feran-daunhill

[feran-daunhill]

Ask stupid questions get dumb answers Caleb

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Realized I never, posted the colored version I used for my badge!

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Finished. Did this for the ECCC pride lounge's display board. Inspired by all the kids coloring in here and having fun. I think I took the assignment more seriously than intended, but I'm happy with it. I colored it with my Ohuhu markers but since I neglected to bring any water based ink markers for the lines, I had to use one the lounge's black washable Crayola markers. Not necessarily a bad thing since it got me to stop pretending that the inks were going to come out as good as my sketch and just go for it.

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Much better. Also I learned that inking digitally with a "pencil" brush, makes it much easier to get lines to meet more naturally.

Also just a few hours after I finished inking this I found a tiny snail that somehow found their way into my indoor tomato starters. Their name is Mori and I've adopted them.

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Been thinking a lot about my art, or lack thereof.

I've been looking at results and not the process.

From now on the goal is not to make it as close to perfect as I can but to force myself to accept the imperfections.

As it stands, my big problem is this, I never finish anything because it's never good enough.

I never want to really start anything with more than the intention to doodle because every time I force myself to follow through and finish it. Well, if I ink things by hand I inevitably mess up (because I suck) and am unhappy with the results. If I do things digitally I have access to an undo button and my ADHD hyper focus means that I can and will spend hours redrawing every single line, trying to make it "perfect" (not actually perfect). The result is that by the time I am done with the drawing I am miserable and burnt out. When I consider the idea of starting anything else I have no enthusiasm at all, because why bother starting if you know you aren't going to finish and why try finish something if it's just making you miserable.

This is the issue I need to fix first. Not my crap understanding of line weight, or ability to draw clothes, or everything else that I want to make better. First I just need to find a way to make finished works of art that doesn't make me miserable.

With that in mind and Lacking any confidence I thought, hey I'll just use one of the poses I made on magic poser.

Contrary to my idea of keeping it simple I chose to do this drawing. Using a program like magic poser is great, for references.

But it also can be a problem. It's very easy to fall into the trap of spending hours and hours getting everything juuuuuust right. So despite that fact I am happy with how it turned out, unfortunately this one still counts as a failure. Because yes I still feel into the old habit of fiddling with every little thing for much longer than I had planned. Even intentionally ignoring line weight, hey it looks great in Siamès and Blue Turtles stuff why the heck not, it still took me a painfully long time. Planning on coloring this with my Ohuhu Markers during Emerald City Comic Con.

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Perfection.

Perfection is the enemy.

Perfection is an unattainable mirage, it is the paralyzing voice that whispers, "It will never be good enough so why even try?"

If you know you can never reach the goal, why begin the journey?

Why this?

When you are meant to wander.

Stop believing perfection is the goal. There is no goal, there is no destination, for if there were a destination, then the journey must end, and this is a journey that has no end.

Imperfection.

That which is imperfect, is incomplete, invites play.

Invites interaction.

Inspires change, growth, creates new thought, new horizons to chase.

Art that creates more art.

So I found this image awhile ago and it stuck in my head. (Trying to find the original artist, so I can credit them but I'm having a hard time.)

Been thinking a lot about my art and what the purpose of it in my life is. Why it's been so hard for me to draw for the past few years. Why I never finish any projects, whether drawing or writing, and lately why I never start them anymore. Been thinking a lot about how to repair what's become broken in me, so that I can make art again and enjoy the making of that art.

The drawing above is supposed to be related to the concept of wabi sabi or enso, which I'm not sure if I grasped the concept completely, but my understanding is, that imperfect things are actually better than "perfect" things, because there is room for change and growth. Art that is imperfect or incomplete allows the viewer to interact with it, to imagine "what else", to become a part of the artwork. If a work of art is complete, is "perfect" then there is no room for the viewer to mentally "step inside and play around".

Thinking about that and my own artistic journey put a lot of things in perspective, and I wrote down this sort of mantra? Philosophy that I want to focus on as I restart my artistic journey and the way I approach art.

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FREE SWATCH MAPS

(It's Free)

The Ohuhu Honolulu 320 Alcohol Marker set is great right? It really IS! They blend great, have replaceable tips, they've started offering ink refills, and oh yeah they're WAAAAY cheaper than copics! The only problem is those terrible swatches the set came with, oh and the fact that the markers won't stay in organized rows!

This drove right me up the wall! So. I figured out that if you put some paper between the pens you can keep them in proper rows of seven and eight. They'll stay in place (more or less) even if you take a lot out, and there’s just three left loose to go in the front pocket space. I then used MysticSparkleWings https://linktr.ee/mysticsparklewings swatches as an organizational base to make a swatch map that matches where the pens go in the box. (I rearranged the order of the gray families a bit though) Now, I'd have made these for myself regardless, but that's such a WASTE when I have these files right here on my laptop, and there are all you poor souls out here on the internet with no easy way to organize your pens. Take these and use them so that you do not have to suffer as I have suffered.

There are two versions, one that fits snugly on a single 8.5 "x 11" page, and another that prints on three separate pages if people want larger swatches. Keep in mind if you print these on a different paper than what you use to draw, the colors on your swatch, may differ slightly from those on your art.

There are PDF's, AND the original ODF files of the both versions so you can arrange your markers any way you like, and then easily change the map to match. ODF is what LibreOffice (free software) uses, because I wasn't about to pay Microsoft 70$ for Excel in order to create what may well be the only spreadsheet I make this decade. I have no idea if Excel can read ODF files and I don't care, since Libre Office is free and therefore no one else has to cough up $70 for Excel either.

Please note, I have tested this method with two different sets for about two months, so far, and the tighter fit in the cases has not caused any damage or leaking to my pens. However, you should still read the full disclaimer found at my Ko-fi page before using.

[feran-daunhill]

(Samish Overlook, Skagit County, WA.)

Me, today 2am: "...wait...so is the deadline for the "It's Kind of a Funny Story" panel redraw challenge...ON the 23rd... or BEFORE?...!?!?" (Starts Sweating)☹️💦

Yup. Me and Alex. Both waiting until right before the deadline to get our shit together!

(Edit: Me. Just now realizing today is the 20th,not the 22nd and I stayed up until 8am for no reason.🙃)

I've been trying out watercolor in an attempt to stop obsessing over details so much, since it tends to work a lot better if you just let the paint do what it wants and not fuss over with every little thing.

😑 Mixed results on that front.

I never liked water color before because there was no way to cover up mistakes so I thought you had to have everything planned out perfectly in advance. I never realized you can go back AFTER the paint dries and touch things up. You know, because WATER color paints, are WATER soluble.🤦 Or you know shading with lots of layers instead of trying to get each shade exactly right on the first go. Also properly soaking/stretching your paper and stapling it to gator board so it doesn't warp the second you start painting. All good things to know!

Anyway I think it looks pretty good for my third try at painting with this medium in...wow 17 years.

Fun fact: I took the reference photo I used for this at the Samish Overlook in Skagit County, Washington, just a ways north of Seattle, where the story "very vaugely takes place"!

If anyone who sees this lives in the area I highly recommend checking it out! It's a bit of a drive to get up to, but you don't even have to hike for this particular view, this was taken maybe 50 ft from the edge of the parking area!