I can’t remember where this line came from. It was in a story I read a decade or so ago and it was something like.

“He picked up the book and his eyes automatically started to glaze over, but the impulse to master the material was stronger.”

I don’t know, I’m just feeling that right now.

I’m battling my impatience because what I want to do takes time. I need to put in the work. I can’t just blitz through it and it’ll be done. We’re talking months rather than weeks, probably more like a year or more.

But I want to do it.

I need to think about how to manage it. Maybe I need to schedule my time a little better. Decide on how much I’m doing per day, or what I want to achieve, or maybe a little of both.

I think I also need to continue with my own personal projects as well. Like I had sort of thought to myself that there are these drawings I want to do of Seven and Raffi, I had thought that I would wait to do them until I had more skill – buuuuuut if it takes a year I don’t want to wait that long. I want to do my drawings of them NOW while I’m super passionate about it.

Time. That’s what it comes down to, finding the time and finding the balance. I don’t like to choose, I like to do everything, and I don’t like to admit that’s maybe not possible. Frustrating. But something to think about.

The problem with having started attempting to do art again is now I want to DRAW ALL THE THINGS!! Buuuuut I don’t have the skills or the time.

I mean I’m still trying to also WRITE ALL THE THINGS!! So that’s a problem.

Thus far I’ve been trying to do an hour of art everyday, 1000+ words everyday + an hour of some kind of ‘writing improvement’ exercise. Plus sometimes throw some luddite words in there too.

For the art I’m following the Coloured Pencil course I got last summer and didn’t really start due to panic attacks. It’s important I go through the course to learn the things, and I need to do it properly and not just rush through impatiently. I need to do each exercise and not just skip to trying to apply it to my own projects. Buuuuuut I wanna draw things!

Seriously I have these ideas in my head that I want to manifest into reality but my skills aren’t good enough. Maybe in time I’ll get there but now I’m just a ball of frustration.

I want to draw a Seven/Raffi comic scene

Are my skills up to it? No.

Do I have time? No.

Am I gonna do it anyway? Probably.

I will put some thought into composition and try and keep the number of panels to a minimum or I’ll never finish it.

Now I could try and do it another way. I could write the thing but for what it is, in my mind it needs the visual punch. I could try and do a gifset, though screen recording is not my strong suit, but then I will be limited to what scenes I can splice together. Drawing means I can produce exactly what I want… right up until the moment my skills go naaaah.

I will think on it!

There are so many things that I’m not happy about with that Seven/Raffi drawing I posted this morning 🙁

I posted it because basically it’s the best I can do – at the moment – and it’s this ‘at the moment’ that I need to try and bear in mind. So yeah, an attempt was made I think is the tag I used.

Last summer I signed up for a Coloured Pencil drawing course as I thought that would give me some fundamentals. I haven’t got that far into it yet as I kept having panic attacks when I thought about drawing. Last week I picked it up again and I’m trying to do an hour of Art a day. That was intended to be the course but I got a bit side-tracked with attempting this Seven/Raffi drawing.

Anyway, my point is maybe this Coloured Pencil course will help me with some stuff, maybe it won’t translate to digital at all – I don’t know yet! BUT what I do know is when I have finished it, there’s 5 different courses I’m contemplating on Udemy.

I know I have a lot to learn. I know the Seven/Raffi drawing sucked for sooooo many reasons. I’m already embarrassed about sharing it, and then I think about what I posted several years ago – that was loads worse!! So I guess that means I’ve improved, which means hopefully I’ll be able to improve again in future.

That improvement can’t come fast enough. I’m always so impatient :/

Feeling more positive this evening about finishing my March drawing in time. I finished off the line art and started block colouring and it’s amazing the leap forward that makes. There’s still a long way to go but it looks more like it is coming together I guess.

I’m going to try doing the hair a bit differently than I have been. The way I have been doing it last few drawings is light years better than my embarrassing first attempts (seriously I’m mortified that I put those on the internet) but it’s still not part of a consistent style. I need to go for realism or comic – not in between.

I’ve also done some more research into lighting. I struggle with getting my shading because there’s the contours of the face right, and so I mark those out but the shadows/highlights obviously change dependant on the light source. Then there’s the battle of likeness as obviously I want the people in the drawing to look like they are supposed to. I think the key to that is mostly proportion. I have done some practicing with pencil lately but thats a different style again. It’s hard.

Still I guess by noticing and thinking about it maybe that means I’m learning? On my goals for the year I put “choose an art style” and this is working towards that. I have 9 more months so minimum of 9 more drawings this year to confirm that. I signed up for a video class on pencil art and I need to find the time to work on that. Techniques are obviously different depending on medium but core principles apply across method. Hopefully anyway!

Finally started my March drawing.

I had gathered references but nothing else and suddenly panicked as I realised there was only two weeks left in the month. How does that happen to me every time?

Anyway I started it and it wasn’t going great but I had a beginning.

Then Clip Studio Paint crashed.

I had saved it but it corrupted and the file is unrecoverable. I’m pissed off. I have a particular hatred for having to redo things. So I walked away from it. Which means I’m no further forward and another day has gone.

Ugh.

Got some more nice comments on today’s Sketch of the Day though. Used my new drawing pencils which have a greater value range. It looked ok. Not great. It didn’t have that wonderful artistic look that some people’s art has but maybe I’ll get there one day. I doubt it but I can dream.

As for my digital drawing I will try again tomorrow /sigh.

Got a comment on my Sketch a Day this morning. The prompt was ‘chilli’ so I drew two peppers. The person said “wow they look real, what make of pencils do you use?” and I promptly fell over.

a) I didn’t think it was that good

b) that’s the kind of thing I say to other people. It’s the kind of envy born of admiration because damn they made a good thing and I want to know how to do that!

so WHY THE HELL DID SOMEONE SAY THAT TO ME???

Yes, ok maybe, they didn’t mean it how I would mean it. I’m not in their head, I don’t know what they were thinking. But *staggers back and falls over* because ??? I am legitimately reeling. It was a nice comment regardless.

I suppose when I look at anything I do I only see how far I have to go. I see what’s wrong with it. I see how displeased I am as it doesn’t yet look how I’d like. I guess other people might not see it that way. I only see the flaws, they can maybe see that it has some good points.

But yeah *shakes head* I’m a little bit stunned.

Hmm the more I look at that sketch of Nikola, the more I see that is wrong with it /facepalm. You see this is why at the end of the day I prefer digital.

I get a kick out of doing art with pencils these days because I never thought I could. Producing something by hand, just from making marks on paper, blows my mind. I was the kid that always failed art class. I didn’t get on with a single art teacher I ever had. I found the entire experience frustrating and humiliating. So I like trying to draw by hand, feels a little bit like looking back a couple of decades and sticking my tongue out at all the teachers who didn’t think I had it in me.

Anyway, digital has some major advantages. With digital if there are lines that aren’t quite right you can move them, without having to rub everything out and start again. So looking at that drawing I’m thinking I need to shorten the nose and move it slightly to the left, maybe warp it slightly. The hairline on the right needs to drop down a bit etc. etc.

It’s not terrible but it’s not perfect either. When I draw I still see the lines and try and copy those. From googling I know I should break it down into basic shapes. Apparently that’s better for getting proportions more accurate.

I need to work on my pencil control. I don’t get very good highlights as I overly smudge. I think I also need to do some studies of specific elements like hair. How to draw different materials is still a mystery to me. I need to investigate that and practice so I know how to render metal, fabric, skin etc. I have a lot to learn.