It's that time. Forgive all the images piled into this entry. As a wrap up, I wanted to get at least an overview of what I managed to get done this year. There aren't the most entries but I did better than last. While the year started out 'ok,' things ramped up, despite what was going on in the world. It was a very tough year for everyone. That being said, I gave myself room and time to experiment, pushed some boundaries, declared I wasn't a cartoonist and then pretty much went right back to City Silent, which I feared I'd abandoned. Instead, I completed the first act with a chapter that I think stands out from all my other comic work and is an explosion to end the act with. So now all I have to do is get better for the next act.

With portraits, I was highly inspired by the British show, "Portrait Artist of the Year," which I'm not supposed to be able to watch and which is one of my favorite shows ever. So many great painters, some of which I follow on social media. I got into an artist I generally don't like, Matisse and managed a new style for portraiture based on his work that I ended up really liking. I also got the actual paints back out and painted some pretty big things. I want to do more with paint. I want to keep pushing in all sorts of directions.

I dropped Ghiroy which I think was the right decision. It never really gelled for me; I like drawing the characters but was never really comfortable with the overall style. It changed so much and I think I was too conscious of wanting to make it "A Thing." I might revisit it as a book, which is where it started (dug up the 1st draft of that and while terrible, has some good points).

I got back in touch with some guys I did a cooperative comic with and we restarted it. It hasn't gone very far but I managed a new style for that which, again, I ended up really liking. Even if that never continues, I will continue with the style for something. Maybe Biograph will make a come back.

I sought out new art to look into. I'm more interested in it than ever. I just need to focus and not get lost in what I'm NOT doing, what others are.

Managed to self-publish two books; the Book of Portraits and the first act of "The City Silent" as an all-in-one which required some heavy re-drawing. Almost no one downloaded the portrait book (four as of this writing) and I got no feedback on it, except from Vince. No one downloaded the Act 1. And that's fine. Because I like them both.

Outside of art, I continued the podcast with my best friend Max. We're at 125+ episodes now, which is no small thing. My sister started a troupe called "Cue Footsteps" which started out as just a couple of her friends and me doing original one acts she wrote. It soon changed to a radio play series called, "The Jewel," gathered three more people and we've recorded 11 episodes of that. I've developed an interest in vinyl around the holidays, my partner bought me a very nice setup and I've already started listening to music well outside my comfort zone. I like a lot of it.

All in all, I consider this year a success for me, even if there are no sales, almost no downloads or feedback. I'm producing work, it's good work and it's getting better. I've come to terms with the fact that this will never be my career, just a passion. When all is said and done, it was for me. I look at it all the time. It makes me happy.

Otherwise, fuck off 2020. You, honestly sucked. We managed in spite of you, not because of you. Here's hoping for continued strength. Thanks to anyone who ever looked at my stuff, commented on it or, the rare of you, owns any of it.

 A weird entry, but I was working on the 'tags' for each of the mice. I'm partially using a style that real taggers use and also just doing it the way I would do it. There are at least 5 layers for each of these, but these are the best of those. The big deal will be remembering how I did this when it comes to making the actual comics.

 

Let's see if the video works...if it does, the top bit is the process video of my last abstract of the year. If not, there's the finished version below. Made in Procreate while watching a lecture on artist David Park. I would never have heard of him if someone hadn't given me a book on him. He's worth looking up. This image looks nothing like his work, which is fine but when given the spark, try and make a fire, even a little one.

 Managed to finish this AND do holiday stuff with my husband. I changed the whole palette from the last update. Those colors just weren't working. This makes my studio look a lot darker than it is, but I think it works. My sister thought it might be leaning a little towards illustration. I think I just managed to yank it back. I wanted to prove that the cut paper style could be used for something more complex than just a face. I think I pulled that part off, too. In general, I'm happy with it and would do something like this again. Happy holidays, all.

 It's coming along. Trying to keep the palette as small as possible will make for some interesting choices. I originally started the finishing work with a gouache brush, but knowing I'd have to really work on the palette after the fact pushed me back into my old ink brush, making each color its own grey, exporting them layer by layer and vectorizing. Even though I won't have as many colors, I have run into a problem I haven't before on Procreate: I ran out of layers. So I'll have to have two documents to get what I want. Which is fine. It will give me the flexibility I need.

 Preparatory sketch for the next painting. I need to see if the current, cut-paper style will work with something more complex. I think it will. The drawing has to be detailed even though most of those details will not appear in the final image as I need to know where and what I am painting. Used a grid to get the drawing down. Will let it sit a day so I can come back and look at it without the reference photo so I can make some decisions on my own.

