New Drawings, Getting Organized, and Catching Up

It has been a long, tiring summer so packed with activity that I've let the house fall apart a bit.  I'm putting the pieces back together now that the busy levels have gone down somewhat.  The house is getting cleaned room by room.  Paperwork is being organized.  Even my stamp collection is finally getting into its album.

I have a few weeks with little Cub Scout responsibility beyond the norm so I'm taking this time to make sure the pack records are all up to date and setting in place systems so that I can give the Membership Chairman job to someone else.

I've also been invited to teach at the University of Scouting/Program and Training Conference in January.  My Wood Badge patrol did an awesome presentation about recruitment and I would love to work with them to expand it and teach it to a different audience.  It has also been heavily suggested that I teach a class about using music in Cub Scouts since I'm most often known outside my own pack as the music guy.  Not bad for someone who can't play an instrument and can barely carry a tune.

My art is progressing rather well.  I've been doing a lot of work with ballpoint pens and am thrilled that things are coming out so well.  I started out with that media oh so many years ago and am returning to it.

I've also been participating in a weekly figure drawing workshop at Arts Umbrella in Bothell with live nude models.  I think this, more than anything, has propelled my art forward.  I've done a lot of artistic nude and a few erotic artist trading cards but drawing from life while surrounded by amazing artists to draw inspiration from has been invaluable.  In order to keep them off my blog where kids and the morally outraged can see them I have put all of my NSFW drawings on their own tumblr.  Please take a gander if you like.    Comments are welcome.  http://brassduckstudio.tumblr.com/

Here are some of the other drawings I've been working on.

I love the Cowardly Lion

The following cards were made to represent the 7 Wood Badge Patrols at my recent course.

Bear

Beaver

Bobwhite Quail

Buffalo

Eagle.  The drawing is older but is one of my favorites and I shrank it to ATC size as a print.

Fox!  My awesome patrol!

Owl

New Art Challenge And Adult Nude Art

My Wonder Woman drawing should be ready to post tomorrow.  I know I've said that before but I'm being a perfectionist.

In the next 4 weeks I have 25 artist trading cards to complete.  My goal is to have them all done a week before my September 20th birthday.

1 Naughty card for a "Play It Forward" swap.
3 Ocean critters (I'm hosting)
3 Super Women (I'm hosting)
6 Naughty Nudes (I'm hosting)
4 People Practice (face, hand, body)
4 Landscapes created en plein air
4 Lions

Goal:  By 5pm tomorrow (8/15) 1 Naughty card, 2 Ocean critters card, 1 Wonder Woman drawing.

The swaps I am hosting end next week so I really need to focus on those.  The tricky part is that I have Cub Scout Day Camp all next week so it is going to cut into my time a lot.  I may have to take a sketchbook with me for the non-naughty cards.

A fan asked me what I do with all the nude cards I have.  I have hosted several swaps and have a lot of cards.  I'm still learning figure drawing and it helps me to draw nudes.  On a shelf in my den are two notebooks.  One is labeled "Artist Trading Cards" and has all of my safe for children cards.  I will be starting a second one soon as this one is out of room.

Next to it is one titled "Nude Artist Trading Cards" on the spine  It has all of my not safe for children cards.  They are are high enough to be avoided by small children. I don't allow kids other than my son in the den anyway.  Right now nudes, even artistic ones, are icky to Caleb.  Once he gets old enough to be curious he is welcome to explore them if he wants.  None of it is pornographic.  I don't hide them because I think it does more harm to hide.  Nudity and body image and sexuality are things we all deal with and hiding them makes them taboo.  Only negative things come from that.

I don't post my nude cards on this blog but you can see them in my gallery at http://www.atcsforall.com/forum/gallery/index.php?u=2980 or on deviant art at http://sasjhwa.deviantart.com/.  For both sites you will need to create an account.  At ATCsForAll you will need to request access to the adult gallery.  At DeviantArt you will need to turn off the mature filter.  At both sites you can see my non-adult cards without membership.  If you stop in feel free to leave a comment so I know you were hanging out.

If you are interested in joining any of the 3 swaps I'm hosting, cards have to be to me by August 22.  Folks in the Pacific Northwest should be able to do that.  Hand delivery is okay if you contact me first.

