. I also use the Sponge brush to add some clouds in the sky:

But what to do about the weird-looking watercolor bit at the bottom? My solution: COVER IT UP!

I use the Flat Color brush and use a generic green. Well, maybe the green's a little bright for this picture but that's okay -- I can mute it down with more Sponge paint:

Voilà!

My overall advice: Don't let yourself get in a creative rut -- experiment on a regular basis. If you have your own creative experiments (in whatever medium) online, feel free to post the URL below!

Making Handmade Books - by Beckett

2011-04-21T16:33:00.000-07:00

I've started making handcrafted journals for my little Etsy shop and for charitable organizations. I keep meaning to write down how I go about it and the whole process involved, so here goes.

I start on these with a bunch of scanned in sketches taken from my many sketchbooks; I wanted to create a lined journal illustrated with a sketch on each page. I've always liked the idea of illustrated journals, but most of the commercially available ones seem to use only a few actual pictures, then they repeat them through the pages. Seems kind of chintzy, so I wanted to make one that had a different drawing for almost every page. There are no repeats of images.

Egret sketch from a long time ago.

So I start by scanning in a bunch of my sketches, which is a trip down memory lane all by itself. I decided with this particular limited-edition journal to use just black and white sketches to keep a consistent look to the whole journal. I format them onto 8 1/2 x11 size pages, since I want to take a standard size page, fold it in half and have that sheet create a folded 2 page spread. I want the finished book be about 8 1/2 inches tall by about 5 1/2 wide, big enough to be easy to write a satisfyingly sized page, but small enough to be easily portable too. I place each sketch on a half-size page template I made and add light gray writing lines in Photoshop.

Max on a right-hand page layout

I then take my collection of sketches and try to place each on its page in a pleasing layout, with the figures looking in towards the rest of the page, for example. And then I have to figure out what order to put them all in, to try to make the whole book a pleasing stroll through the sketches as well as following a somewhat logical progression that isn't too jarring. I need to make the book up into signatures, or groups of 4 sheets each, in order to fold them together and stitch them together into book form. When finished, the final book can easily open flat and all the pages are securely sewn into the binding.

Pages laid out together for printing

To do that, I have to figure out the page order for each signature and then place the correct pages together on one full size sheet for printing. It gets complex with over 80 pages, multiple signatures of 4 sheets each. Each page is printed front and back, so 4 actual journal pages end up on one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and the pages must be carefully laid out so that when 4 sheets are placed one on top of another and then folded in half, the numbered pages will appear in the right order. I end up making charts and a mock up book dummy to keep it all straight. ;)

diagram of signature page layouts

Once I have that all figured out I start printing (carefully, since my printer only prints one-sided and the paper is a 100% cotton heavyweight paper, so I don't want to waste any on mistakes!). I end up with several reams worth of pages that need to be assembled carefully into their proper order and stacked ready to drill the holes for the stitching to come later. Once I have the paper all set up I clamp the paper down with cardboard marked for drilling the holes, pull out the drill and use the smallest drill bit to get the holes made. Once holes are drilled, I carefully fold and crease each sheet and assemble them into their signatures and then in proper order for their book.

Book assembled into signatures and cover ready for stitching

For these books I make the covers of simple archival acid-free board, since they're going to have fabric covers custom made for each. And then stitching begins, using an ancient bookbinding method called coptic stitching. This type of stitched binding requires the pages to be folded, and the stitching goes through each page at the spine. It makes a nice looking binding that has the big advantage of allowing the book to open and lay flat for writing in. I use a heavy cotton thread coated with beeswax so it will ease through the paper without tearing it; the type of thread can make a huge difference in the success of the binding.

Starting stitching in the second signature

Stitching is pretty easy once you have the hang of it, and it's a fairly meditative process, though a bit time-consuming. :)

Finishing up by sewing on the back cover

And at the end of the process you have a lovely hand-bound book:

Stitching finished!

At this point you could leave it as is and consider the book done, but I also want to add one of my custom made fabric journal covers, so I pick out fabric I like, cut according to the pattern I made from one of these finished books, sew it all together (which is a long convoluted process all on its own; a post for another time, I think) and hey presto, you have a journal cover that lets you carry around other papers, pens and stuff with your fancy hand made journal.

