I’m not late, I’m just being silent for a moment…

Buy that?

No, I wouldn’t either.

Anyway, here is the picture. The explanation follows soon after…

Now you might be thinking “How the did you get that from ‘And then there followed a moments silence?’”

It’s a fair question. It’s a good question.

The answer is “Well, you see, I totally buggered it up…”

So allowing for that one small thing, it works perfectly.

See, after all my notes from training that I shared with you (see previous 5 posts, I can’t be bothered linking to them all) I was actually enjoying the random pattern phase I was going through. Although I realised that I always worked the same way, which is to divide up a bit of the spare page and if possible fill up not only all the available space, but the whole page.

I was trying to work out if there was a way I could ad more movement and fluidity to the style. I figure I try it for this Monday Project, the shape, with it’s patterns and movement would be noise, and I wanted it to get thinner and circling a white space that represents the silence.

Oh, you’ve noticed the lack of ‘circles of white space representing silence’?

That a big part of where I went wrong. I’ve been putting off posting it, because I was trying to work out if I could fix it. I haven’t yet and am now willing to admit defeat!

Next time, Monday Project. Next time.

….

P.S. OK, time after next, Monday Project. Time after next.

Training day, revisited

So I had to do 2 and a half more days of training. But this time at least, it was relevant to what I actually do…

Sort of.

Kinda…

In theroy!

Anyway, I did actually have to take notes this time around, so here is just a selection of parts of my note book…

Training. Day 4.

Yeap…

Training. Day three.

Todays notes aren’t very good… I’m worried I’m going to be doodled out before the end of the week!

PS. I worked out my scanner enough to turn off the high contrast it was set to. I’m happy about that!

PPS. Yay!

PPPS. I really need to go to bed…

Training. Day Two.

It’s not getting any better….

Training. Day One.

The sum total of what I did today;

It’s gonna be a long week.

PS. I’m going to write about what a great time I had on Saturday, but only if I survive through to next week…

PPS. Don’t ask me what that is in the top right corner. I don’t know.

I really, really don’t know…

I may, or may not, break the universe….

Ok, so I’ve had an unintentional break from blogging.

If it wasn’t for two things, I’d tell you what I’ve been doing. Those reasons are;

1.    I haven’t done anything that interesting
2.    I’m more focused on next week.

Basically, the company for which I work is having a major software upgrade and I have to do some training for it. The problem is next week, I have to do a 5 day ‘generic’ training session for my department, which covers all the different roles in my department.

The problem is, as I’ve mentioned before, I work in a support role for my department, and actually all the work I do is the same as a completely different department.

So I’ve got to do training for something that is completely irrelevant and I will never use it. I tried to get out of it, but management has decided that it would be good if everyone know what everyone else does. Oh, did I mention that in this training, the work that I do isn’t mentioned once? So I can only believe other people knowing what I do would be ‘bad.’ [~Actually, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to that viewpoint.]

Even better, the following week I have the training for, y’know, the job I actually do. It’s two days shorter than this generic irrelevant one.

I have grave fears that I will actually be bored to death.

Today I’ve been telling anyone that’s asked me for help that I’ll only provide it if they build me a time machine so I can skip next week. Although I’m getting discouraged by the lack of progress.

Btw, I’ve been told if I miss even just half a day, I have to repeat the whole 5 days again. So the plan is to use the time machine to travel travel past next week to turn up in a time period after I’ve died from extreme exposure to boredom and continue my life.

I don’t know if that is going to create one of those paradoxes that will destroy the universe, but I’m willing to risk it.

P.S. On an unrelated note; Safety in Art is on tomorrow. I’m gonna be there as I’d advise all creative types to be. The Monday Project is going to be running a theme so I’ll probably be drawing away in a corner somewhere.

Go to it. It will be a great way to spend a Saturday before I break the universe.

A box of sunshine

OK, I know I’ve been slack and/or quiet. I don’t have a real reason, but that normally wouldn’t keep me from babbling on for three paragraphs to try to convince you otherwise.

However, the post is about my Monday Project submission.

Normally, I’d say “here is the picture, read after for the explanation’ but since I took this months theme rather literally it doesn’t really seem to need a lot of explanation.

Plus, y’know. I’m drunk…

So here is this pic. I’m hoping to do more posts this later this week…. So don’t say I haven’t warn you!

Quick question…

OK, I was around at ‘a simple tune’s’ place the other day.

She had her guitar on her bed as she was cleaning up the place and I was walking past I had the thought;

“Heh, that guitar looks like it’s sleeping!’

Then I thought, ‘I wonder what a guitar would dream about?’

Then I wondered ‘Is this a normal thing to think about?’

So my question is; is that the right order for a chain of thought? Or should the ‘normal’ question happen earlier on in the process?

I wonder about these things…

Monday Project Bravery…

Yeah…. See here is where I normally see the latest pic for my Monday Project submission.

And here is where you’re going to be disappointed….

[note; I’m not expecting Soph or Kate to turn up at my doorstop holding lead pipes saying things like “so, we understand you’re a little behind on your Monday Project submissions..”, This is more a little rant about the disappointment in myself, for not getting something together in time.]

Alrighty, this is how it went…

Honestly, I drew a complete blank on bravery. What people want to read that into me, I leave that up to the amateur physiatrists out there…

Then I was working on this picture, for a friends story. I had this whole image worked out in my head. Then I had the idea, since the story had to do with water, what I’d do, is trying to draw a complete picture the submerge a corner in water, to see what kind of effect that it would give. The bravery part being the fact I was willing to risk a drawing on the chance the effect would turn out how I wanted.

But, there was a problem, I had an idea of a more ‘subtle’ picture for another picture. Which in some ways would require less work and stand out less. I found I was more attracted to this idea, simply because, it suited the story more. But I had my own motivations for this drawing… more on this after the next two paragraphs…

So then I had a second idea, which was sort of similar to this cartoon from tom tomorrow. (Who personally I think is a fantastic cartoonist. This is from his series of  American political cartoons (here is one of my favourites). He also blogs here and has a children’s book which you can see bits of here.)

But I could get beyond the first draft and when the weekend came around I just didn’t have time to put it together…  So long story short; “I got nuthin’”

Anyway the big realisation I had was this. I want to show off my drawings more.

I have known this in a way for a while now. But this made me acknowledge how much I’m really feeling this. My family and friends have been incredibly supportive through out my whole life…  but I want to go further with it. I want to see what I can do with it in terms of a larger audience.

So I’m admitting it, that’s part one of my brave things.

Part two is this. I know I don’t have a lot readers on this blog, but I’m going to be brave and say this.

If you write and are interested in having a story illustrated, drop me a line.

If you are another artist, what ever your medium, drop me a line.

If you are neither of these, but feel like you are someone interested in being called on, to use as model or similar, drop me a line.

I can’t guarantee what the results will be. It will all depend on time, my goals/your goals and the amount of beer that needs to be drunk. However, I’ll do my best to reply to all emails, just give me a couple of days.

Email me at “mrsketchy[at]y7mail.com”

P.S. I’m going to leave it up to Soph and Kate if a post about why I didn’t get a submission in, counts as a submission. I think it’s a bit of a paradox and, in my generously, pass the whole problem up to them.

P.P.S. Honestly, If it were up to me, I wouldn’t…