I finished my little yellow sketchbook in August. It had 64 pages that took me 8 months to fill, which is remarkable given my propensity for not finishing things, so I've had a post about it cooking since then. I've been trying to turn it into content, like a self-help or instructional article or something, but I realized that I filled the book up so fast precisely because I wasn't trying to make content. This post will be stream-of-consciousness drivel instead. Happy end of Inktober!
A black ink sketch of the author's point of view from the bus, including their view of their hands, sketchbook, and legs. There are several rows of seats to the left. There is a large barrier blocking the seats directly in front.
We all like to talk about drawing "for ourselves" out here in these parts. I've supposedly been drawing "for myself" for a long time, but my relationship with art is completely different now. I used to crave online validation for my art. I drew a lot of stuff because I was hoping it would do numbers on whatever social networking website I was using.
I've gotten into the groove with sharing drawings on this blog, but I don't make art with the intention of posting it anymore. I share it here because I enjoy talking about the process or context behind it, but I'm not thinking about sharing at the time. Most of the drawings in this sketchbook haven't been shared here at all, and since I finished it I've been using multiple new sketchbooks without posting anything about them. (I'll get around to that eventually... maybe...)
I used to be anxious about ruining my sketchbooks, but these days I'm more anxious to finish them so I can experiment with a new one. I even started drawing random filler just to use up more pages (I later came to understand this is called using the book as intended).
I've been using my 3DS as my primary game console for the past year or so. I've picked up some new games and revisited old ones that I haven't in a while, and it's been great! I don't feel compelled to buy the latest shiny new game on Switch, and I like having minigames that aren't covered in ads like most mobile games are. (The amount of Picross I've completed is a sign that I need help super cool and impressive.)
I like the DS because I can play it comfortably in bed or on the couch underneath a warm blanket, and it's portable. It can be thrown in my pocket or bag somewhat carelessly, and I can play it on the bus. The Switch isn't portable in the same way for two reasons. First, I have too much fear to play the Switch anywhere outside of the house or a similarly safe indoor environment. Second, I have a really hard time reading or parsing basically any Switch game except Animal Crossing because everything on the screen is so small. I almost always have to play the Switch docked, which means no submerging my entire being under blankets or playing on the bus.
I also feel really tired whenever I think about playing a Switch game these days. It feels like a commitment. It feels like I'm going to clock in at a job.
Earlier this month, the Rush Fifty-Something tour rolled through Denver and I was in attendance (along with my dad). I will never financially recover from this.
A photo of the venue before the concert. We were disgustingly early, but it filled up almost completely by the time the show started.
Attentive readers will know that I really like Rush. I'd even go as far as to say it's my favorite band, and I'm really bad at picking favorite anythings. Unfortunately for me, I didn't fully appreciate them until after the R40 tour in 2015, so I figured I had missed the boat for seeing them live forever (not the most devastating thing because most of the artists I like are dead or inactive anyway). But I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong, so there I was!
I got two free Daniel Smith dot cards (36 dots total) from a friend in Urban Sketchers Boulder. I like the idea of Dan Smith paints, but I don't have the inventory space or budget to buy all the colors I like. The dot cards give me the opportunity to have fun with weird colors without going bankrupt! I thought about different ways to make the dots portable before settling on the extremely low-tech option of cutting the dots up and taping them into a mint tin. (As we know, I do love me a mint tin)
Daniel Smith carries a lot of interesting colors, especially in the way of earth tones. I've been married to the same set of primaries-plus-green for a while, so I decided to try branching out a little by putting together a fall palette.
Watercolor dots, listed from left to right. Row 1: Sap green, Cadmium yellow medium hue, Transparent red oxide. Row 2: Transparent brown oxide, Quinacridone gold, Phtahlo blue (red shade). Row 3: Cadmium orange hue, Pyrrol red, Prussian green. The first photo shows the dots new, the second shows them after a few weeks of use.Read more
September was a busy month for sketch meetups. I went to both Boulder meets in addition to the Fort Collins one since they didn't overlap this time! I keep telling myself I'm going to discuss each of these outings in separate posts and never do, so I'm throwing them into one post so I can stop being so behind. The overarching theme was cool buildings.
