bleeding pages

30 of 365, originally uploaded by galendara.

Just now I added that gash on the left-hand side of this work in progress page. Bleeding pages. (Because Brandilion said so yesterday :))

Truth be told, while my pages have sustained many_wounds_before, I am not feeling all that cut up at the moment (thank the elder gods). In fact, today I have spent the afternoon up to my elbows in green fabric, creating fun squishy organic thingies (something a tiny bit like this.) (Maybe pics will be forthcoming. We'll see if they turn out.)

So it was kind of an odd shift to put a gash on this page just now. BUT... I did need something easy to use as my drawing of the day, and I am so very adapt at bleeding_stabbing_wounds. So.. there you go.

(What? Morbid? Me???? Never. :P)

drawing and writing

21 of 365, originally uploaded by galendara.

an experiment...

At the beginning of this year I changed how I used this book. I stopped doing individual little drawings tucked into available space and began instead to turn these pages into work-in-progress art pieces.

And when that happened, I found I stopped writing on them.

But the fact remains that I very much depend upon these pages to be a place where I can write it all out too.

So I'm going to try writing the things I need to write on the pieces of the tracing paper I keep a stashed in the little pouch at the back of the book, [[i love you moleskin]] and then folding and gluing them into the pages here.

To become part of the larger piece of the whole page while remaining accessible for when my need to go back and obsess crops up.

We'll see.
Next month, I may totally change it up again.

paper parkour

have I mentioned I like animation?
I've been doing little drawings on folded pieces of paper lately and so a friend of mine showed me this:


::swoon!::
Cool Paper Parkour Animation - Watch more Funny Videos

a begining

The other evening, inspired by a friend who's doing some cleaning, I tackled the bookshelf in my studio and did some organizing. Hence, I stumbled upon the sketchbook I got a few years ago for the express purpose of writing/drawing out my first graphic novel.

At that point, it had been a while since I had drawn much on a regular basis.
It was discouraging for a while.
But it was a place to start. That, at least, was something.

Eventually, I started piecing together the ideas. It was not quite the story I originally had in mind, but it was a start.

More piecing together became Being Born for the Sunstone comic edition. Again, it was not the story I originally had been telling myself in my head (by this time I was starting to recognize I had a few things to learn about story telling). But it was a start.

Currently, that little story is on the back shelf again as I am hard at work fleshing out the final panels for a comic that John wrote which was accepted into the Monsters and Mormons anthology.

But eventually, sometime, I'd like to brush off the original idea of an outrageous first-woman archetype who lives in a house made from rib bones, takes swords away from angels and hangs out with snakes.

Here's the first page from that sketchbook, a beginning that I am still working on:

drawing under drawings

(Warning:: Contains some NSFW images)

This past Christmas I collected a bunch of scrap pieces of paper (mostly white butcher paper and torn brown paper bag stuff) in order to spin out a bunch of little doodles and finish off my draw365 project.
By the end of the day, I had succeeded. But looking at that page of little doodles I knew it was not finished. I HAD to add connective tissue to those doodles, in and out and between; on top of, and under, and around all those separate scraps of paper. So I did.

Here is the page as it is now on the surface, and then as it looks as you lift each consecutive layer of doodles to see what lies beneath. (Like, undressing the drawing.)

(And, sry about the blurriness, something is wonky with my camera's lens ::grimace::)



Of course, looking these pics now I realize I simply must add drawings to the UNDERSIDE of those little doodles!! #amdrawing.

365 days. (Finishing 2010. Looking at 2011)

On Christmas day while hanging out with family, I gathered a bunch of little pieces of scrap paper and spun out a whole bunch of small doodles. For fun. But more especially, to finally wrap up my 2010 draw365 project.

This has been a formative little project for me, begun mostly on a whim back at the beginning of January this year and becoming a pretty important part of my artistic development and artistic opportunity. It's also fascinating to look at a couple of posts I wrote during the year as the project progressed: early on at 31 days in, then at 65 days, and again at 276 days.... Mostly it's a fascinating awareness that I am a much more experienced artist now than I was 365 days ago.

So now I am looking at 2011 and thinking about what sort of 365 project I can do for this year; originally I was thinking that I might change up the emphasis; concentrate specifically on a certain medium, or a certain method, or weak area, etc. but at this exact moment, what I really want to make sure I focus on, is doing something every day. I think it was that sort of flexibility that helped me get through 365 drawings this last year: whether it was a small mixed media painting, or an almost completely digitally created illustration, or pen and pencil wordless comics, or a tiny doodle the size of a postage stamp, or a piece of a larger project, or a drawing on a piece of tea-bag wrapper, or even an experiment in using stuff from my surroundings... I was at least doing something artistically. (Here is the whole set of 365 drawings for 2010.)

I'd like to keep that kind of momentum.

I am excited to see what I can do and where I will go with my art-making over the course of these next 365 days.

Meanwhile, that page that has those 15 little doodles on scrap paper... I am enjoying filling in and around and under with even more doodling and drawing (mildly nsfw). I am really liking how these pages are turning out.
#amdrawing

MORE thoughts on Audience

I'm in the middle of a project that has me feeling my identity crisis and noticing how weak my commercial-art muscles are.

I am supposed to be creating playfully titillating images and instead keep veering off into obscurely disturbing images. (BTW, yes, Matthew Barney is one of my inspirations and don't click on that link unless you are prepared to be a bit disturbed.)

But I'm trying to rein that tendency in. Drawing lots of studies of how other artists do "fun" and "playful" (and, yes, "titillating", Woohoo.) I've been delighted by Erika Moen's boobie drawings, and Jess Fink's dick doodles , and amazing 19th century ukiyo-e prints of Tanuki and their unusually large testicles.

For this particular project, I am also trying to take inspiration from the art of Katsushika Hokusai, Hayao Miyazaki, and Dr Seuss.

(To top it off I have been revisiting various artists from my beloved Anthology of Swedish Alternative Comics, but most of them lean towards disturbing, so it's a really back and forth battle.)

Mostly, I'm trying to keep in mind who the particular audience for this project will be, balance that against what I would do with it if it was purely for my own entertainment, (and meanwhile figure out who the hell my audience is anyways.)

Anyhow. I just had to get that out of my system. Now back to drawing.

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(by way of example and for your viewing entertainment....)
here's a recent page full of sketches as I try to nail anime facial features (fun? Playful?):



and then here's a recent personal piece (obscurely disturbing?):