Revitalize: An Update

Despite my complete and utter disbelief at the speedy passage of time, it is now June. Month 6. Which means we’re at the halfway point of Sarah 2018 Draw-A-Palooza. Which means I feel more obligated than I usually do to make a blog post.

But it’s awkward, because I haven’t posted in like 2 months.

Soooooo…here we are.

This project.

Let me just preface this by assuring you that I haven’t stopped drawing. Seriously. I haven’t. I have, however, slacked a bit in the do-it-nearly-every-day department.

Here’s the thing. I have to 1) work 2) cook 3) train for runs 4) write 5) draw 6) pet my cats (yes, plural, because Freya now has a sister we’ve basically all-but-signed-the-papers-for adopted) 7) interact with my fiance and 8) obsess over fictional characters. But see, drawing is in that list of daily 8 activites I HAVE to do. Well, okay, #8 isn’t a HAVE to but golly I cannot. Stop. Thinking. About. Them.

Basically, I have 8 necessary things and only 16 hours a day to do them (because sleep). Work takes 9 hours, so now we’re down to 7. Cooking takes at least 1:30, depending on how complicated the recipe is. That’s 5:30. If I gym (which I do at least 3 times a week), that’s at least an hour. 4:30. Cat time? 30 minutes. I love them, okay? They demand snuggles. I can’t refuse. 3 hours. Fiance time? 30 minutes. I love him, okay? He demands snuggles. I can’t refuse. 2:30 hours. Also I need to shower at some point & prepare for bed. 2 hours. ALSO I need to sit down and stare blankly at a wall or Bravo TV for a minute because decompression is good. 1:30hrs. If not less.

If I am not brain-dead after work, and if I eat leftovers, don’t go to the gym, and don’t touch the TV remote, I’m left with a solid 5 hours of creative time. Cool. But most days of the week I don’t have leftovers, and going to the gym makes me feel good and needs to happen if I want to keep running (which I do), and my brain hurts after working all day. So worst case scenario is that I only have 1:30 to be creative. Oh, also, I have friends. Sometimes I need to hang out with them, because I like them and I require socializing in order to be a fully-functioning human. Hanging out with friends automatically reduces my availability to 0 hours.

For a couple of months, drawing took a back seat to being a social person and running training and my various other needs. And I was…honestly okay with that. Sometimes you have to make priorities and I had to prioritize being a social person (because extrovert) and making sure I wouldn’t die while running 13.1 miles.

Proof that I didn’t die. My friend didn’t die, either!

But then May came ‘round, as it does, and I was in a fuege of creativity (fueled by my continuously Not Great coping skills during the month of deathiversaries). Coincidentally, out of nowhere, my obsession with Maggie Stiefvater’s the Raven Cycle reignited into a mother-trucking BONFIRE. For months prior, I’d had artistic visions of my two faves from that series, but hadn’t thought I had the materials nor skills to make them a reality. My practice and newfound desire to learn how to use the wacom tablet, however, suddenly sent me into a fanart spiral. I decided that ENOUGH was ENOUGH of keeping these ideas locked in my head to drive me nuts. If I could just EXORCISE these visions from my body, then maybe I can resume being a normal human able to function in society. My 1:30-5 hours worth of potential creative time was funneled into fan art in an attempt to just get it out and be done with it.

Spoiler alert: the opposite happened.

I spent HOURS completing this piece that had been torturing my imagination every time I heard this song (which was often because I like it). And then I finished it, put it online (because why the heck not), and then….it just….took off? 

For context: the most notes I had ever gotten on anything I’d ever posted to tumblr (or any social media, for that matter) was maybe, like, 10 notes. MAYBE.

This piece is at over 800. And it keeps getting more!!! What. In. The. Fresh. Hell. Is. This.  

So yeah. High on the fact that people actually responded to this piece and that this thing I spent so much time on WASN’T absolute garbage (thanks to that darn tablet….how was I so against it for so long????), I was suddenly full of inspiration. The problem? It was inspiration for The Raven Cycle and The Raven Cycle ONLY. So I followed it, and drew more things. Like this:

And I wish I had more to show for this obsession but these both took, like, over 20 hours each because I’m a perfectionist and slow and so really this doens’t seem like much BUT IT IS. 

