Came across this color scheme by accident and now I can't decide which version I like better. Think I'll show it to the unwitting model and see what he thinks.

It may not look it, but I spent a few hours on this today. There were things that just weren't working, one big thing I got very wrong and a lot of details to work on. As it is, I think I'll wait overnight but that the tonal version of this is finished. What I'm going to do with the colors remains to be seen.

 

 Started another portrait of Ian today. He has an amazingly hard face to get right. While I like where this is at, the likeness just isn't there. I'm being a lot more painterly with it, still trying to keep the palette down as far as possible. More work is needed, lots more fiddling. But his was my favorite portrait done of last year, so let's push ourselves a bit.

 Saw someone online offering a very quick exercise; draw what you're wearing right now but only take five minutes. So I did it. Amazingly loose but I think it works ok for what it is. And it's good to try to do things without so much planning, depending on observation and quick decisions. Might do more of these.

 Forgot to post this yesterday, which is when I got it done. Trying to get some more wild and emotion based figures in the section and managed to do so here. The text mostly works but I can see how it could be misread. Page works great with the ones before it. Already have ideas for things I need to do in later pages, so this track is coming together well. At least to me. It's not popular in social media but that's also part of the point of this track; Silas really likes what he's doing but it won't go over well with the other taggers.

 Managed to get this done tonight...twice. I posted it, made a post here about it and only later realized I'd done the same lyrics twice. Oops. Wasn't too hard to fix it, another benefit of working in separates and NOT drawing things all out on one page.

Sometimes I upload before I think enough about what I just made. This was one of those times. I needed the sleeping figure of Silas to do more than just disappear. The movement wasn't making sense. I easily rectified that by dropping the opacity in the middle two pages. Updated them on Flickr. NOW I can move on.

 

Had a little spurt of activity today, which is good. I wanted a little movement between verses and I wanted to add a little to the dreamy quality, which I think I did. The colors are damned bright and likely wouldn't print but hey, it might never come to print so I might as well continue as I do.
 

 Well, that didn't last long. The self portrait I did at the end of the year was outside my usual process in that I held the pencil way far back and let myself be a lot less precise with it. The one I did yesterday was back to my old approach. I was at the dealership having my car worked on and had my iPad and thought, well, I have the sketch, why not just have another go? And I did. And I think I like it better than the original. It's more painterly and may have more feeling to it. I tried it in blue then went back to the old Dutch palette and liked it better. So, hey. Two images from one sketch. Wasn't the first time, won't be the last.

 

Finished this today. The grey tones didn't take too long but the colors went through three versions. I was trying initially for something with a lot more wild colors but it wasn't quite jelling for me. So I made a duplicate and colored it more traditionally. Boring. Then I started working with monotones, tried one in pinks that almost worked but finally chose the blues. The reference photo was taken while waiting for a movie to start so I thought I could give the feeling of actually watching something on the screen with the blues. So, here it is, first self portrait of the year. Likely there will be many to come.

 I will sometimes take photos hoping that I will use them later for work. This is one of them. Or at least it's a sketch based on one. I took it at my favorite theater, The Brattle, while waiting for a movie to start. We'll see how it goes from here but it's freehand, no grid, no nothing. I even flipped it to make sure, and I'm pretty happy with it. Sometimes I think I draw better than I think I can. Or I just got lucky.

 Been sick the last three days. It's that time of year. Seems I always get sick this time of year. I think it's the holidays and the stress. Today, I managed to get a page done and that's always something. So, here's to moving on through the new year.

 And one more for the day. I think the movement is really working for me in this sequence. Thanks, Gene Kelly!

 And...page 206. This sequence will be a good deal easier to do as it's a dream sequence, sort of and as such takes place in a pink void. This is good as I need some forward movement.

 So 2025 starts off with a big correction. I hope that's not a sign of the coming year. I didn't realize I'd got the track name wrong, that I'd skipped a song when starting this out. Luckily, because of the way I work, I didn't have redo whole pages' worth of stuff, I only had to redo the text. On the downside, sometimes I'm too clever for my own good and I have to try and reverse-engineer what the hell I did in the first place so I can recreate the original results. Took me off project, working on the NEW page but it had to be done sooner than later, so...it's done. Moving on. Page later today.