aptly named season

Man, they ain't kidding about busy season this year.  I hit my 40 hours Thursday night.  The CPAs were on mandatory 55s (55 hrs/week) and I probably am just under that this week.  I didn't even finish all my stuff today but my team said I could save some stuff for Monday cos they saw the beast of a return I was doing for another gal upstairs.  I'm pretty sure she knew what kind of shitshow she was sending me when she did it; federal and five states, each with K-1s, none of which had filing instructions, addresses, or had ever been done before so it was all from friggin scratch.  It was also for one of our larger clients so they get special treatment, meaning more work for me.  The whole thing took me a good hour and a half, two hours.  I can usually churn out a return in half an hour or less if it's a straight-shot.  It was a bear.  A stinky, rabid bear with dingleberries.  I'm off tomorrow though.  We're not on both days for weekends just yet, thankfully.  

I've got three netflix movies to take in this weekend (Once, Ghost World, and The Science of Sleep) while I pad around the house and paint my toenails for the first time this year.  My feet need some damn attention; they look terrible.  I bought 3 pairs of shoes yesterday, one work pair and two pair of sandals, and I couldn't wear the sandals to work today because I have hooker feet right now.  

If anyone is interested in a Pinterest account, I have invites available.  Just comment with a valid email address (I don't think they show up to anyone but me) and I'll send it over.  I think you might have to tie it in with a twitter or facebook account, but there may be a way around it.  I'll just send it over and you can figure out what you'd prefer to do.  I find it such a fascinating site!  It's just a grab bag of really cool ideas!  (Mom, that's where I found the purse I sent you this morning.)  I've got a lot of different boards going on there for various categories.  My favourite so far is my "Note to Self" category (cool prints of awesome quotes) but my "Wear" category (clothes/accessories/shoes) is also delicious and filled with vintage Dior.  

Chicken lasagna (thanks Mom!) just dinged.  I'ma grub and watch Once.  And draw.  I feel like I haven't drawn in ages, when I know it's only been a few days.  But ugh, I'm used to drawing every night--I start to get twitchy when I can't get the pencil to the paper every night!  Hope everyone's doing well!

9 more minutes....

Half day at work today.  The sound you hear is that of angels singing.  For some reason, I always get way more done when I have a half day at work over when I take the whole day off.  So I expect to go home and get to getting with the completion of holiday shit.  The gifts I ordered that were promised before Christmas actually arrived last night; faster than I expected so I'ma give a shout out to Ideeli and Amazon for that miracle.  I also think my UPS man deserves a shout as he has discovered the hidden cubby in the nightstand next to the front door and now leaves my packages there, which was my intention when I put it out there.  (Note to self:  paint that thing.  It's horrible, F.)  The Fed Ex guy still throws them over my back porch.  That's fine too, I guess, but it's easier to just toss 'em in the cubby if you're already knocking on the damn door that it's next to.

The perpetual nose-sparkles have subsided, but now I get the morning snorty snot fest.  I still don't feel terrible, so I'm just going to accept this mucus factory in my face for the time being.  It's better than the plague I usually get.  Though in fairness, I must attribute the nose-sparkle term to Royann.  She's the one I heard it from first.  A perfect description, but alas, not mine to claim. 

I'm drawing a photo of my friend Amanda right now.  It's daunting to do the faces of people I know.  I don't mind working on my face, cos if I screw it up, it's my own face.  Working on Amanda's though, I fear not getting it right.  Last night, I was cleaning up some lines, replotting some proportions, and I finally had to stop because the drawing was starting to look more like me than Amanda.  Maybe I'm projecting because I'd like to look like Amanda, or maybe my hand was just going to what's familiar.  In any case, I'll work on it more over this weekend to see if I can capture her correctly.

I also have a stack of photos from Shannon's flickr stream that I want to replicate.  I asked her a while back if she was okay with me using her as a muse and she agreed to it; she sends me high res images if I need them.  It's nice to have that explicit permission, especially when her photostream is so rife with awesome images to draw!  I have a small one of her that I've plotted out and need to fill in the detail.  It's also a face shot and I hope I can do her justice as well. 