New Art Cards, and Project Reports

I have been drawing a lot lately.  I've been forcing myself to draw at least a half hour a day.  Part of that involves the 30 minute timed session on http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/.  In 30 minutes I have to draw ten 30 second sketches, four 1 minute sketches, two 5 minutes 45 second sketches and one 11 1/2 minutes sketches.  All are of nude models, both male and female.  What I am finding is that by the time I get to the final sketch I'm warmed up and ready to put in a lot of detail and even managed to get some shading done today.

In July I had a lot of projects to do.  Some succeeded while others did not.

The 50,000 word novel - Fail.  I got close but decided victory by typing out something that didn't fit the plot wasn't true victory.

24 page zine.  Done.  I will have it in a printable form soon.

Wonder Woman drawing.  It vexes me.  It may be that perfection is the enemy of the good in this case.  I plan to do one final version and that is it.  I want it delivered as soon as possible.

1 Undersea Critter art card.  Not Done.

4 Flora/Fauna art cards. Done.  The seagull is older but was submitted for the swap anyway.

I am a fairly private person.  My wife is about the only person that I share the deeper parts of myself with.  This week I shared something with another person that I trust.  I won't go into details (you can't get my secrets that easily!) but sharing something that I have not voiced for so many years to an understanding soul is liberating.  Parts of it I have held onto since I was a teenager and saying it to my confidante has liberated part of myself that has been blocking my creativity for decades.  I am finding myself reflecting heavily on it in my sketch diary.  No, you don't get to see those drawings!  Stop trying to figure my stuff out!  

I've also been listening to a lot of Willie Nelson so that may be contributing to a shift in my mental state.  :-)

Wonder Woman Draft #1

I've been working on Wonder Woman for a couple of hours this evening and have reached the point I need to set it aside for a while and come back to it with fresh eyes.  This is the first of probably 3 or 4 drafts.  If you have any constructive critique, let me know.  I'm trying to make it as good as my talent allows.

I decided to use the Justice League cartoon costume because it is a bit simpler and since this is being transferred onto a quilt I wanted the detail to remain.  I had no idea until today there there have been so many variations on the costume.

There is a lot of line tightening to do, I'll be doing a proper face, and probably adjusting the pose a bit.  Your thoughts?

This is one of the few times you will see a work in progress from me so consider yourself privileged.  :-p  The final work will be 5x7 inches.

Creating or Over Committing?

Well, the next month or so is going to be interesting.  I have a LOT of creative work to do.  I usually do this once a year and get a lot done.  Normally it isn't quite this much but I think I can handle it.

June

1 Male Nude art card for a swap.  Initial posing is started.  Goal is June 26.
1 Wonder Woman drawing for my sister-in-law, Kathy.  Initial posing is started.  Goal is June 28
1 Female superhero art card for a swap.  Goal is June 30
1 Undersea critter art card for a swap. Goal is June 30

July

24 page zine for the 24 Hour Zine Thing. I am cheating a bit because I must have a plan in place before I start or I will be starting off the month behind and that isn't acceptable.  This will likely be either a series of kid craft tutorials or a 24 page comic.  I'm not sure yet.  Goal is July 1

Kid Power:  I need to get my kid friendly role playing game into playtest condition.  I'm about 1/4 of the way done adapting it from a home brew Star Wars game we played last summer and Citizen Squad, a kid friendly zombie apocalypse table top miniatures game I've been tooling around with for years.  With my luck I'll get done and someone will say, "Oh, that is exactly the rule system they use in THIS game!"  Goal is July 6.  If I got off my butt I could use this for the 24 hour zine.  Hmm.  I could get the writing done in advance and then add art and formatting and cool stuff to make the zine.  So many choices.

50,000 words:  Camp Nanowrimo - The summer version of National Novel Writing Month.  The idea of writing a novel while dodging holidays is just too daunting to do again.  I've completed Nanowrimo 3 times but none of the novels are really readable.  This one probably won't be either and that is okay.  I know I'm not really a novelist.  I haven't settled on a story yet, but it might be set in the Kid Power RPG universe.

4 Favorite Flora/Fauna art cards for a swap.  The cards need to be in San Francisco on August 1 so my goal is July 25.  I may try to get them done in June just to get them off my plate.

