windjamm | Entries tagged with drawing

And the wheel turns...

I've found myself very concerned with time lately. I always am in some regard; I have a nasty habit of waking up in the middle of the night every other month, concerned with my mortality in a way that makes me sure there's a recurring dream I never remember. But recently it's been exacerbated by learning to draw, which is an interesting way to contrast an otherwise thrilling space.

I've been progressing steadily by leaps and bounds. You can see paintings I've done here. I'll include a few things I've been drawing lately down below. I've made significant progress in a short time and I am happy with it and proud of it.

It also makes me a little mournful of what I could've done a decade ago with a good teacher. I've always been interested in art, fascinated really. Seeing other people's art has always inspired me, but as I talked about in my last entry, I just couldn't find a foothold.

I work dilligently to try and live a life without regrets. I think regretting things is a great way to dull the present and desaturate the future. But this one's hard to shake. Imagining a world where I could've spent the last ten years making art and fanart, engaging in spaces that feel so small now by comparison. If I could have a webcomic by now, something I'm happy to look back at.

All of those are things I can do now. And I am, insofar as I can, working constantly to try and claim the space that I've always been envious of. But I just want to sprint towards that place. As if I can reclaim the years. And I know it's folly. I can feel it dull the present whenever I wish I could do it and look at what I'm doing now. Doing a webcomic is closer than it was a month ago and that's careful, dilligent progress I'm proud of. It's just frustrating when your hand doesn't produce what you want it to and I give myself time to be frustrated before I take a breath and enjoy the things I have made. Because I've made many things I am happy with. Here, let's see a few.

My first finished painting

Marilla from Anne with an E

A portrait of Ashly Burch that I knew I needed to paint when I saw the original

A self portrait for my art blog

A painting I did of this feeling in Dragon's Dogma 2

and now some drawings! I've been practicing drawing since these last paintings

That's been my March and April so far in terms of finished pieces. And I'm very proud of it. The pinned post on my art blog says I've been drawing since January 7th, 2024 and painting since February 24th, 2024 and I have to hold on to how much good work I've put into this. It'll keep getting better.

Okay, as for media and life updates!

I've been playing FF14 again with song and it's been giving me a lot of time to read, so!

I've read The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, which had a fun premise and interesting world building as well as a main character I enjoyed overall, but the actual story being told was uneven and it never felt like it all came together until the end, which felt too late for me. I think a sequel would be interesting for all that it did come together eventually, but I gave this one three stars.

I've read Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh, which was a beautiful surprise. Starting in an awful, extremist child soldier training facility was a hell of a choice and having an upsetting and worrying protagonist was another, but the themes of this book and the places it wanted to go mixed with the actual strength to carry through and make it all sing made it a real gem. I wish I could pitch it better, but I think it would spoil the effect to give a more accurate description. I gave it five stars, if that helps. CW Suicidal Ideation, Suicide

I read My Heart is a Chainsaw just yesterday as of writing this! I adore Stephen Graham Jones. The Only Good Indians is a vital book for me. I'm Native and... This is a whole different post. I intend to reread it soon, so! I'll come back with thoughts then, promise. For now, My Heart is a Chainsaw was so much fun. I ADORE Jade Daniels, a 17 year old Native girl whose special interest is horror movies and who cannot stop thinking or talking about them or with them as her reference points speaks to the teenager I was. It was more comedy for me than horror, but I think she and I were very much alike and I just love her so much. Oh! I made fanart, actually!

I'm working on a painting as well, maybe a comic? We'll see! Follow my art blog to see posts as I finish them.

Anyway, My Heart is a Chainsaw was a lot of fun for me. CW Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempts, CSA, and then lot of general horror stuff

And today I just finished the first novella of the Greenhollow Duology, Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh. I just had to see what else she was writing since I was so taken by Some Desperate Glory. This was an interesting bit of folklore about what sticks after a few centuries of life and what you might change for. It was also just a very pretty, Queer book.

I think that Novels and Novellas (and short stories) should be judged by different criteria. Novels have time to sink roots into you, to make friends of strangers. Novellas have far less time to do so and can manage it, but it's a careful balance between plot and characterization and world building, all just built enough to create the effect. Stephen King calls short stories a kiss in the dark from a stranger (pos), which is very much how Silver in the Wood feels. Maybe the kiss in the dark and where they end up in a single arc.