The other night, I got around to putting my drawings in sleeve protectors in a binder, in sequential order.  I'd like to go back even further, print out a few images of my drawing pre-workshop with Mark so there's a frame of reference.  Even just the first couple drawings in there, it's mind boggling to me to see that progress.  I hold fast that it's mainly patience.  I have the patience to sit and plot everything out, to draw, erase, draw, erase, draw, erase, and draw until it comes out right.  It's a zen thing for me.  I think anyone could do it, so long as they have the patience to measure, plot, draw, edit, erase, plot, draw, lather, rinse, and repeat.

Also, it's the end of the year again.  I need to sit down and put together my list of yearly revelations.  Screw a bunch of resolutions at the beginning of the year.  I prefer revelations at the end.  Much more satisfying.  I invite everyone else to join me in the shunning of resolutions. 

Happy holiday of your choice!

sketchy

A handful of people at work (aka: The Baconry, as that’s where I earn my bacon) knew my plans for my birthday weekend, that I was taking an art workshop. Most of them have asked how it went, if it helped, if I learned good stuff. Since returning, I’ve kept my sketchbook with me so I can draw on my lunches, so all it takes is one little flip of the cover of that to show that the weekend was absolutely invaluable to me. While I’m still going to chronicle the workshop here (with photos to boot!), I thought I’d also post a little bit of my progression beforehand.

When I started really trying to sketch things, rather than my usual abstractions and shapes, I mainly went for what I referred to as the shaky-hand method. Instead of drawing a line in one continuous motion, I’d do lots of little lines and hatch marks as I went along. (I’ve since learned that this is actually called “noodling.”) The results were messy, as to be expected. Example:

I got the pose relatively okay in that sketch, but I didn’t really do the hands because hands are intimidating to me. I believe this may have been the sketch I sent Mark with the comment that hands scare me; the catalyst that prompted him change our workshop from painting to drawing. (Thank the stars I did that!!) This is an example of “gestural” drawing--starting with a shape and kinda fleshing out from there. It’s not precise but I suppose once you get used to it, there are ways to become more precise. I had no idea what I was doing so that was never really a factor for me.

When I found photos I liked, with people in poses I wanted to recreate, I often times would print out the photo and trace it so that my hand could get the feel for the shapes. I have no issue with this and I don’t find it cheating. I didn’t use my tracings as final drawings; I did them so I could have an idea of what it felt like physically to draw the shapes necessary to compile the poses. It’s hard to explain without sounding a little batty but there’s something to a familiar feeling when drawing. For example:

That particular sketch isn’t from tracing but it’s one that I have traced and drawn in many incarnations before. Because my hand is so familiar with the shapes, I can draw it without looking at anything as a base--it’s just a learned response. This is handy when I know I need to reproduce something on grand scale, like my Via Colori squares. I don’t always get everything tip-top perfect, but they’re close enough that I can look at them and not snort.

Eyes have always fascinated me, so I decided I wanted to learn how to draw them. I knew that tracing wouldn’t really work--eyes are too intricate for that. I decided to start focusing on the shapes within the eye itself and draw those out. I also tried to get into shading and highlighting a bit to make them more realistic. My first attempt at this came out far better than I’d hoped, both because it was my first attempt and because I drew it at a bar on a busy Friday night.

I also sent this one to Mark and he said this sketch is where he saw that I was starting to “get it” in terms of drawing realistically. I agree, as this is the first one I drew that actually came out somewhat realistically, but to have a bona fide artist tell me that was a huge relief.

The method of drawing that Mark taught me is more the classical style over the gestural. It involves a lot of lines and points and such. It’s somewhat like an artistic take on geometry and physics--point plotting and connecting vectors. But more importantly, it makes sense. I don’t understand why it isn’t taught universally; it would have made my life so much easier had I learned this way of drawing as a child. Hell, I’d have done better in geometry and physics and not spent years and years convinced I had no drawing talent whatsoever. I think there are people out there who have a natural gift for drawing, but I also now believe that anyone can draw well if only the effort is put into the process. I think I’m proof of this. Look up at that gestural drawing again. And then check this out:

It’s not finished and I already know it’s not precise and dead on, but for my first attempt at this image plate, I’m still proud of it. (I’ve decided to finish it, to spite its imperfections, as I can use the shading practice.) This is the first thing I’ve drawn without Mark at my side, telling me specifically what to do. It’s the first thing I’ve drawn using his methods. I think the results speak for themselves.