It has been a while since I updated the blog with my art.  Here are some recent art cards I made.  They are for a swap that entailed mixing Star Trek with a favorite cartoon.  Here are Captain Lisa Janeway, Captain Raphael Picard, General Daffy Chang, and Hello Nurse Chapel!  I used thinner paper than my normal Bristol (need to buy more tomorrow!) and the scanner picked up on a few colors and shades that aren't in the original cards.  Oh well.

If you link to my art please credit Michael Sean Dyer and link back to this page.  Thank you.

Sick Kid and Big Paper

Caleb stayed home from school with a sick stomach.  He's taking a nap now which is how I know he isn't faking it.  He hasn't willingly taken a nap in years.

Last night I rearranged my den slightly so my drawing table is next to my computer desk.  This will let me draw while watching TV on the computer.  Normally I can draw on my lap but I've been trying to use a larger drawing pad and it doesn't work well on my lap.

Because I had to stay home with Caleb I wasn't able to go to the figure drawing session in Bothell today.  I'll try again next week.

Live Figure Drawing

Once again I find myself facing one of those social situations that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.  Before, it was going to the artist trading card gathering in Seattle.  I pushed on and had a great time in spite of my nerves.

This time it is a live drawing session in Bothell on Friday.  It is at an art studio and has live nude and clothed models for people to draw and paint.  I'm apprehensive, as I always am, about being around other artists.  I know nobody is judging me but that is always sitting in the back of my head.  It is magnified whenever I have to be around people I don't know.  I realize that just like the SeARTle gathering my nerves will calm after only a few minutes and then I will be too busy drawing to care.

Most people who know me don't realize how much I struggle with groups of people.  I can get in front of a crowd and make a silly fool of myself and be fine, but put me in a small group of adults or a party and I fold in on myself.  If I could blend into the wallpaper I would sometimes try.  Only by forcing myself to do it am I able to overcome that anxiety though.

There is also some nervousness about drawing a nude model.  I haven't done it before and therefore it is scary.  Once the pencil touches the paper all that will go away though and there will only be the drawing.

Baby Birds and Little Lambs

We have been watching a robin's nest on our back porch for several weeks.  We noticed it when the first few bits of grass were put in and have patiently waited with Mama Robin as she kept her eggs warmed.  We suspected that they hatched a few days ago as Mama is away from the nest a lot but still in for the night.  This morning 3 little heads popped up over the top of the nest to gulp breakfast from Mama.  The chirping is constant and beautiful.

In other news I finished my 4 art cards yesterday but fell asleep before I could post them.  All are done with Prismacolor markers except the black lamb which is done with Prismacolors, graphite, and charcoal.

Here are the last card from SeARTle that I haven't posted yet.

Art Update

I have been watching TV all morning while drawing.  I have finished 3 of the 4 sheep cards.  I have a big horn sheep to complete still to finish the set.  My goal is 2:30 when I have to pick up Caleb at school.  I'll scan pictures tonight.

Junior Art Brigade

Yesterday several neighborhood children became interested in my artist trading card collection.  They looked through my binder at hundreds of cards from around the world and asked a ton of questions.  One second grade girl finally got up the nerve to ask if I had any cards so she could make one.  That opened the rest of them too.  I gave away 15-20 card blanks and plastic sleeves to 3 of the kids and told them to go make art.

I'm excited to see if they will and what they will do with it.  It would be cool to have a junior ATC club forming in the neighborhood.

I need to break my ATC collection into 2 binders though.  The last few pages are filled with nude cards and I had to keep the kids out of that section while browsing.  None are sexual but I'm not letting anywhere near them.  Having a kid friendly book is a good idea.

My own ATCs need to get done too.  My goal for today is 4 cards with sheep on them for an organized swap.  My over-goal is to make 3 more cards to trade with the kids.

SeARTle Meet Up and Playing With the Big Girls

Today I went to the SeARTle art meet up in Seattle.  I didn't know anyone and nearly made an excuse not to go several times.  I'm still very shy in spite of my outgoing persona.  I have trouble meeting new people.  Once I do I'm fine but getting my foot in the door is sometimes the hardest thing.

I don't spend enough time with adults though.  I volunteer at the school and teach Cub Scouts and our house is the nexus of the neighborhood where all the kids come to play.  So I try to force myself into adult activities in order to maintain my tenuous link to the adult world and my own sanity.

