Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Plans Sometimes Fall Through
And That's Okay

I'm working on some more abstract digital art, and that's going... weirdly. I made a major oopsie last night, didn't catch it til this afternoon, and had to start over.

It's not getting done tonight.

So about an hour ago, I ate some spaghetti and decided to try a Timer Challenge.

The prompts I drew were "Self Portrait" and "Fruit". My times were "20 minutes" and "5 minutes".

I grabbed a Ticonderoga Black and my big green sketchbook, and I got to work.

"20 Minute Self Portrait"; graphite on sketch paper; 2022

"Five Minute Pears"; graphite on sketch paper; 2022

I'm honestly way happier with the pears than the self portrait... but what can I really expect from a 20 minute self portrait? I wasn't taking my time, I wasn't getting everything perfect, I was beating a timer?

If you're looking for a good exercise to get your creative juices going, I'd recommend looking up an art prompt, then randomly assigning yourself a time. If you'd like to add a little D&D element to this exercise, go pick a prompt from somewhere, then roll a d10 on this table for times!

1. 30 seconds
2. 1 minute
3. 5 minutes
4. 10 minutes
5. 15 minutes
6. 20 minutes
7. 30 minutes
8. 45 minutes
9. 1 hour
10. Roll 2x

Speaking of prompts, if you'd like to have a say in what I draw next, feel free to buy me a coffee over on Ko-Fi and leave a message there with which category of mine you'd like to see next! Today's categories were "Animal" (the self-portrait) and "Vegetable" (the pears). Available categories are:

• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Dedbert
• Location
• Geometric
• Word

I'll get back to work on my digital mess, now.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

I Sketched A Bit Today!

I would like to apologize for how late this is. Nothing I tried to do to actually put this set of images on the internet worked. I'm still trying to calm down from how absolutely awfully the upload process went (hope I didn't break my hand earlier when I hit the table because I literally could not light the image without my shadow popping through after the scanner failed for the fifteenth time)...

"The Great Indoors" sketch; 2022

These are the animatronics from the idea I had for Cooper! Each animatronic has a specific job they do, and yes, one is flipping another off. He is not around kids much, so he never had the "be nice" protocols installed lol.

"Posie"

Posie is a cottagecore opossum who is in charge of younger kids. She has first aid programming, and her pouch (she has a pouch!) is designed to hold a child up to about 100lbs in case of emergency. She wears two-piece outfits because of the pouch, but they're all incredibly frilly and quaint, and yes, she always has a flower crown. Her prehensile tail can lift anything up to 1000lbs, provided her tail can wrap around it. She's around 9'8" tall (that's around 295cm) and her favorite color is lavender!

"Teacup"

Oh Teacup. He's a short lil flying squirrel with an aviator cap and goggles and a very big attitude. Sure, he's only 3'0" (around 91cm), but he is the security system for The Great Indoors (just like he was at The Fun Zone 3000). He can move as fast as a real flying squirrel, and he is connected wirelessly to all of the video cameras. He's a lot stronger than you'd think, too, having enough strength to drag two grown adults if he had to. Teacup was only the second animatronic built, and he was never really meant to interact with the children, so he can be... rude. As rude as Teacup can be, he is excellent at his job and would defend his fellow animatronics and the guests at The Great Indoors to the death if he had to. He also likes to sneak into the daycare to nap in Posie's pouch.

"Andy"

Andy the Raccoon is quite the outdoorsman! As a 9'0" (174cm) animatronic racoon, you wouldn't really expect him to be the designated guide for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, but that's one of his duties! He has been programmed to identify pretty much anything in nature, has a built-in GPS, and he's completely weatherproofed. He loves his job, but boy, is it exhausting, and once the kids are gone for the day, he's about as cranky as can be. He just wants to unwind and rest once his work is done. Unfortunately for Andy, his coworkers are much more social and all want to hang out with him, so he's usually grumpily going along with whatever their plans are. He and Teacup have almost a Big Brother/Bratty Little Brother relationship going on, which is funny, since Teacup is older than Andy, but despite their antagonistic behavior, Andy loves him. He just wants a nap, is all.

