Achievements Unlocked

Health +1

After so much candy, this was one of the rare occasions when I was really glad to eat a salad. Getting older is weird.

Scenery +1

True, it’s hardly majestic. But I’m starting to figure out that the key to sketching a scene is figuring out ways to represent lots of detail with only a few lines, or a dash of color. I still have a ways to go, but this is exactly the type of growth I was hoping this Easter sketching exercise would accomplish.

Cross-hatching +1

It’s awkward to bring paints to church, so I have to be content to merely draw the backs of peoples’ heads while I’m listening.

Artistic ability -1

That may be the worst sketch of a baseball player that I’m capable of. I couldn’t really tell you all that went wrong, but at least the paint helped cover some of the egregious mistakes. Some.

Objects

Drawing moving things is hard. You have to be really fast and accurate, or you have to be aiming for a more reportage style (a la Greg Betza or Veronica Lawlor, who are excellent at it), or both. And frankly, that’s not my thing. I can make a good image if I take it slow and really work at it, and nothing short of a full effort will do the trick, at least in my own eyes.

Drawing scenery is also hard. Even if it’s geometric architecture, it’s difficult to pull in an entire scene in a convincing way (like Paul Heaston or Pete Scully). That’s the other end of the spectrum, where you need to just commit hours of time to get it right. Or at least I would. And frankly, I don’t ever have that kind of time.

Drawing objects, however, is actually not that bad. You can decide how complex it needs to be, how much detail to show, you can decide on cross-hatching, or ink, or different paints. They won’t run away, they won’t demand too much time, you can compose your page however you want, etc. This is just my opinion on the subject—I’m sure any number of other sketchers have a differing view—but when I want to make a quality page in my sketchbook, I’ll find whatever interesting object I have around.

And that’s great, but it doesn’t take long for me to want to stretch out. I want to be the guy who can draw a scene, or animals, or my kids. And so there’s this tension between wanting quality and wanting to grow.

Practice is probably a key component of it.

Scattered thoughts, I know, and no real satisfying conclusion. Consider this another step in the process of improving, which I’m trying to document throughout the Easter season.

Easter sketching #1

I could be remembering it wrong, but I’m pretty sure in Surprised by Hope, NT Wright says something interesting about Easter—just as we give things up for Lent in preparation for Easter, so we should take something up in celebration of Easter. It’s a nice suggestion, and since my Lenten vow was to give up social media (crushed it, and I am way happier for it), I thought it was worth a shot to do something from Easter to Pentecost, which Google tells me is on May 15th this year.

My most recent interest is a return to keeping an illustrated sketchbook, so that’s what I decided to do. Putting something in there for fifty straight days ought to either get my skills in great shape, or totally burn me out on sketching, or both.

Until I have a couple spreads filled in, here are some recent ones I’ve done. I’m using a Handbook Travelogue, which has some decent paper and a nice square shape. I’ve come back to the Uniball Vision micro, and of course my usual kit of Reeves watercolors.

A sorta kinda goal of this exercise is to get better at painting and noticing light. I’m the kind of person who gets impatient painting in complex scenes, and likes to simplify everything I can’t draw with a pen. The bottle of hand sanitizer took a long time to paint, but I’m pretty pleased with how that went. More of that.

And you should do something, too. You don’t need to do fifty days, but maybe you could draw more or cook more or whatever it is you do more this spring. You could.

Fickle

I’m a fickle guy. I love to be creative but I have a very hard time sticking with a single discipline for long. Sketchbooks, oil painting, digital illustration, doesn’t matter. I get to a certain point and then quit. Perhaps it’s because my desire to become great at it fades, or maybe my life keeps getting in the way. Whatever the reason, it’s not something I particularly like.

So for 2016 my resolution is to do one thing for the whole year. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ve chosen linocut block printing. I’ve done a bit of this in the past, and the craftiness of it has always been appealing. So that’s what I’m doing.

The big project to start off the year is going to be illustrating The Man of Iron, a somewhat obscure fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. I’m sure I’ll want to quit many times along the way, but my goal is to finish, to go beyond the point of good enough.

Fred Savage

Why yes, I am a grown man who spent time illustrating Fred Savage. Why do you ask?

Centerpiece

Betsy’s parents learned some hard lessons about letting her design the Christmas centerpiece.

Thanksgiving

A most excellent Thanksgiving to you and yours.

T-Day

Looks like snow for Thursday. Makes the turkey grilling all the more hardcore. If it turns out.

Oil Landscape

In April my family went down to Bemis School of Art for a kids’ art day or something like that. While the kids had a great time, just walking into an art classroom again brought me back to some of my best memories of college. I hadn’t quite realized how much I enjoyed the structured creativity of an art course way back when.

So with some birthday money I signed up for an oil painting course. I’ve done plenty of painting in my recent years—watercolors mostly—but there was something extra intimidating about oils. I can’t quite place if it was the non-water-based nature of the materials or the ridiculously long drying time that kept me away, but I thought this would be the context to work all that out.

All my concerns were put to rest within the first week of the six-week course, which meant I had five Wednesday nights to cut loose and really explore the medium. And let me say this: I am never using acrylics again if I can help it.

The smell of the paints (and the “odorless” thinner), the creamy texture, the fact that I can go back in and rework parts that didn’t quite happen how I’d like… There are many reasons to love oil paints. But I think the biggest one is the sense of historical continuity. Cezanne is one of my favorite painters, if not the favorite, and using the same basic materials that he did gives me a sense of a level playing field with so many greats from long ago. Plus, I’ll be honest, the big wooden palette I got makes me feel pretty important. My ego is easily massaged.

So now that the course is over I have to figure out how and where to place oil painting in my life. Even if nothing comes of it, on a purely creative level this is the best I’ve got.

Salty Chad, Pirate Brand Manager

Bonus

Lunch Card

Here’s a fun bit of day job related lettering.

On Fleek Zeke

Playing around with the oil brushes in a more cartoony setting.

Oil Painting Practice 3

“Thought I Was a Spaceman” on the headphones, Lake Superior on the brain.

Taco Blah

This Cinco de Mayo, remember that Taco Blah has the most authentic Meh-xican food around!

Earth Day

It’s Earth Day! Here’s some nature:

I went a little brush-crazy on this one. It sorta took on a life of its own.

Pump Your Brakes

This would make a good t-shirt as well.

Ribeye

Today’s Colorado snow whatever-it-was has me thinking of meat, fire, and Rockies games on the radio.

New Self-Portrait

I had to accurately capture the unkempt/hoodie situation:

Passive-Aggressive Workplace Note

Legit business idea: for $50, I’ll custom letter a beautiful passive-aggressive workplace note for you.