The meet up was actually pretty fun.  I was greeted at the door by name.  People recognized me from my self portrait userpic.  I settled in at a table and finished working on an artist trading card (ATC) that I had started the night before.  Pretty soon conversations started and then people (almost all women) began pulling out their art media and showing me all the cool things they can do with them.  I learned all about beeswax and watercolor pencils and liquid graphite and gel press and shrink film and watched some amazing people make very awesome art.  I finished 3 cards while I was there.  I'll have to post them tomorrow since the pictures are on my phone.

I hung out with women the entire time.  There was one other man there and he was busy in another room mostly.  After an hour or so the wine bottles got opened and the gals got fun.  I don't drink but really enjoyed watching them get tipsy and silly and how it affected their art (pretty well actually).

It was a great time, over too quickly.  Here are some cards that I made over the last 2 days.  I'll post more tomorrow.  They are all 2.5 x 3.5 inches on bristol paper.  They are mostly Prismacolor markers with some acrylic painthighlights on a few.

A big brown bear

This was my name tag, hung on a ribbon around my neck

An orca pod

a seagull

the Space Needle

Home, Art, Cubs

HOME

My wife has been sick at home for the last week.  She finally dragged herself in yesterday.  I feel bad that she has been so miserable but I'm glad to have the house to myself again.  It seems small of me, I know.  I have just gotten so much more done  than most of the week.

ART

Saturday I am hoping to attend the SeaARTle meetup with many of the ATC folks that I trade with.  I enjoy making artist trading cards and it will be a good chance to see folks I have never met in real life before.

I want to get a bunch of drawings done in advance of the meetup for trading and showing.  I should probably get on that.

I've been doing a lot more figure drawing lately.  I'm also hosting a beginner nude art card swap.  New swappers are welcome.

CUB SCOUTS

I am excited that we are gearing up for our first Pack camping trip in May.  One of the big failings of our Pack is that they haven't been camping in about 5 years from what I've been told.  That all changes now.  The new leadership team is excited and motivated to get the kids into the outdoors as much as possible.

Our current year ends on June 15.  At that point Caleb will graduate from being a Wolf to a Bear.  I have begun planning the next year's worth of activities and it looks like it is going to be amazing.  There are a lot of fun achievements in the Bear Handbook.

The Eight Foot Bride and The Gift of Giving

My friend Jason Andrew has been trying to raise money for a science fiction anthology called The Future Embodied.  He has been running a Kickstarter campaign for nearly a month and as it comes down to the last 5 days and there is still $700 left to go I am finding myself full of ideas.  I've shared many of them with Jason.

He recently blogged about the uncomfortable feeling he gets asking people for money, even though that money won't go to him, but to increase the amount he can pay the writers that are accepted to the anthology.

I have felt this same feeling.  There is a certain amount of shame in asking someone to buy a $15 bag of popcorn to help my son have a better Cub Scout program.  There is no way the popcorn is worth that much.  Yet it flies off the table every year and people love to give.

My mom used to say that if you refuse a gift you are robbing the giver of the blessing of giving.  If you are in need you must ask for help in order to give other people the blessing of helping you.

If you are in need of funding for your book or prayer for that cold that won't quit or a shoulder to lean on when your spouse makes you so very angry don't be afraid to ask those around you.  Most may say "no" but some will say yes and you have given them a blessing by giving them that opportunity.

Amanda Palmer gave a TED Talk on how to open up to those willing to help you.  From the start of her career as a living 8 foot bride statue asking for coins on the street to a fully crowd-sourced music career she understands that sometimes you have to open up and trust the people around you with your needs.

New Ventures

It has been a while since I updated.  This blog is primarily about art and I haven't been doing finished pieces for a couple of months.  Mostly I have been sketching and finding inspiration from other artists.  I also took some time to write, something I haven't done in a long time.  Things are about to change though.

I am getting started on several larger drawings and paintings.  I will also begin making Artist Trading Cards again.  My first will be to make 4 cards about sheep. I will be focusing primarily on animals and nature for the next couple of months in most of my art.

I have had enough people request ATCs as gifts from me in the last couple of months that I am opening an Etsy store to sell my art.  I have thought about it for a while but didn't want to limit myself to just ATCs.  Many years ago I drew a lot of animals in pen and ink and most were pretty good.  I want to go back to that style with some fresh drawings and better printing.