"Howler"

Howler is technically the newest animatronic. He's also technically the oldest animatronic. As the "switchboard operator" who monitors the wi-fi, walkie-talkies, and employee phones, he's been given a reputation as a snitch and someone you can't trust with secrets, but that isn't the case at all. This 7'6" (229cm) coyote will take your secrets to the scrapyard... so long as they don't impact the quality of life for everyone living and working at The Great Indoors. Howler has no color added to his fur, and he usually wears gray clothing, but he does have one colorful accessory - an earring with a copper feather dangling from it. The feather is from his first incarnation as a Microraptor named Buddy. Buddy had been the first, but the owner of The Fun Zone 3000 literally tore him to pieces. When Buddy's AI chip was recovered, the other animatronics secretly uploaded it to the Maintenance Mainframe in the hopes that their friend could be automatically rebuilt with the 3d printers and other manufacturing machines, but... out came Howler, who was very much Not Buddy. Where Buddy had an almost childlike approach to the world (which made sense for a greeter & receptionist!), Howler is a mature yet coy being who is always just a little ahead of the game.

I can't wait to get to write more about these guys!

How about you all? How are your creative projects coming?

That'll do it for me - the struggle to upload those images was enough to make me bonkers, so I'll just settle in for the night.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk 307: Sleepy Stinky Birb

In Which I Has A Sleepy

It's a sleepy kind of day. The snow is falling, the air is cool, and I stayed up way, way, way too late. I stayed up so late that I saw the dawn. That's how late I stayed up. So I grabbed some coffee, came upstairs, and drew a little picture of my boy, who (since I was awake all night) had also stayed awake all night. Bert may be an owl, but still needs more than 2 hours of sleep!

Since we'd stayed up all night working on intellectual pursuits, you wouldn't think we'd get sweaty, but you'd be wrong. I sweat a ton when I work all night because my body keeps trying to give me subtle hints and reminders that sleep is a thing, and when that doesn't work, it just floods me with heat to make me get away from whatever I'm so focused on. At that point, I usually fall asleep and wake up super dehydrated.

It didn't work on me last night, so I was asleep on my feet getting my coffee together and drinking it. Eventually, though, I took a shower and went back to bed. Dedbert also got to freshen up and get some rest, but I don't have an after pic for you - just a before pic.

"All Nighter #1"; pencil on printer paper; 2020

Poor Dedbert. He's so tired he's melting! He's stinky and sleepy and just wants to curl up with his bunny slippers, coffee, and toast before having a nice preen and a good sleep. He's very grumpy that I only slept a few hours, so I'll probably go back to bed soon.

I'm also definitely going to redraw this later with inks and colors, because that's a cute image and I want to put it on Redbubble...

Alright, that'll about do it from me, guys!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Thursday Art Walk 305: The Family Business

In Which Ma Boi Takes on the Work

Daily weather update: it's currently sunny and 28℉ (-2.2℃). I'm both eager and not eager to go for my daily walk (it's gonna be cold, but it'll also give me that sweet, sweet Vitamin D my body craves so deeply... yes, lol, it wants the D. Yours would, too, if you rarely got to see the sun for 2/3 of the year...)

I joke a lot about Dedbert being my son, so why not have a picture of him doing what I do?

"The Family Business"; graphite and ink on sketch paper; 2020

Dedbert here is hard at work at the ol' WordyBirdy Typewriter, click-clack-dinging his way to a proper manuscript. To be honest, I'm a lil jelly because I don't have a typewriter of my own to type on, and the WordyBirdy seems quite nice. Then again, I type a little faster than him, and that model seems to be more meant for the ol' hunt-and-peck style of typing.

I might color this in at some point, or I might start over and make a bigger, better version. For now, I'm quite pleased with this ink sketch.

The title's a bit of a brag, to be honest. I like to write (I mean, otherwise, I'd probably just make bland, ranty YouTube videos instead of a blog), and since I'm currently working on a novel, that makes writing my business. My partner, who I only half-jokingly refer to as Dedbert's other parent, is also a really good writer, so of course our son wants to join in on the family business.

And yes, we're both very proud of our boy for Doing the Work, as Cody Rhodes puts it.

Now, if y'all will excuse us, my feathery son and I need to get back to work :)

Go Enjoy Something!
FC