Like, I broke down and bought Adobe Photoshop to do these drawings. THAT’S how intense this is (also ClipStudio Paint was hella glitchy and I wanted something more reliable, but still…)

Now I have 28732702 other ideas, but have 0% inspiration for anything else. And because I’m spending hours of time on these pieces, it’s draining my creativity to be able to do other things. Like redrawing (that project is not forgotten. Trust me, the guilt I feel for not working on it is way more than it should be.)

So I am still drawing. It’s just mostly exclusively tablet-drawing fanart.

OH I did do some drawings for the summer camp at which I used to work. They needed coloring pages, and since digital art lends itself super well to line art drawings, I happily obliged.

I now see that those circles are different sizes and widths……that’s embarrassing.

Anyways. TL;DR: life and fan art swallowed me (and the wacom tablet) whole, so that’s where I’ve been for the past few months.

I will say, though, that my obsession is taking a chill pill (I can FEEL it happening), and I have until September before the next half marathon, AND all of my friends are 4th year vet students so they’re all in clinics now which means I have no social life when they’re gone/busy (which is most of the time)….so hopefully I can pull myself out of this fandom/life quicksand and get back to redrawing.

In the meantime, I’m pushing myself to 1) do a 6-month check in, 2) finally do a sketchbook C wrap up, 3) scan in the collection of loose drawings I found in my childhood bookshelf, 4) start drawing other things on the tablet, and 5) keep practicing outside of this fanart craze I’ve been suckered back into.

Fingers crossed I’ll be back this weekend with some progress.

Revitalize: Week 10

YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE. AVATAR THE LAST AIR BENDER.

Why did that need all caps? Because I wanted you to imagine me screaming it from the rooftops.

ATLA premiered on Nickelodeon winter of 2005. I remember it vividly…….because we were redoing our house at the time and practically living in our frozen, cement basement. So I have this very particular memory of watching the premier episode on our tiny basement TV, surrounded by florescent lights and mismatched carpets while we ate Stoffer’s microwave mashed potatoes.

It was love at first sight. I followed ATLA religiously for its entire run, missing only a few episodes when they changed the time slot without telling anymore, and unfortunately being at summer camp for the series finale (I spent hours searching for it once I got home, I kid you not). My friends and I had ATLA marathons. The white lotus tile was going to be my first tattoo (still is, to be honest). When M. Night Shyamalan made the grave mistake of releasing the catastrophic garbage heap that is the live-action film, I was in that midnight premier theater, dressed in my homemade water tribe pride shirt and trembling with rage (I. Was. LIVID. That movie is an absolute disgrace.) I currently have a nice piece of ATLA artwork—made by my sorority sister—hanging on the wall of my apartment. I was PSYCHED for Legend of Korra, and even though it never quite did it for me, I still enjoyed reliving the magic of benders.

Moral of the story: ATLA was, and still is, my life. Of course a sketchbook dated to 2005/2006 would have some OCs for the series.

Xyla. Not the worst name I’ve come up with. I think this was around the time I permanently borrowed a baby name book my dad had bought for some church youth group activity. As you can see by the lovely notes, she’s a princess AND a firebender. I think she was supposed to be a good guy. BUT I should still get brownie points for prophesizing Azula (also a firebender and a princess……similar enough, really). Was Xyla meant to be Zuko’s sister? Not sure. Definitely a possibility, but I can’t remember.

The redraw was actually pretty quick. I wanted to do some detoxing after an emotionally unbalanced 24hours, so I went into this without much vision and just used the first stock picture I thought looked cool. Surprisingly, this turned out pretty good! The hands are hidden by fire for a reason, though. Hands suuuuuck.

On a whim, I decided to REALLY spice things up with some Prisma Practice. They’re so smooth. They’re so versatile. I so happy I didn’t buy them for myself, because money, but like they’re so nice. SO NICE.

Well, school has resumed. I’m working two jobs this year, studying for my Master’s exam, and trying to maintain healthy habits (like running). I hope to put drawing back into my weekend habits. Here’s hoping it works!