If you are an artist who needs a challenge, I found a great site that I've been using a lot the last few weeks.  It provides human photo models on a timer.  You can do several 1 minute sketches, move to some longer ones and then do a really long one if you like.  It has some customization so you can pick gender (or both) and clothed or nude.  I'm finding the fast studies are really helping my more detailed drawings as I'm focusing on the big stuff more.

Daily 5 Minute Sketches 1/8/13

Today I am starting Sketch Sprints or 5 minute drawings.  The rules I have are:

- I use a random generator to determine the theme of each drawing.
- I have to do at least 5 sketches.
- Any media is allowed.
- Drawings may be combined as long as 5 minutes is given to each.

Today I pulled 5 themes from the list.  I kept the nude family friendly.  These were drawn in pencil and then drawn over the top of that with charcoal pencil when I realized the pencil wasn't dark enough to scan.  Lesson learned.

Daily Sketches by Michael S. Dyer January 8, 2013

Feel free to use my 100 themes and share what you have drawn.
1. Favorite Food
2. Sci Fi
3. Time
4. Magic Teacher
5. Harry Potter
6. Dog
7. Comfort
8. Weather
9. Donkey
10. Sickness
11. Accord
12. Pirate
13. Pandora
14. Rock and Roll
15. Salmon
16. Portrait
17. Snow
18. Planet
19. Chicken
20. Daredevil
21. Hockey
22. Gourmet
23. Star Wars
24. Pregnant
25. Mermaid
26. Eagle
27. Scouts
28. Victory
29. Survival
30. Submarine
31. Unicorn
32. Orange Tree
33. Fire
34. Still Life
35. Rosebush
36. Nude Female
37. Royalty
38. Star Trek
39. Rainy Day
40. Drunk
41. Broken
42. Sex
43. Baseball
44. Still Life
45. Nude Male
46. Feast
47. Runner
48. Church
49. Camping,
50. Picasso
51. Tall Ship
52. Motorcycle
53. Helicopter
54. Still Life
55. Nude
56. Portrait
57. Landscape
58. Game
59. Portrait
60. Landscape
61. Skull
62. Clown
63. Underwear
64. Still Life
65. Nude
66. Christmas
67. Christmas Sweater
68. Miraculous
69. Storm
70. Feet
71. Hands
72. Imitate the style of an artist
73. Shark
74. Hawaii
75. Tattoo
76. Spaceship
77. Zebra
78. Superhero
79. Super villain
80. Library
81. Teddy Bear
82. Cowboy
83. MC Escher
84. Easter Island
85. Pharoah
86. Mardi Gras
87. Water
88. Dragon
89. Build
90. Ring
91. Chocolate
92. Cash
93. Music
94. Growth
95. Fruit
96. Veggies
97. Death
98. Mythical Beast
99. Fan Art
100. Self Portrait

Drawing Sprint

A friend of mine is going to be self publishing a novel in April (if he knows what's good for him!) and I've been looking at a lot of writing resources to help him get the book done and into print.  Something I stumbled over is called a Writing Sprint.  The idea is that you set the timer for 10 minutes (or whatever) and just start writing.  Don't let up until the timer goes off.  It shakes the cobwebs loose and gets the creative juices flowing.

I'm the barest amateur of a writer, usually only finishing the occasional NANOWRIMO book I'm too embarrassed to let anyone read, or comic book scripts.  But I am looking for techniques to force me to draw a bit more without the thinking part of my brain getting in the way.

I think tomorrow I'm going to set myself a  Drawing Sprint.  I will give myself a blank piece of paper and 30 minutes to fill it up.  I have a list of 100 drawing topics and I'll use percentile dice to pick the next sketch after the first one and then the next etc. until time is up.  Hopefully the page will be filled up.  I'll scan and post the results.

Have you done an exercise like this for writing or drawing?  How did it work for you?

Art, Nudes, Landscapes, The Secret Circle

I have been using my art journal a bunch this week and I'm overall pretty happy with it.  In addition to getting my thoughts down about art and my own abilities I've been practicing with watercolor pencils, which are a lot of fun.  I bought a small set of 12 but I may pick up more.  I also need to inventory how much watercolor paint I have as I am thinking of some projects.