Finished book with its custom fabric cover made

There are pockets front, back and inside the cover flap

Being able to carry a pen with it seems pretty essential

Picking the perfect button to complete the whole thing


Finished book with cover

Using different fabric and button can give the book a totally different feel

Old and new school sketching - by Beckett

2011-04-15T19:51:00.000-07:00

Pen and ink sketchbook drawing of mine

So I've been doing some research on new style online sketchbooks, and blogging has opened up whole new ways of keeping a sketchbook. I think it all depends on your definition of what a sketchbook is, really, but there are a lot of really interesting ideas out there, incorporating not only drawings, but of course writing and video and new media like some of the new things Debbie can do with her iPad.

Illustration done in Painter with Wacom tablet by Debbie

Debbie does most of her art on the computer, though she uses a variety of media within that, and she certainly explores traditional physical media as well. The illustration above was drawn on her Wacom pad and worked in Painter. It looks like a traditional painting to me, and she's always exploring various style techniques that simulate woodcut, watercolor, drippy pens and a whole lot of other looks, all done with her tablet and computer.

Woodcut style goldfish by Debbie, drawn with Wacom pad

There's no doubt in my mind that exploring all sorts of possible styles and methods with her set-up makes Debbie more versatile; her digital creation style also has the distinct advantage that the artwork is already in the computer, and is easily made ready to send anywhere in the world for any online use she may need. It increases her marketability and her online visibility.

I was trained more traditionally, before computers really came into their own as an art medium; later I worked for years as a computer artist doing art for games and such, but honestly the computer as a medium then was all about the limitations: colors, resolution, pixels the size of your head and so on.

Pixel by pixel... Old computer drawn art

Computer art for me became a work related skill, and I got pretty burned out doing characters and animations and backgrounds and such for games. Doing concept art was fun, and still is, though you do have to draw what the designers want, not just what you want. And you have to consider the game's style and theme, the target market for the game and all of that related stuff. It's drawing for commercial purposes, not just for your own pleasure. It can still be a lot of fun despite the limitations. In fact sometimes the limitations make it easier; it becomes a puzzle to solve.

Concept sketches for a game machine demo

My own preferences and comfort zones have made me tend towards thinking with a pen or pencil on paper; the tactile process of drawing that way helps me think, and I find it comforting. I'm betting that's because of the way I was trained and the way I've worked for lo these many years. I have experienced so many shifts in technology over the years such that I've effectively 'lost' much of the early work I did to obsolete technology and storage media. I am convinced that if you want to keep a permanent record of your art, you should have good print-outs as well as multiple back-up options. But I'd also be the first to admit I haven't bothered to print out all of my computer art either,and my own procrastination has come back to bite me. But then I wouldn't be showing that old obsolete computer art anyway, because that old stuff looks primitive and ridiculous now with the technology we have. Working within severe limitations to make something look the best it can despite limits is a whole special skill set in itself, but that limited stuff doesn't usually impress potential employers; they want to see cool, flashy art and see the big list of programs you can drive.

Moose walk anim frames from way back

So I have my own preferences, but there's nothing to say that creating directly on the computer isn't completely natural for other people, Debbie being one of my prime examples. I think part of Debbie's facility with her computer drawn art is partly due to her excitement and willingness to explore and train herself with new technology and its possibilities. I'm also guessing that she came to drawing with computers later in the development of the tools and thus has a very different history with the medium than I do. She associates it with fun; I associate it with work, trying to squeeze past limitations. Some of that is just that when you draw for others it can become just another job, part of it is that the tools were so limiting; it's much more free and fun now in many ways. Maybe it just depends on your viewpoint.

Debbie's rabid squirrel sketch, drawn with her Wacom pad and Painter

I still keep regular sketchbooks; though I admit time is short these days and so I don't draw in them as often as I did at one time. But I love them and they've become a real record of my life over the last 30 years. The tactile process of drawing with various physical media still gives me the most satisfaction. The hands don't forget how to draw, it seems.

Colored pencil drawing of Shannon on tinted Canson paper

And seeing or even holding an actual drawing on paper, drawn by the artist, is a special thing. I saw drawings of Michaelangelo and Da Vinci at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco a while back, and it was a special experience to see the actual paper and the silverpoint marks drawn on the paper by those actual men. Amazing to realize that their hands had made the magic on that very piece of paper, and there I was seeing it hundreds of years later. Digital media may preserve artworks in some unexpected ways and make it accessible to many more people than before, but the power of the actual physical drawing made by an artist will never be replaced.