See y’all later!

Revitalize: Week 9

I did something WILD this week, and not only drew TWO drawings…but one of them…IS A DUDE.

This is important, I promise.

Not the dual drawing; these characters were all designed in the same fandom phase, and it made sense to do a double. The man, however, is a rarity. I am generally terrible at drawing men. Terrible. You’d think since their bodies are pretty much just straight lines it’d be easy, but as I’ve learned time and time again, that’s not even remotely true!!

Maybe it’s because, as a female, I understand female anatomy more intuitively. Just kidding, that is a bogus theory because I’m terrible at all anatomy. I just, I dunno, drew women way more than I drew men. More practice, I suppose.

This guy isn’t that good anatomically. I couldn’t find a good reference so I just did it, and I think it shows in his hands. Not really sure what they’re doing. Take note of his shoes: this Kingdom Hearts influenced style will be sticking around for quite some time.

Completely random things I’m good at drawing for 0 reason: lightning. At some point in my life, while drawing Fullmetal Alchemist fanart (don’t worry, we’ll get there), I discovered my inexplicable lightning art skill. Good to know I guess?

The ghost girl is not my best work. Legit took 3 tries to get something presentable. I picked a tough pose, and struggled to capture it correctly from the reference.

During a later phase, I’ll learn how to draw ghosts, and I’ll do it better than I have in the original. For the new one, I used a blending tool to fade the arm & leg (specifically the arm and leg I didn’t know how to draw………….whooooops). Thinking retrospectively: maybe around Sketchbook C or D, I’ll get a manga art book called How to Draw Manga: Horror and Macabre. Oh man, this book. If you ever wanna know how to draw realistic severed limbs, demon horses, or other terrifying things, I highly recommend this book. I went through an INTENSE macabre phase, eventually leading to my complete disavowal of anything horror. But we’ll get there.

At the Sketchbook B point in my life, however, I was just entering the world of gross-out horror. My entry point (other than being a 12yrs old art school emo nerd)? A delightful book series called Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shan. Lemme just say, this series was, and still is, one of my favorites. I loooooved these books as a tween. If you know any angsty middle schoolers who have a unquenchable thirst for horror, but who maybe shouldn’t be exposed to the Saw movies just yet, give them this series. It will delight their gorey sensibilities without overwhelming bloody details, and is also imaginative & compelling.* I would stop them there, though. His Demonata series was honestly too gross for me even in my peak grosshorror phase, and I was the girl drawing severed arms.

So I think—and I’m not too sure, because it’s been quite a long time since I drew these—these characters were OCs for Shan’s series. I think I was imagining more sideshow characters for the Cirque Du Freak (the oddball travelling circus that serves as home base for the main characters). Although, I missed the point of the circus, because these guys are more super powered than they are mutations of human genetics mixed with fantastical beasts. The bearded lady, for example, is a skelk (mythical creature created for this book), with a penchant for growing unbelievably strong body hair.  Lighting dude is just…..shootin’ lighting. Whatever, at least I’m creative, I suppose.

OTHER FUN ART THINGS: So I mentioned that my fiancé, who’s with me for the summer, bought a drawing tablet. I think I may do a separate post on that experience, because I finally attempted a freehand sketch the other night! So that will be coming very, very soon.

My fiancé’s love language is gift-giving, so he surprised me with a nice set of Prismacolors—the coveted colored pencils that are stupidly expensive and every art student’s top holiday wish gift—the other day. I haven’t used them fully yet, but I tested them and WOWIE they are so smooth. Very excited to experiment further with them.

Look at that smoothness!!

More art, more ramblings, and more revealing details about my preteens coming next week!

 

*If representation is something important to you when considering recommendations, I will say that this book is VERY white and VERY male. I can only think of two vaguely important female characters, who are really just love interests for the main character’s mentor. And I can’t think of a single character of color.

Background noise: I made this post & the drawings spread out over a few weeks, so there were a few soundtracks. I listened to some ymusic, which is an awesome mini-orchestra currently touring with Ben Folds in honor of their collaborator album So There. Really beautiful stuff.

