Pollinating the Blog... With ART!

I update the blog once in a while, just to see if it still sprouts viewers. Surveying the stats, it appears that 5-20 bots look at the blog every day. Once every month or two I'll get a few of days of 200-300 hits as a few people look around after I've posted artwork somewhere else.

There is much more activity when I post regularly, but I haven't done that in a long time. After I make a new post – and get a small charge from seeing my artwork up here on the internet gallery wall – I often feel inspired to make more; and that feeling fueled the frenzy of posts I made in the early years of this blogspot endeavor. I still get that feeling even now, but it has been dulled by the fall of the community that used to revolve around blogspot and by the understandable 14-year itch.

I drew these on my iPad in Clip Studio Paint. Four of the heads were referenced from random portraits
found on the internet, but I discarded the reference after I roughed in the features. The rest I free-styled.

I've mentioned this many times before but I often worry that my working life and the ennui that settles upon most of us as we grow older has dulled the joy of making art for pleasure. When I manage to make the time to draw, I enjoy dragging the pencil across the paper – I don't much care if the result is any good, I'm there for the experience and the thrill of the moment. The drawing itself usually underwhelms me but I feel better for having done it.

So, here are some underwhelming doodles sprinkled upon the dry soil of the blog. Perhaps some viewers will appear, and perhaps more art.

The End

Random Heads

Head sketches based on mugshots found on the innernetz. Used one those floppy brush pens that gush, dry out, gush, dry out. Hard to tell what you're going to get from beginning to end of each stroke. Great Fun! If that's your idea of fun. (I hate it.)

The End

More Head Sketches, Screen Captured!

Goofing around with Photoshop, Premiere, iMovie, GarageBand and the YouTubes. Whole lotta For Dummies manual-reading going on around here.

It was fun to do this but there was a really crappy lag while filming. (Videoing?) Not great drawings but, of course, I got nervous because I always do when somebody might be watching. I got through it. Hope to do more silly stuff like this.

Heads. More Heads.

Some more little head drawings. All of these were improvised, no reference.

Kind of a cheat to keep the blogposts flowing by posting half-arsed scribbles but it's inspiring me to get the lead out and start drawing in my free time. I'm usually so burnt out from work that it's hard to persuade myself to assume my working pose after having been there for 8, 9, 10 hours already. But I'm enjoying it. Still have to take lots of breaks and I should exercise, too, but it's fun enough that I'm starting to look forward to it!

Some More Little Head Drawings

Here's another quick batch of head doodles, just to fill the spot for this week. I image-searched for head profiles and drew about half of these from reference, but without trying to recreate the source images; I just riffed on the pictures. Then I doodled the rest out of my head, freestyle.

Drawing comitted in Photoshop.

Still trying to find time and build momentum for doing some comics projects. Hm. I've typed that a few times over the past ten years...

The End 

Some Head Doodles

I haven't done much lately, so I whipped up a few quick head scribbles.

Drawn in Photoshop!

I'm trying to find extra time for personal work, and I have a comics project I'm really hoping to get to. With luck and determination, I aim to have some substantial output to share here. If not, I'll doodle more heads or some other slightly lame thing...

Head Sketchbook Project Staggers Along

I'm determined to finish my heads sketchbook project, and this is the second post since it's latest revival,* but it's clear that the blog can fill up with an annoying run of head sketches in a hurry if I continue to update in this fashion. I'm not sure how I'll handle it from here on. Possibly I'll wait until I get 16 or 20 drawings before posting them.

I'll worry about it later. Here's the latest batch. Random heads off the Internet! Drawn with an assortment of pens.

Gauri: I did a little pencil shading with an old 6B. I found an old set of watercolor pencils and took a chance, coloring in the square around her head. I applied a little water but the pencil refused to melt into watercolor like it should. The pencil set is probably 20+ years old so maybe they have a shelf date.

Ezra & Ezra: Started each of them left handed, switched back to right after total frustration set in.

The End.

See two posts back for that story.

Let Us Finish This Damned Thing!

In early 2008 I bought a small sketchbook intending to fill it with head studies. I misplaced it after several months and two or three dozen drawings. A year passed. In late 2009 I rediscovered the book, promptly drew one head (very poorly) and placed it on a high shelf in the closet. The world whisked around the sun a time or two.

In 2011 the book came out from hiding and – again – I drew a single head. It was better than 2009's solitary effort but not by much. I must have been discouraged. The book settled back in the closet, out of plain sight and easy reach. Like Van Winkle's eyelids, the cover shut and did not open for a very long time.

In 2015, February marked yet another rediscovery. The tiny sketchbook had completely fallen from memory and was such a surprise that it prompted a blog-post where I spouted off about how this time I would see it through to the end; but a measly four drawings were all that I generated, two of which appear here. March contributed one half-assed effort – that would be Jon. Jon wouldn't be joined by Arlene until June but she was followed quickly by three Contessas.

Today, ten months later, the book is back in play. Wilhelmina was drawn this morning. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book.

Enough! I'm not putting it back in the closet. I'll never learn to draw at this pace.

Let us finish this damned thing.