2011-04-11T12:31:00.000-07:00

Julie Duffy has written a great guest post over on Debbie's writer's blog that's worth reading and re-reading and printing out quotes from and posting them up above your work space. All of what she says applies not only to writing, but to any creative endeavor, whether it be artwork, craftwork, knitting, photography, or school or the day job.

One of Debbie's cartoon about writing: "No Magic Beans"

One of my favorite quotes from it:
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. - Scott Adams

Start-itis - by Beckett

2011-04-08T23:45:00.000-07:00

Neck scarf I started quite a while ago- it's waiting still...

Okay, it's true. I like knitting stuff. I admit that I am a process knitter; the actual process of knitting something is the interesting part for me, and the final product has to be well made, but I don't have a whole lot of need to keep it. So I make a lot of knitted stuff and give them away as gifts and such. Usually people don't complain too much about that.

Fingerless Mitts I've kept, and used a lot.

I have the craving lately, though. The craving to start a new project. I narrowly escaped getting myself new yarn for a project the other day. God knows I don't need more yarn, and I can't afford it anyway. I probably have more than enough yarn to keep me busy the rest of my life even if I knitted 24 hours a day for the rest of my time. Crazy, really. If anything, I need to toss my stash to get re-inspired by the wonderful yarns that I already have, not buy new yarn I don't have time to knit.

I have all that enthusiasm, though, that itch for a wonderful new project. It seems like all of that burning desire to create should be channeled into something great, doesn't it? That need to make something really cool tends to take over my brain and makes it hard to concentrate on other necessary things, I get distracted into thinking and planning designs and thinking up how to work out the technical details and so forth. I guess I need to carry a notebook around and actually write more of them down, and then actually make them.

Socks for Paul. Big socks for big feet take longer...

Actually making them is of course the sticking point. I don't have enough time to make that much, and I'm really good at starting projects and working out the designs and figuring out a lot of the technical challenges and then once I get it fairly far along, I lose interest in it and get all fired up to make something new, and the former favorite project languishes unfinished, so close yet so far from being finally done. It's maddening, really. I must have over 20 knitting projects alone that are waiting patiently to be finally done. And that's just the knitting projects. That doesn't even go into the art area, the drawing and painting projects, the sewing projects, the jewelry things, the book ideas...

I have silly, forlorn fantasies of finally making the time to clean out the garage and get it useable, but to be honest I have just about zero concrete desire to actually do the work involved, I wish it would just magically clean itself. I have similar fantasies about my unfinished projects that have lost my interest in finishing them, lost some of their charm in that last gasp of slogging through the actual construction process. I need some sort of magic solution to help these poor orphans keep my attention long enough for me to finally finish them. I've tried restricting myself to no new projects until I finish others, but then I end up hating the ones in the queue to be done with a resentful fury that really spoils the whole thing. They're not stupid, bad projects, they're still cool and wonderful, I just seem to have the attention span of a gnat on speed.

It's ridiculous, really. I need a magic finish-itis to balance all of my start-itis. So what do you do to get yourself to finish up a project that's lagging along? Or am I the only guilty one?

森の木琴

2011-04-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

Just watch this, and see if it doesn't make you smile.

It's pretty boggling, if you think about it, how much work and precision went into constructing this whole thing. And yes, it's a cell phone ad, so the artists got funded by advertising dollars.

Does that make it less amazing? Does it mean the artists sold out? Does it make their accomplishment less meaningful?

Would they have been able to even construct it if they hadn't gotten funding from the advertisers? Is there any difference here between getting financial support to make this, as opposed to the original composer, Mr. J.S. Bach, getting financial support from his King to compose and perform amazing music? Would either one even exist without funding from other, richer sources?

Depth Collage

2011-03-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

I was in a workshop a few weeks ago run by a friend of mine. Callista has begun giving classes on what is called 'Depth Collage', and I was quite curious to try it. I confess that in creating artwork, I have rarely given myself permission to do things like using others' images, or even just letting myself be blown around by impulses and creating art without a plan in mind. The description of the exercise was that it would help you dive past your waking normalcy to reveal deeper parts of yourself, and that idea made me want to see what would bubble up for me. There was also the added bonus that it was being given by Callista, who is an intelligent, funny and sensitive woman that I greatly respect and admire.

Callista capturing me capturing her...

