The Shallow End – November 2021

Hello November!

SHOP UPDATE

In case you missed it, my Etsy shop is open! Check it out here if you haven’t already! So many different kinds of prints are available! Abstracts! Animals! Landscapes! Still life! And more!

And while it feels far to early to be thinking about the holidays, it really kind of isn’t… unfortunately it seems reasonable to probably anticipate delays in most shipping services this year, so my advice is to plan ahead if possible. Not just for my shop, but all of ’em!

My next shop update won’t be until after the holidays. I only have a few new illustrations right now, so I’m focusing mostly on learning new skills and creating more new work. I’ll definitely keep updating on progress, but right now the goal is early January!

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ART

Mosstober is finished! I shared a few of my early favorites on Instagram, but I will be sharing the complete batch of drawings in a sketchbook tour later this month! It was a very interesting challenge — I wanted to focus on kawaii-ish art, which I did. But I also did it exclusively in black and white, which normally the genre is very color focused. I didn’t think about that…which made it extra challenging…and eventually I just kinda lost the plot and well, you’ll see…

My latest webcomic was a seasonal one-panel comic. I loved the poolside Summer comic, so I was really excited to work on one for Fall and Halloween. It didn’t turn out as well as I was hoping, but I’m still overall pleased. I recently picked up a bunch of new brushes and textures from True Grit Texture Supply, and I just HAD to use them, right?! I love the look of classic comics, so trying to bring that into my work was so fun! But I definitely have some practice to do. I’m not used to seeing so much texture in my work, and there was such a learning curve in building tones with CMYK, that I couldn’t handle shading. But it was still a fun experiment and hopefully I’ll get better at it with more practice!

Speaking of practice — for November, I’ve decided to create a new art challenge for myself. Maybe it’s already a thing, I don’t know? But the goal is draw 100 people in 30 days. After doing Mosstober, I realized the sort of gaps I have in my “visual library” (aka things I know how to draw). I know I’ve mentioned it before but I would still like to be able to draw people. An as it turns out, I still haven’t done the work to learn how to draw people, so I still don’t know how to draw people. Go figure.

I mean, I learn how to draw cute little chibi cartoon people this time last year, so I feel pretty comfortable drawing that now. But it’s not always how I want to approach figure drawing, you know? Like, I’m glad I can do it, but I don’t want it to be the only option. I really want to learn how to draw stylized characters, and have been working on that a bit this last month. But it’s hard to stylize a person when I still don’t quite have the fundamentals down. And I refuse to believe that I need to go all in on realism and anatomy. Instead I’m gonna try to brute force this and finally learn the thing in a way that works for me. And then I can go back to learning how to stylize characters successfully — the thing I actually want to be able to do…

How I currently draw + what I want to learn = uuuuuhhhhh….

Sooo, I’ve got a Domestika course on figure drawing from imagination, and another on stylized character design that I just am too impatient to wait to watch. So I’m hoping the combination and a ton of actual pencil to paper practice this month will work! Wish me luck!

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NOT ART

The Halloween movie marathon was a success! We branched out into a lot of different subgenres of horror, and watched a movie nearly every night! Yay!

We also started watching Staged on Hulu. I don’t think I could have watched it any sooner (as it is very much about the pandemic), but I’m so glad we’re watching it now. It is so well done! Absolutely love it!

To enjoy the fall colors at our new house, we took a long road trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway! I learned the East Coast mountains are legit (this is a revelation as someone who grew up much closer to the Rockies). I also learned I am not a photographer. But it was so pretty! The leaves are starting to change now in our backyard too, which is exciting! I’m curious next as to what kind of winter-like season we’ll get in this part of the country (although just more fall is okay too!)

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BOOKS

I’m still reading The Wheel of Time book. In that I keep it on my Kindle and read a chapter every few weeks. That’s the best I can do. I’m determined still…but only kinda.

I did start reading Kings of the Wyld, because I do actually want to read a fantasy story. It’s been on my to-read list for a while, and I started it on an evening I just couldn’t with Eye of the World (Wheel of Time). I’m only a few chapters in, but so far it’s really interesting and I’m actually enjoying it!

I started reading graphic novels again recently too! I finished Paper Girls finally. It’s sooo good, and I think the art and colors may be some of my favorite ever. I started reading them when they came out, but remembered being really confused by Volume 3. This time I read it all together and it wasn’t confusing at all, there’s just a lot that happens in six volumes! But it didn’t feel rushed, and was just so good! Next up is Hellboy that I don’t know anything about but the artwork looks incredible too, though very very different from what I normally enjoy. I’m excited!

(And yes I’m still reading The Expanse series. These books are massive. I swear I have a whole stack of other books I’m waiting to get to, but like, when?! They hinted at a book shortage and I believed them! So I’ve got all kinds of books queued up! I guess I need to get reading!)

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Thanks for joining me in The Shallow End!