I’ve also recently been introduced to James Blake through his new album Timeless, and I’ve started seriously listening to Missy Elliot. Both phenomenal artists in two totally different genres.

Revitalize: Week 8

Sketchbook B!

Lots of color, lots of OCs for fandoms, and LOTS of manga. We’re reaching a point in my artistic career when most of my drawings were OCs for fandoms I belonged to (although, like, this was the age of dial-up internet….so fandom meant literally just a fan of something and not the intense community we know today.)

We’re starting with an OC for a little known series called Star Wars. Ever heard of it?

Since I drew this Jedi twice, I figured I’d just include both pictures (especially because the left one is more of an introductory look-at-her-face-and-clothes and therefore not interesting).

Basically, this character happened because I went to see Star Wars: Attack of the Clones in theaters. It was the first Star Wars movie I’d ever seen. I LOVED it. And like most things I love, I wanted to be part of the world, so I created my own lovely little character (whose name I’ve since forgotten).

I talk a lot in my daily life about the limited diversity in Sci-Fi/Fantasy. As a woman who really only reads fantasy and sci-fi for fun, it is enraging to see only men parading around and having cool adventures. As you can see, I started trying to insert more diversity into these series when I was young, not really understanding why or what I wanted, but clearly desiring someone like me. Someone I could look up to. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to understand that it’s not just that they’re men: they are strictly straight, cis, white, able-bodied men. And for a while I was just peeved about it. Like a “ohhhh I wish there were more girls but like, it’s fine…it’ll change eventually” mentality.

But now I’m just angry. And I’m tired of excuses, ESPECIALLY that “oh but it’s fantasy based on a historical time period so like of course there wouldn’t be black or queer people” excuse. It’s shocking how often that excuse gets tossed out. Even in academia! Even in the place where our job literally is to talk critically about books, this excuse pops up all the time among literary scholars as either 1) an excuse to avoid feminist/queer/race theory/disability studies readings of texts or 2) a reason to dismiss those readings without a second thought. And I’m over it! Super super over it. I’m tired of never seeing women lead the story. I’m tired of women being tokenized. I’m tired of writers throwing in one white woman and calling it “diverse”. Like, no!!! The only good excuse for not writing in those characters is racism. Which, that’s not even a good excuse; it’s more of a believable excuse. The only “well this is based on medieval British isles aesthetic but like of course there are dragons and no people of color because there weren’t POCs in Britain at this time” is just SUCH BS. Laziness. It’s pure laziness.

Anyways.

I redrew this character as a black woman 1) because of COURSE there would be people of color in space other than just white people (read Saga, or any book by Octavia Butler. They got it right) and 2) her hair was teetering on the brink of culturally appropriative dreads, so it seemed best to adjust that problem.

On a technical level, I think this is one of the best faces I’ve drawn since the mermaid. Her pose* has a little more movement than other poses, too. I switched sketchbooks for this one, because the paper in the other was really pulpy, so maybe the difference in paper helped? With the bad paper, I think my heavy-pressure drawing (because I’m not a loosey-goosey person in literally any regard) would leave ridges in the paper that would make it much harder to fix mistakes. But this paper seems to be working better. Maybe I’ll use this one permanently? No lie, I have like 3 sketchbooks right now, all of which are unfinished because I keep getting them as gifts and just switch back and forth between them.

Anyways.

I forgot how nice it was to do artistic things in my down time. Like, I found myself craving a few hours to draw, or start a new book for fun. That’s why I read the first two volumes of Saga. And why I’m starting a new book today (despite starting my second summer class tomorrow….). I just….I need it. It’s like my spectrum of activity has been, on one end, intense intellectual exercise (Joyce, Woolf, and Eliot are strenuous authors to delve in to), and mindless Mario Karting on the other end. But I’ve totally neglected the middle ground of mental stimulation, and my brain is suffering serious withdrawal. This exercise helped. Even writing this is helpful.

Hopefully this craving will lead to increased artistic productivity. Even if it doesn’t, I’ll be back soon with a new redraw. And maybe another new regular blog post? We’ll see.

*Reference from faestock