I think Silver in the Wood is four stars for a novella, which is not derogatory, just a different thing.

Okay, I think this is just about as long as I want this to be, but it was fun to update!

Re: time, I've been desperately clawing at learning art these last few months, but I think I'm finally slowing into a more reasonable balance (2-4 hours a day, not 8+ like it seemed like I was on). So, perhaps I'll have more time to work on things like my Dreamwidth! We'll see. Until then.

The wheel turns...

I meant to update this more frequently this year, but every format I try to keep up with ends up being difficult to keep up with, so we're gonna keep experimenting.

For today, however, I wanted to document some progress! I've been learning to draw! It's something that's always eluded me due to all the types of learning I've done before this having bounced off of my brain. This time I've been learning with Proko's Drawing Basics course and it's hit my brain in exactly the right way. I mean, there's 4-5 main sections and the first one is just Lines. Learning to draw differing line qualities, different exercises to practice, etc. And that is far more accessible to me than people just saying, "go get a notebook and draw a lot."

Like, draw what? The amount of humility this requires without further guidance is SO staggering. Because if you go out in nature and you try to draw, say, a park scene... what do you feel when you spend twenty, thirty minutes and then look down and you've basically made a child's drawing. What do you improve from there? Well... the trees look wrong. Okay, why? How? What's wrong about them? You can then go look up a tutorial about how to draw trees, but what if those skills don't apply elsewhere, even to other trees? Do you have to look up a tutorial every time for every part until your brain and hand can create, subliminally, a ruleset and knowledgebase for you to reference?

It just felt like so much disparate, uncoordinated pieces of information. On one side, intellectually, it always felt wrong to be reinventing the wheel when people have been drawing for millenia. On the other side, physically, I always felt discouraged about what I was able to synthesize and produce.

So to have some unifying theory from someone who's very experienced and who both starts at, "okay, here's three shapes of lines that'll be useful for your entire drawing career" and ALSO has a thoughtful order of projects so everything is always achievable has just done wonders for me. I've learned more in this last month than I have my entire life trying and bouncing off of it.

I mean, the whole reason I got into photography is because drawing was always so inaccessible to me. Don't get me wrong, I love photography. I love measuring the light and finding interesting compositions and playing with exposures, but I've never went a week in my life without wishing I could draw.

Below I'm going to show some of my progress through this month on some pieces I'm happiest with. It'll be chronological, so if you just wanna scroll quickly to see the effect, I think that'll work too.

My first drawing! I think more than anything this still life focused on shading is a great entry because it makes you feel like, "WAIT is that all drawing is? I can give a drawing a good shape and depth by following an extremely minimal guideline?" Which is SO much fun. I'm still proud of this little guy.

This was a DIFFICULT second drawing. I learned so much by drawing these boots from a photo reference, but man was it rough in there for the first hour. Still, what an effect!

My first fanart! This was fun for me because I was just sitting around and suddenly went, "WAIT I CAN DRAW THAT!" And then I picked up my pen and my tablet and just drew what I saw and it CAME OUT? Just really quick lines, quick shape sketching. It was the first time in my life I felt like I could just...draw for fun. Which is so huge for me.

These were REALLY fun for me. Armed with, "Huh, I can draw that" I went and looked at some fashion references and decided to just have fun. They took me awhile since I hadn't even learned proportions yet, but I really like how they came out.

A chicken from some simple shapes. I just like how she turned out! Look at her!

This is my first face portrait! This was a measuring exercise and there's a lot I'd go and redo given the inclination, but ultimately I don't think it's bad for a first time.

Having wanted to practice portraits again, I went and drew Kirby Howell-Baptiste and I like the way she came out! My measurements feel a lot better here.

And here's some figure drawing practice! This was SO much fun. They're just quick sketches meant to show the rhythm of the body but I really enjoyed making them. I think of all the practice I've done this weas my favorite to actually DO whereas my favorite to finish was probably a good portrait? I'd want to capture the model's faces and clothes though, because that's really fun for me.

And that'll conclude our time here! This is one month of drawing, 28 days. I think I've done a pretty good job!

P.S. Oh yeah, this is what I've been using to draw. I got a remarkable 2 last year for my birthday and it's great for taking notes but it's been WONDERFUL for drawing. IT's so nice to have this little e-ink tablet, especially now that I'm at a point where I'm drawing things for fun. Just being able to take it anywhere is soo fun.