Tonight I gathered the art cards I created in 2012 onto a single sheet.  I left the nude cards off since they are inappropriate for my family audience.  They got their own sheet which can be viewed at http://sasjhwa.deviantart.com/#/d5qpv9y but you will need an account with adult viewing ability to see them. They are not sexual.

I'm doing less ATCs this year, focusing on larger work.  I'm still going to do them and I'm still going to host swaps.  Drawing in the ATC format is good for forcing creativity but the small size is limiting.

I have 2 themes I want to grow in as an artist this year.  The first is people.  That means I need to start doing life drawing more often.  I'm planning a few people watching trips and am hoping to sketch from life a lot more.  I will also be drawing from photos and models.  At this point I'm using clothed models but eventually will move to nude models as well.  Drawing people has always been one of my goals as an artist.  I should find a local drawing group to hook up with.

The other theme I want to explore is landscape.  I'm dabbling in watercolors and they are excellent for creating landscapes.  There is so much beauty where I live I would love to start painting some of it.  Right now my work looks like it was made by a 4th grader who is bored in art class.  I want to push my talent upward.

This week I watched an interesting TV show on Netflix called The Secret Circle.  It is about a girl who discovers she is a witch, forms a magical bond with 5 other witches and fights evil and their family secrets.  I liked it because it as fast paced and the magic system was very interesting to me.  Each witch has their own magic but when they bond into the Magic Circle each loses their own power but as a group they can do greater magic.  The more members helping out the greater it is.  I like the mystery of what happened when each of them lost a parent in a fire 16 years ago.  Just when I thought I had it figured out one more wrinkle got added that was fun.

What I didn't like was the lack of a realistic world.  Yes, there is magic, but that is supposed to be happening in our world.  Yet the writers had things just for the sake of plot.  For example, the parents of the heroes died 16 years ago on a docked Washington State Ferry.  The ferry is still there even though it was burned and lists.  It is still in the water.  There is nothing but broken caution tape to keep every curious kid from sneaking in to drink booze and sex it up.  After 16 years?  The state never cleaned it up?  No one reclaimed that valuable piece of waterfront property?  There is also large church out in the woods that is large enough to fit a few hundred people but it is abandoned and overgrown.  It is so far out that the heroes who have lived in the town all their lives don't know about it even though it is several stories tall.  Really?  Their hideout is also the abandoned home of the lead witch's dad who was believed killed.  It has been vacant and overgrown for 16 years.  But his heir was still alive.  She lived out of town but the government can find anyone.  Even if they couldn't why did the city allow it to just crumble instead of doing something about it?  Yet 16 years later the Circle uses it for their base.  As anyone knows who lives on coastal Washington, if you leave a building vacant for year it will likely be so filled with black mold it will cost a ton to clean it.  After 16 years that mold will have gained intelligence.  No way that house is livable 

My last gripe is one that a lot of shows with teenagers has.  They drink so much alcohol.  If they were sneaking it and it was part of the plot I could understand.  That is part of being a teenager.  But they drink it openly in town and at fundraisers for the school.  They drink it and it isn't even mentioned other than they have wine glasses.


Enough about that.  Here are my art cards for the last year.  Here's to much more art in 2013!

Happy New Year!

Today started out as many other New Year Days.  I, along with several hundred of my crazy brothers and sisters, jumped into Lake Washington.  This annual tradition is a baptism for me, burying the old year and giving birth to the new.  The air and water were 46 degrees and it felt a great deal colder.  As tradition has it, I took the plunge with my sister-in-law Jill  who is on leave from her teaching job in China.  It is a great bonding experience that I cherish.  Pictures and video coming eventually.

The down side of the day is that my wife Jill has the coughing crud that is going around.  Jill happily snapped up her ticket to see the King Tutankhamen exhibit and she took Caleb along with her.  It seems Caleb knows more than you would expect from a 2nd grader about Egyptology and was happy to share his knowledge with the adults (which I find awesome).  They also went to the butterfly center.  That is a great treat because Caleb's class is learning about butterflies in school.

My day (post plunge) was spent either in front of the TV (watched Radio Rebel) or listening to music.  I did a lot of drawing.  I bought a nice sketchbook and watercolor pencils and I'm trying to do an artistic journal entry every few days.  After some deep looks within my own motivations I discovered that part of the reason I don't draw as much as I want is because I fear what others will say about it.  Once people say something good the natural high from the praise makes me less likely to get to work since I have to face that fear of criticism again.  So the journal is just for me.  I can experiment, draw poorly, or do whatever I want.  It is also a good place to work out my thoughts and feelings.

