6 - back to the drawing board…

And yet another week has swiftly passed. I found my legs again, they must have gone somewhere on their own accord - luckily they returned in a similar way.

Making drawings is curiously redeeming and helps with the turbulence of some of those days. Lucky to have such a gift to draw on (ugh, another shoddy pun). Some recovery of energies this week and while I haven’t been a regular contributor during the week (this too will change) I did push forward on a few different things…

I started investigating another PoD resource… The Print Space. It’s a UK/German outfit (I had looked at them previously) - It’s a fine art print house with high production values, and steep shipping costs (clearly they are offsetting their profit center a bit) I like their ethos, the paper selection is great, and UX for formatting and ordering is great. Felt quite different to work with than Printful. I imagine the results may speak for themselves. I’ve ordered a framed print.

Thinking through price points, open editions, limited editions and such - I’ll set up a poll here to get a pulse.

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I watched The Biggest Little Farm 1 and enjoyed it immensely… this was on the back of Kiss the Soil 1 …yeah, I’m so ready for something regenerative. I reflected further on the cult of the individual and its roots, its evolution and footprint - and a social fabric that so celebrates and rewards the narcissistic gaze - and a little drawing popped out

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I did a little more exploring here too - wow… so many great works and talent at work in this virtual realm. I will dedicate more time to that half of the experience – @KymD56 Loved your poetic engagement - I’m a big fan of tea time (the Alice/Mad Hatter influence notwithstanding) A cup of sky, a cloud of milk…

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What else? Oh, I made a post on the old reluctant illustrator site to wake up the old ghosts and see what skeletons were still in the closet - I had a handful of subscribers. Work on the new site is now underway, in fits and starts - but it’s getting real(ized)

Thinking regeneratively, I was fascinated by how things can grow from a little seed after sleeping (which I did a lot this week!) and lying dormant for so long… and I sprouted some radish seeds!

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They’ll be ready tomorrow!

Thanks as always for sailing along

5 - A wobbly week…

of measured progress, some unexpected turbulence, and some weird.

I watched The Mystery of Picasso

a painter’s adventure is an odd one
he walks, glides on a tightrope
a curve takes him to the right
a spot takes him to the left
if he misses his landing
everything changes
everything’s lost
the painter advances like a blind man groping
in the obscurity of the white canvas
and the light which arises
the painter creates it, paradoxically
by accumulating the darkness.

From The Mystery of Picasso
Henri-Georges Clouzot
(it’s on Kanopy)

It was so great to see the drawings and paintings emerge - Picasso drawing them into being - theatrical and inspirational.

Something for me to think about is a giant marker as a new horizon - and that fat loose line.

Another consideration about drawing using a tablet and stylus pen (something I’ve begun playing with) is it makes that kind of animation of the drawing itself easy (it’s built into Apple) and it might make for an interesting video. Another thing to keep in mind - also on the horizon.

Samples arrived from Printful…

The ordering was straightforward, however, the results were a bit underwhelming for me.

• T-shirt was fine - DTG printed on a thick 100% cotton premium shirt

• The paper prints shipped in a cardboard triangle and were ok… competent, yet also bland and a bit lifeless. The paper stock was heavy yet the super flat machined surface finish doesn’t play well with such big areas of white - and the paper holds on to its curl for dear life.

• Framed print was ok as well (only black for the sample) - but again it’s just competent at best, and doesn’t give off much good vibe.

• assembly wasn’t perfect either (the front of the corner was acceptable) and it came with an excess of that foamy plastic packing.

It’s commercial printing - solid enough though there’s not much artfulness to be found here.

I’ll give it a meh - will keep exploring.

Worked on website mockups in Ghost…

Keeping things clean and simple - for a crowded world
Building from previous parts - for a crowded mind

Didn’t do much drawing this week…

Felt weirdly fatigued - and worn out

In part I think its the madness of the world that is draining - what’s with the supreme court? - David Suzuki said it best: Were going at 100 miles an hour towards a brick wall - and arguing about who should be driving. I can see the drawing.

(cut and pasted from Discourse!)

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Week 4

June 18 – 25

Travelling overland in The Sudan (many many years ago) the singular desert track would branch off at each Wadi into dozens and dozens of ways across - each one of them seeking a way over. Getting stuck was NOT a good thing - untrodden ground was at least 50/50.

and BTW, you can have this but not that, unless you add this to that, then you can have this - but that’ll be extra - and you still can’t have this and that… quite a labyrinth.

A culture of endless choice leveraged on the cult of the individual?

The image of the Wadi crossing came to mind as I waded into a space of a million choices… publishing platforms, subscription plans, eCommerce, Payment Gateways, Print on Demand, Marketplaces, stores, referrals - and endless arrays of add-ons. A guy could get sooo stuck.

I remembered a Gary Larson cartoon - a bunch of sheep grazing, a couple of them standing up at the fence - they were both wolves - one is asking the other "So where are all the sheep?"

So - exploring my options for assembling the mono-blog that could grow into a dia-blog.... a week of wandering through many rabbit holes while holding on to the daydreaming - it made me a bit dizzy - luckily I still have two hemispheres to work with (for now) - I’ve become increasingly allergic to this part of the work and yet I know that it’s also a big part of making things real - build the kitchen (then make the curry)

TL;DR - So far my elements to start down this process:

Ghost CMS + SnipCart + Stripe + Printful (I may initially try some print fulfilment myself to see how that works)

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Week 3

June 11 – 17

• Reflecting on SBD - same but different approaches. Nor so much about the labels as it is about focus and intent. Of course, I'm drawn to the space in between - and why not both/and?
• I like the different ways these approaches engage an audience and I like both the collaborative/solo(ish) creation spaces.
• Something that could work fine in a creative community space like BSR, or TCW - where it's easy to support both - What would a hybrid like this look like as a stand-alone space out on the web?
• I do like reading things like NY Times Diary and The Ethicist, anecdotes and reader's letters. I've mentioned Humans of NY. I even like that guy who photoshops images submitted by his readers, interpreting their requests in unexpected ways.
• Definitely want to engage with the audience directly and responsively in some way.
• I came across Museum of Forgeries by MSCHF - Yeah! this is the kind of stuff!
• I came across the New Yorker's (well Conde Nast) Comic Bank - curiously disappointing, I was always a fan of their cartoons. I suspect it's about form and presentation - buffet style?

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Week 2

June 4 – 10

• I tried to make sense of the structure of the BR workshop. It felt a bit obscure and I felt a bit obtuse. I'll get into the swing of it. Many questions swirled around and I set them free.

• I'm getting ready to put myself on the hook - though that raised some fresh new conundrums, which I am making friends with.

• I (reluctantly) started writing an outline for a 365 drawing-a-day project I've been imagining. Overly ambitious and a bit of a rambly thing, yet it's a start - I used some clip art to get the concept drawing going.

• I got that imagining thing happening, and felt an inner wiggle and a stretch (good thing I like cats) - and see my fears, doubts and hesitations stirring up - like the sleeping dogs they are (good thing I like dogs)

• Oh - and I submitted an application for The New York Times Illustration Portfolio Review - 2023... Ahhh!

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Week 1

May 28 – June 3