So we started with a guided meditation, to let go of the everyday worries and hassles and reach down more into our central being, to let our deeper thoughts and desires come up. We were encouraged to think about what we wanted to bring into our lives; not so much material things, but qualities we wanted to have in our lives, states of being, ways of living.We gradually, gently came out of the meditation and went on to the process of finding our images, while not falling back into the everyday world, but holding onto that meditative state.

Finding images that call to you is surprisingly fun. There were many, many different magazines with lots of color photographs and illustrations to choose from and we all happily began choosing images and setting them aside to use in our collages. It took some effort not to get sucked into reading articles, but the idea was to leave the analytical part of the brain out of it and let the other parts of the brain choose. It was a more emotional, visceral approach for me. I found myself drawn to nature images, to vivid colors, to animals and art and people, and before long I had quite a pile of pictures to work with. I was touched because several times other people came and gave me images that they thought I would like, and their images were so uncannily spot-on that it kind of threw me, but in a good way.

After a break and some explanation from Callista about the process of assembling the images into an overall collage, we were off on the harder part of the journey (for me, at least) of assembling our images into a collage on one big sheet of posterboard. Cutting out was easy; arranging was harder, especially since we were trying to do what felt right rather than letting the 'rules taskmaster' part of the brain take over. I enjoyed this part too, actually, since for me it became a fun puzzle solving sort of game of sensing my way along to what felt like the 'right' combinations and compositions of images, without letting my analytical side dictate rules. Many of my images were powerful certainties, and I was surprised to find that other images insisted on coming forward when I hadn't been at all sure of them when I had first selected the images. The colors were beautiful all blended together, and the images flowed from one into another in very pleasing ways. Callista had suggested at the beginning finding a central image or images that would represent yourself, and I had found a large white rose that started the entire collage; everything else built outward from that. I would never have guessed I would pick a big white rose as a central feature, but I love it. And then figures came in, paintings of strong women, the man sketching by cave paintings, other figures and objects and things that I found quite moving and powerful, especially when placed together.

I can't explain why the images are so important or why they move me and make me emotional, but they do, especially when they're all placed together, just so.

Towards the end of the time we had, we glued down the pieces, which was kind of a technical challenge in figuring out which layers had to be glued first; trying to glue them without losing the balance and composition of the pieces was a challenge. Some of them migrated during this final phase, but that wasn't a bad thing, really, maybe just another step in the process.

Eventually we finished up, gathered together and went around the tables to look and talk about everyone's collages. There was an amazing variety of designs and choices made, and as we went around, each person shared what the various images meant to them within their own collages, and everyone else offered their own feelings and insights about others' collages. Between the fact that many of us were already friends and the supportive atmosphere created during the workshop, we all felt quite safe and free to speak openly about our feelings, so there were many very personal and deeply meaningful insights shared. Some people's ability to articulate their own insights about their images and how they were assembled together was really profound and deeply touching.

I can see how making collages like these could be very helpful as a regular practice to help yourself to work through problems, life lessons and gain insights, because the entire process lets things in the subconscious percolate up and be expressed in the most surprising ways. Callista had advised us to keep our collages within easy sight afterward so we could keep looking at them later, to let them speak to us and let us draw further insights. I admit I want to hang it up at least partly just because I really like mine and I think it's beautiful to gaze at.. I don't feel like I've had time to really sit and look at it since the workshop, but it's calling to me with a craving to be looked at and savored. I'm curious to see what it says to me when I get that chance to indulge in it for a while.

The completed collage; click on it to see it larger.

Daily Doodling with Debbie

2011-03-07T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm going to take the liberty of posting about a very cool thing Debbie manages to do pretty regularly in the midst of her busy schedule. Debbie has cultivated what she calls her daily doodles. :) She never makes a big deal out of them, but they're always fun and it's always interesting to see what comes out of her creative and twisted brain:

She also uses her daily doodles for working out details of projects, like this recent group of thumbnail roughs to work out character design:

I have had very mixed success myself with keeping up daily doodles, since life somehow keeps getting in the way. But the fact is that even trying to keep up with a weekly doodle can go a long way towards building up a great family of sketches. I have a collection of sketchbooks that go back many years now; they vary in how well I managed to keep up with a weekly practice, but they do add up. You can look through them all later and have them stun you with all that they reveal. You may realize they show growth as an artist, they surprise you with their quality and how well you did, they show an evolution of your own unique style and a really surprising chronicle of your own internal life. Even if that includes crazed killer squirrels.