A lot going on!

Write!

Today alone I slept well, pencilled another NeverNever strip, edited my artist statement for a possible gallery showing in Berkley, packaged up that along with a short bio, and three art samples, as well as links to work posted on my home page and Flickr (yes, including the peen animals. With a warning!), kissed it good luck, and hit “send”, and even did some reading about writing advice!

The previous days before involved even more writing! I have a Crappy First Draft of the foreword for Bill Holbrook’s next Kevin & Kell book, which will be available this summer at Anthrocon. This one I’m not going to edit myself. I plan to show this to another Susan, a seasoned writer, in hopes that she’ll give me a little help with it.

All of this prose writing has gotten me more familiar and comfortable with writing that Crappy First Draft. Something I’ve not really done since college. Writing for strips is, for the most part, different. There’s not as much revision, really. But essays? Books? Artist Bios and Statements? Mmmm, sweet, sweet, sometimes agonizing, revision.

Knit!

Knitting, I have discovered, makes me stupidly happy. I don’t know if it’s a sensory thing; the feel of yarn, the color or yarn, and the repetitive motion: or if it’s the instant results and the freedom to just unravel something I don’t like and redesign it. Maybe it’s the challenge and the possibilities.

I went to Stitches West 2011 in Santa Clara with and we had a blast. I can’t tell you how many sentences that began with “Ok, I really need to go sit/eat/pee” were interrupted with “Oooohhh! I MUST FEEL/TOUCH/SQUISH THAT WITH MY HANDS!” Many ideas were had, much yarn was bought, and neither of us won any of the cash prizes, which was a bummer, but not enough to dampen our Yarn Stashing High. I easily doubled my stash, I think. If not doubled, then definitely made more interesting by branching out into loopy, fluffy yarns. I was also taught how to make drop twisted stitches! Very useful for the fluffier yarns.

Next up on the To Learn List: Crochet. Secret Project(s) require it! It shall be fun!

Sketch?

Not a lot of that going on, other than cranking out the last NN strips. And I do mean cranking, because as it gets near the end, I’m finding that I’m having to push myself to do them. This is for a number of reasons, most of which I won’t get into, but mainly because it just feels like no one’s reading them. It’s hard for me to care, if no one else is, but at least getting to something of an ending will be closure for everyone involved. To keep myself interested, I’ve been trying to challenge myself with poses, expressions, and a bit more realism, but not change too much/many of the original layouts I’ve been given. I got to a point a few weeks ago where I decided where my priorities were in terms of how I was willing to focus my energy and skill. Structure and expression won out over layout most of the time, because those are the things I’m interested in right now. When I did focus on layout, it was usually to pull in tighter on a shot, like panels 1 and 3 here, or add a sign or a beach ball.

I have often had to remind myself that NeverNever is ‘s strip. It’s his writing, his design, and his choice to post about it via the old Suburban Jungle LJ community and not its own. I’ve put a lot of myself into the work. I guess this is what it’s like for the technologist working at a start-up; the hours can suck, there’s no money, there’s no gaurantee that people will see or appreciate the product, don’t even get me started on marketing, and in the end I’m not even a part owner. I am part of the creative group listed on the website as “and many friends”.

And this is about the extent to which I ever really want to discuss this topic. It is incredibly depressing to me and a large part of the reason that drawing isn’t much fun for me right now, so my apologies to the two James’ to whom I owe work right now. This will all blow over soon.

In the meantime, there is a nice, warm cup of tea waiting for me downstairs, made for me by my wonderful husband. It’s a good thing he’s a creative sort, too. He makes pushing through times like these significantly easier. If not for him, I might have walked out on NN again months ago.

Anyway, off to tea. And maybe some knitting.

Tags: Knit, Rant, Sketch, Write

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 27th, 2011 at 5:55 AM and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.