I've been working...

on a lot of stuff. First, I am working on adding stories directly to my website. This means, I'm learning how to make my own pages, so I can update them myself. Here's a screenshot of the page setup so far. I am using a layout inspired by webcomic layouts that I like.

Remember, this is a first "draft", and, as you can see, I've got a lot more work to do on the page setup (centering everything comes to mind!). The story itself is completely done, so once the webpage is set up and working, all I have to do is add the rest of the pages!

And, I am also working on the next story, which will be much longer. Here's a detail of one of the picture's for this story.

 

Last, I have also been "just" writing. I picked up a story I started several years ago, started writing, and am going to see where it takes me, or more accurately, where the story takes the charaters. That means, sitting at my upstairs desk and writing in a notebook (not on the computer).

I have to thank the book, "On Writing", by Stephen King, for getting me back to that! "Read and write, read and write, read and write"! I highly recommend the book too. It was entertaining, informative, sad, very funny at times, and totally interesting!

My only complaint, too bad Mr. King does not illustrate also. (Maybe he does, but doesn't publish it??!! - I have no idea!)

I have modified his advice to make my own motto:

"Read, write, draw, read, write, draw, read, write, draw".

In that spirit, here's a digital picture I did that goes with the resurrected idea I've been working on this week. No, I couldn't completely leave drawing alone. I do not know how to do that.

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Happy New Year!

It is the start of a new year, and I'm trying to remember what I was working on before the holidays arrived. As I am not sure, I have been playing with my new toys; a new computer and drawing tablet!

Here are a few things I've done so far. Yesterday the full moon at 6:00am looked pretty great, but my camera is still broken. I drew a digital sketch of it, over the hill in our back yard. I did add a few things... or at the very least one "thing"...

Here he is, under the full moon.

I also worked on a perspective sketch,

and this is the first sketch I did on my new computer!

Now it's time to get back to work.

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Tuesday Post

What have I been up to? I finished a drawing I started earlier this summer. Here's the final picture,

"Firebird".

I took the above pic this morning. I am not happy with how the colors show up in the photo. I think it may be the difference between a natural and an artificial light source. I am not a photographer.

Below is a picture of an earlier drawing I did. The colors in this photo are much closer to the actual colors of the drawing. This photo was taken during the summer, with natural light, in my studio.

And last, this is the latest sketch (pen on paper) that I am working on. Although I often start sketching with no clear idea in mind, that was not the case with the sketch below. I started out with the idea of a man with an elaborate tattoo all over his back. The sketch turned into a woman, with some sort of thorny vine wrapping around her, and she's saying, "I told you to leave me alone".

I thought you might be interested to see how the original idea "morphed" into something entirely different.

And "no", I have no idea why it turned out the way it did.

It just wanted to be this way...

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Now it's time for me to get back to the drawing board!

What am I doing? What I'm doing.

The quest to figure out how to put my illustrated stories on the web... Here is my attempt at a comic style layout. At the moment, there is no actual story this goes in; this is a sketch I finished the other day, that also happened to included some text.

Yes, I know, it is definitely a work in progress.

Now it's back to work!

Thank you for checking my blog.

Yes, I've been working.

Along with trying to figure out how I might put my illustrated stories on the web, I've been sketching this week.

3 of the sketches (Bic pen on paper).

I took the one on the far right made a large copy, and used varnish to attach it to a board. Right now it is sitting on our dining room table, drying. Once it is dry, I'll start adding layers of paint.

and, since I'm going to be painting, I'll work on adding layers to some other paintings I'm working on.

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Sketch of the Week

I always have more than one project going at once, and usually finish more than one sketch a week. This past week I was not feeling well, the usual fall cold virus is making the rounds, I only did one ink sketch.

The start was a small pencil sketch on the piece of paper I use to test my pens.

Then I did a larger ink sketch on paper (I use a Bic pen).

I made a quick book dummy, just for practice.

I was not feeling great, I'm not sure where this story is going.

My favorite thumbnail sketch from the book dummy is "Lino" (I made a typo, that's where his name comes from, remember I was sick, just saying), looking at the lamp post. As I am a huge fan of the Chronicles of Narnia, I guess you know why I like this one!!

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