I started work on a comic idea that has been tooling around in my head for a while.  It is a Harry Potter fan-fic that starts the day after the Battle of Hogwarts when the expert on the physical castle and its built in magical properties arrives to assess the damage.  One page is drawn and inked. It might get colored.  It might go nowhere.  Like the art studio comic I mentioned previously, these are projects that are designed to get me drawing again and not really meant for public consumption.  If I get super excited about one I will likely wait until I have 50 or more pages before I start publishing them.

As for ATCs I'm taking the next month off and will consider starting them again after that.  I want to get a few larger projects completed first.

As for New Year resolutions I'm keeping those private.  When I announce I'm going to do something I tend not to follow through.

Post Christmas Release

It is no secret that I'm not the biggest fan of Christmas as an economic juggernaut of a holiday.  That said, when I'm not dealing with all the advertisements and the "I wants" and the carols playing ad infinitum I do enjoy myself.

The several days before the 25th this year I (with some help from my lovely wife Jill when she wasn't working) cleaned the entire house top to bottom.  Even the garage got a ton of junk moved out.  The carpets got shampooed, the walls got washed and it looked great.  Only the stairs needed to be shampooed but I ran out of time.

Christmas Eve my in-laws moved in for a couple of nights.  My wife's mom, dad, grandma, aunt, brother and her brother's wife and 3 year old son all stayed over.  Cheese fondue was made for Eve dinner.  I had canned spaghetti and hot dogs since the combination of wine and cheese in the fondue makes my stomach very unhappy.  After dinner we played Ticket to Ride (which I lost terribly) and Super Munchkin (which I won).  We stayed up way too late and drifted off to bed.

At 1 am the cat woke me up scratching at the bedroom door and I remembered that I had stocking stuff left to help Santa put out.  After that I slept soundly until morning.  Good reminder there kitty.  :D

Christmas morning we had the family gift exchange and then I took a nap until about noon.  With the morning dishes washed I stared on dinner.  I made beef & vegetable soup and vegetarian vegetable soup, a salad, and Cheddar Bay Biscuits.  My family showed up about 3 just after the Bagnalls left for a while.  We were a large group and it was awesome to see so many of my siblings and their families there.  I was quite pleased to see my nephew Jason.  I haven't seen him in several years.

After dinner the Dyer gift exchange took off.  We have a tradition started by my sister Sue that we have a wrapping paper war every year.  I think it is my favorite part of Christmas.  :-)  Much paper was hurled and much laughter ensued.

I was able to share the idea of artist trading cards with my brother Mark and I'm hoping he will be inspired to create some art again.

After WAY too many cookies, pies and ice cream everyone shuffled off home and the house was quiet.  Rick and Heidi and RJ had moved on to Heidi's parents' house and with less people and everyone exhausted we all settled down for a long winter nap.

Then at 4am in my son's room there arose such a clatter I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.  When what to my wondering eyes should appear but most of the desserts he had finished 8 hours earlier.  The poor kid was sick all day today.  He didn't eat anything and couldn't keep even water down.  He went to bed at 6:30 and has been out like a light since.  I hope it has passed by morning.

Since Caleb was bed ridden, he and Jill were not able to partake of my Christmas present to go see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the Pacific Science Center.  We were able to trade in their tickets for 2 in January so that is good.  I went with Pam and Dick (my in laws) and had a fantastic time.  I learned a lot and was amazed by some of the artifacts.  On the way home we visited Rick and Heidi at her parents' house to drop off some stuff they forgot here.  I got to see Heidi's sister Jill who is on break from teaching in China.  I always miss her so much when she is away and our time is always too short.  We are on for the Polar Bear Plunge on New Years though.

This evening was all about the relaxing.  Tomorrow the work to get the house back into some working order begins but for now I'm happy and content.  It was a fantastic holiday with lots of family and so much love and sharing it made my heart grow three sizes this year.

Looking Back (art heavy)

I'm starting a new artistic journey and it is sometimes enlightening to take a look back at where one has been before moving forward. I spent part of the day looking over old drawings going back to before I can remember. This creates a timeline of my artistic ability.