 Sometimes the point is just to draw. Spoke to my good friend Vince today. It's always good to catch up but it's also just good to speak to another artist. We had a good conversation, then I had to head off for errands and other things. I knew I needed to make something today, just not sure what. If I don't, after a couple days, I feel lazy, no matter what else is going on. So when work was done, I just sat, threw on some music I didn't know and just -drew-. There is something VERY therapeutic about drawing. And with self portraits, I can bend things all I want. Did the sketch on paper, finished it in Procreate using a brush I don't usually use, just to mix things up. Wasn't feeling bad, but now I feel better.

 It's getting towards the end of the year. I often try and do more entries than the previous one. I probably won't manage that this year but it was a pretty productive year nonetheless. I self-published two books this year; one on portraits and the other being the first act of "City Silent." Being stuck at home for long periods of time not only didn't hurt me, it maybe have helped in a way. The brushes came out and actual paintings were made, some quite large. I proclaimed that I wasn't a cartoonist and was going to stop trying to be only to change my mind and put out what I think are City Silent's best pages yet.

All that being said, there are numbers to look at, just in case I was feeling too good about my output. The top image is my "Top 9" from my Instagram account. Those numbers aren't exactly life changing. While I think it's a necessary platform, and one I really love for following other artists, I'm not making any kind of splash there at all. The numbers from flickr, the lower image, aren't a top 10 of the year, just the top 10 overall. I am seen far more there than Instagram and, as such, the images chosen are very different from those on Instagram. Prince Harry was finally de-throned by an image I made of Monet, for reasons I will never understand. Hell, I don't even know why the Prince Harry painting was so popular. At #3? A drawing of a shoe. It's all very weird and, in a way, not very helpful. Overall, I find, of my portraits, my self portraits are generally a lot more popular than those of other people, which only confuses me a lot more.

I have no idea how to rig the system, get more 'likes' or even what it would mean if I did. Some kind of self worth? Probably. Would it affect the art, and if so, how? I have no idea. I would love to be able to make some kind of living at art, but that's obviously just never going to happen. Regardless of numbers, I like my work. I might even say, in some cases, I love my work. After all, someone has to.

 More in this series. This time, it's a UK artist, Paul Bell, someone I saw on an episode of a show called, "The Big Painting Challenge." There was a moment that had an image I liked, I made a screen shot and went ahead. I don't think it's the best representation of the subject, but I only have what I can work with. What I'd want to do is take video of a subject as we just talked, preferably without their knowing or paying attention. I'd want to get what I thought was them in a pose that wasn't a pose; it was just them at their most them. When I choose screenshots like this, I really don't know the person, don't know if the pose is indicative or not. I just like it. So while I think I made a good representation of the pose, I don't know if I did of the person.

This one was a good struggle of editing. I think there might be a little too much detail, but pulling any more out lessened the likeness too much. There was a lot of going back and forth but in a good way. I set this one aside for a few days, thinking it hadn't worked. When I opened it back up today, I actually really liked it. I think this approach has merit, and feels the most like the "modern portrait" I've been looking for.

Now I should get back to drawing skate mice and graffiti taggers.

 Portrait of my bud, the Weezil and his cat, George. Still working on finding the modern portrait. It's a little staged as far as the pose goes. Went through a lot of color changes with this. Luckily, the recipient liked them. Procreate.

 Did a little playing about with a Hals painting, trying to get it into my current 'style.' I used a grid and sketched by hand then did the usual painting. I think that I let myself use too many colors and don't think this is totally successful. I don't hate it but I don't think it's as good as others done in this manner. Might be that it's better suited to current portraits and not so much as adapting paintings because there's often so much in the brushstrokes and way in which paint is used. This flat method has its own charms, it's just not the answer to everything. I'll likely keep picking at this, like a persistent scab until I feel I got something I actually like. For now, this is it.

Decided to play around with some of the gouache brushes in Procreate. I'm sort of doing the same thing with the 'cut paper' style stuff, so why not just go there instead of having to use AD? There's even some brushiness to it that I like. Colors were suggested by a filter app I got for my phone recently. I prefer them to real colors anyway.

 

Variations. Played some more with this one. I like the middle one a lot, though some of the color is a little sloppy. It's muddier but feels more like night to me and the direction of the light is a lot more enhanced. The top version is how it would appear in the comic. While I don't dislike it, I think it's missing some atmosphere. I'm also just not willing to change the style again and the watercolor is not only impossible to vectorize, it's a whole different approach. Still, fun to do little spot illos like this.