The first time I remember ever sitting down with the intention of drawing was in 4th grade. Our family had moved back to Riverside, California which back in the late 1970s I believed was a dust filled dive with dead eyed teachers and a growing gang problem. This was the school where I was chased by Mexican 6th graders who spoke only a tiny amount of English and whose favorite game was to pick on the pasty, short white kid from Washington. They called me many bad words plus "homo." I didn't fully understand that one. I had no idea what a homosexual was but the cap on the top of the milk jug at home had the word on it (short for homogenized). I figured it was a racist term for white people. I remember they chased me one recess with the intention of pain obvious. I was so scared I peed myself and didn't care. As long as I could keep running. A 6th grade girl came to my defense and helped me get to the office without anyone seeing my wet pants.

I was alone, in a place I was afraid of everything and everyone. I had no friends but I discovered a Big Chief Tablet of paper and began to draw. I must have seen Star Trek at some point but at the time I wasn't aware of it. The similarities are too close for coincidence though. I created a ship and crew and a fighter and ran stories over and over in my head. Their world was relatively safe. They had an accountant on board! Interesting that decades later I would marry one. Read into that what you will.

I filled books with drawings. Unfortunately they were likely tossed out when we moved back to Anacortes half way through the school year. I continued to draw, mostly cartoons and superheroes. I won a contest in 6th grade and my drawing of the superhero Atom Ant's lair was hung up on the Anacortes Post Office's wall for all the world to see. That same year my drawing of a Smurf talking to an ant was put on the regional TV show "Captain Seatac" which made me a local celebrity at Mt. Erie Elementary. They pulled me out of class to tell me the good news. I didn't draw for years after that though. I don't really know why.

My next obsession was superheroes. I wasn't interested in drawing established heroes but I created dozens of my own. It was at this point, probably early in my high school career that I realized I wasn't very good. I tried and I enjoyed the effort but my skills were very low. I recruited my few friends who could draw better than I to draw my heroes in an attempt to get them on paper the way I saw them in my head. Looking back on high school I was bullied every day. One guy teased me every time he saw me and even slammed a locker door on my head (although I don't know if he was trying to hurt me or scare me.) I was roughed up often and it was during that time I turned back to art, just like in 4th Grade.






It was the year after I graduated from high school. I had an internship with the drama/typing/civics teacher, Mr. Russell at the high school. I was given the job of running the sound station at the model United Nations. My friend Brian and I began passing notes back and forth between he and the audio desk we named "Audio Land." A bevy of heroes and villains were created in an afternoon and that night I went home and drew 17 pages of comic book goodness called the "Heroes of Audio Land." The drawing was atrocious but for the first time I felt like I had created something that was worth reading. A second, longer issue came out the following year. Then I went away to college.

At Whitworth College I gave up superheroes. For the most part I gave up on art. My junior year there I discovered drawing with a simple black pen and I began to draw animals from photo and life references. I still think they were the best things I have ever drawn. I was also falling into old patterns. I was my dorm's chaplain and I had enemies. The guys who lived next door to me that I busted for pot. My own roommate that trashed my side of the room and filled a 30 gallon trash can with beer bottles while I was home for Thanksgiving break. The person who began pulling dangerous and destructive "pranks" on me. The anonymous person who wrote me a note threatening to cut off my testicles if I didn't move out of the dorm. At the same time I was wrapping myself in the blanket of art.








After college I lost my muse. I was married and happy and no longer threatened. I tried to draw many times over the years but I couldn't regain the level of perceived quality that I had in college. It wasn't until 2009 when I found artist trading cards that some spark to create returned. I created nearly a hundred cards, some okay, some terrible. A very few with sparks of what I really want out of my drawings.

Now 3 1/2 years later I am tired of fighting to draw. I am tired of feeling that I can only draw inspiration when I am feeling threatened somehow. I am tired of drawing at the micro level. I want to create something large that I would not be ashamed to hang on my wall. I am not looking for money. I'm not foolish enough to believe people would want to buy what I am selling: at least not yet. I want to create art. So in September I will sit down and create. I will embrace my past but rise above it and finally prove to myself that I can do it. Or I will fail. I am good about driving myself to failure with my foot on the accelerator. I need to succeed though. I need to prove to a terrified 4th grade kid hiding his wet lap under a pile of sand on the playground that something good came from it all.