Terry being quite rude. Still working on a happy medium for the mice and City Silent. They have a hell of a life, considering that they appeared in ONE panel in Tamino. They weren't even characters, just two little punks Tamino questioned on his way. Since then, they've shown up quite a bit and will play a large part in City Silent. Tezuka used to have this cast of characters that would show up in his comics, almost like a corral of actors selected to play parts. I really like this idea and while I wasn't considering this on purpose, it's almost worked out that way. Smatt and Terry (and their cousin Rooster) haven't really changed parts so much as filled different needs. Smatt and Terry have been in Tamino, a short comic called "Last Stop Right," and Rooster joined them for "Smatt's Journey," which was a comic about me dealing with the death of my mom. Rooster died in that one but what the hell, he's the most fun to draw of the three. Terry is usually the more quiet, laid back of them but even he will have his moments in City Silent. Howard, too is from Tamino and has stepped up to a larger part. The comic will change in act 2 mostly as I will have to introduce word balloons (gasp). The mice will all be singing aloud, not thinking as Silas does. It will change the aesthetic in a way I hope will add more feeling of graffiti to the comic.

One click. I turned off the layer with all the lines and wrinkles in it and, to me, it makes the piece stronger with that omission. There's a slight loss of expression or character, but it still reads as Adam to me, there's still the smile but there's less clutter. This happens a lot with me. I have this love of line but with this style, it's all about the shapes and the colors. Well, I only have me to please so there you go.

New portrait. I've been watching Adam Savage on "Mythbusters" for years and always generally liked him. Since he's been on his own, making videos about making things, about other people making things and just generally showing his passions for things, I've found myself liking him more and more. He's so animated it's damned hard to choose one single image that might capture something of him. I took a lot of still frame screen shots. I like these things to be simple, so while I thought about making multiple images in one portrait as a kind of cubist animation, in the end, I went with my first instincts. Might tinker with it a bit or I might leave it be. I got some of his boyish smile which is important. Used a Dutch Masters sort of palette, partially as I really like the browns. I'm fairly happy with it.

 Just a last post to show the paintings of myself and my partner side by side. Of course mine is bigger because HUGE EGO...or really just different planning. I think his is better. Still, I like seeing them together. I think I like the roughness of my partner's better, so that's something to learn from. As long as I learn something.

Finished this tonight. It's obvious that the image was drawn a long while back, about 8 inches of hair ago. I also shaved. I wanted an image with me in it to show scale. I'm pretty happy with it. I think the size has a lot to do with this as there's impact because of it. Might actually try one of these with cut paper at some point. Might not. Still, a good experiment, I think. Acrylic on canvas. 

Progress, but not finished. I did one thing that made a huge difference; I took it off the wall and placed it on a table to be able to move it around and get to the edges more easily. I have to fix the mouth as it's too dark and do a second coat of the hair. Otherwise, I think it's coming out pretty well.

 

Some progress. Decided to fix the problems with registration. Hope to finish this today. 

A little progress today but the registration was off for the sweater which is weird. I'm not sure I'm going to fix it. This would not be the final painting per se if I were doing a show as the canvas is too small. I just wanted to paint. 

Sure enough, I'm taking the last one to paint. I don't really have enough canvas to cover this but what the hell. I'll make it fit. It'll never hang anywhere so I don't have to worry so much. It will be a kind of pair to the one I did of my partner. Roughly 24x30. 

Slept on it feeling that the other version was too pink. When I woke up this morning, I felt the same way. Knowing that I like browns the way I do, I did a search for a swatch of burnt sienna and based the whole palette on just that color. This is the result and I will likely take this to paint. 

Sort of cheating on this. I was looking at the painting I did of my partner recently, done from one of the 'cut paper' series of digital portraits and I wondered about the one I did of myself. The original version was just the lined version with the line layer turned off, something I do a lot to amuse myself.  What my partner's portrait had going for it, I thought, was the VERY tight palette; four colors. The version I posted was all over the place. So I went back and played with what I had and managed to get this down to five. it think it works a lot better than the earlier version. It's very pink but so am I. This would also work as a large painting and perhaps it will be my next.

Got a costume in the mail today to help me with the skater mice, Smatt in particular. Was thinking about British 'gangsters' the other day, and how they seem to like the matching track suit 'style.' Personally, I think it looks terrible but it's the right kind of terrible for these guys, I think. So Smatt/I now own what I call an "Oik Suit," oik being a term Brits seem to use for someone they dislike/idiot/jerk/etc. Smatt is indeed an oik. 

Morning workout, self portrait style. Been wanting to do one with my currently crazy hair for awhile. No reason not to do one today. Pencil sketch first, Procreate after and Affinity Designer for the finish. Blue and brown is my favorite color combination. Also been re-watching Portrait and Landscape Artist of the year, so I've been in the mood. I really wonder how well this style would stand up to that kind of competition. I wouldn't win, but it would be fun to try. 

A selection of the sketches used to make some of the Drawtober images. I'm trying to loosen up my drawing. To that end, I'm erasing a lot less and trying not to go over lines too much, either. This leaves more to do in the inking stage but that retains some of the energy, I think. Messy because I'm drawing on both sides of the page.