Messy Mark-Making in March

There's tiny tongue-twister for you.

Merry day to you all!

I have missed you!

Or, rather, I have missed writing nonsense.

Technically I wrote nonsense only yesterday, but that has not filled up my heart’s Nonsense Quota¹ for the week. So here is more nonsense, to make me feel better.

Though first I should start off with something illustration-related so that people think I’m professional.

Ah, I know: I will tell you that work on my dummy book² is going well. I’ve got a neat little 5th draft³ typed up and I’ve made a lot of sketches. I also made a character sheet for my protagonist, mainly for my own amusement:

He gets a wee bit frustrated in the story…

Since then, however, I’ve been on a sort of impromptu holiday - doing only necessary things while jazzing around⁴ with the family, and then getting a bad cold that is refusing to get better.

Some news-like stuff:

• I’ve decided to close my Ko-fi account. You know when you just don’t fit in somewhere? That’s how I feel about Ko-fi. I like the idea of it, but they’ve got their own niche, and that niche seems to be filled with Manga and vampires.
  So I was going to simplify things and only sell my stickers there, but I decided to simplify even more by getting rid of it completely. I’d rather have fewer online things to manage.
  My point in telling you all this? Well, what if you wanted to buy my stickers and suddenly found that you couldn’t? So I’m letting you all know that I’m closing my Ko-fi shop on the 30th of April, in case you want to grab some stickers quickly.

• I have published a new blog post all about how I fight Pinterest-overwhelm by doing something really simple and obvious. (Do you already do it? Am I thinking I’m unique, meanwhile this is something everyone does? You can tell I haven’t done my research.) Anyway, you can read it here, and do let me know how you use Pinterest to keep yourself inspired.⁵

Things I’ve overheard this week:
“I’ve got a fat, round finger.”
“Look at that: no dragon on my finger and I didn’t break one.”
(It’s a strange co-incidence that they both mention fingers though they were said by different people, many days apart.)

Some marks I’ve made recently:

I was going to say some deep and meaningful stuff about mark-making, but then I didn’t really want to. So here are some mark-makings I’ve made in the last month or so.

• Here are some live drawings from my recent adventures:

  

• A few weeks ago I had some stuff I was determined to get finished, but I took a break to read a newsletter, and the next thing I knew, I was down a rabbit hole, drawing a bunch of musicians. I could have stopped at a quick sketch, but instead, I added colour… then I took a photo… then I added more on Procreate until it was this:

What I’ve learned from this experience is:

1. Not to read newsletters when I have a to-do list to get through, and

2. That it’s quite handy to have a work-in-progress on my iPad upon which to add a bit of scribbling whenever I have a few spare minutes. So I’m going to take a few more photos of unfinished drawings to keep in Procreate, and we’ll see what becomes of them.

• At our March Drawing Play-Date, we drew from a few of my photos of National Trust places, but we got creative with them by adding some animal characters. Here’s the ‘fancy rat’ picture: mine, then the ones my daughters drew:

Drawing Play-Dates:

And, speaking of Drawing Play-Dates, our next one is on Monday, April the 7th. Click this link if you’d like more information.

To find out about upcoming D. P-D’s, go to this page, because it will give you all the details and you’ll be able to sign up and get it in your calendar nice and early. That page will also tell you what Drawing Play-Dates are, in case you’re reading this and wondering what I’m on about.

Replays of past Drawing Play-Dates are available to Scribble Club members (when I remember to record them).

A found illustration:

Sometimes we go into charity shops and come out again without buying anything. Instead, I take pictures of things that inspire me. Well, here’s an illustration I liked from a record cover. And now I kinda wish I had bought it…

Hummock! Easily confused with ‘hammock,’ these are large lumps or humps in the ground, like miniature hills. Apparently these were also called ‘hammocks’ - so you could call hummocks ‘hammocks,’ but you shouldn’t call a hammock a ‘hummock.’

Ok, that’s enough now. Get back to your to-do lists.

1. A person’s NQ* is like a bucket in their soul that needs to be filled with a certain amount of nonsense. Similar to how “speaking” the Love Languages fills up a person’s love tank. Some people have very tiny NQs. I have a large NQ. How big is your NQ?

*Yes, I just made this up right now.

2. For those who aren’t sure what I mean by “dummy book,” this is my picture book in semi-polished-but-still-rough stage. So each page will be sketched out clearly with space for text, and 2 or 3 pages will have finished illustrations.

3. And I think I’ve finally chosen an ending that I’m happy with, but this might change…

4. Did I just make this up? I don’t like the word ‘gallivanting’ but this was the only alternative that my brain would offer me. And I think ‘jazzing around’ works well, because it is improvised, unpredictable and often syncopated.

5. I’ve become disenchanted with Pinterest lately - first it was all the adverts, then the videos, and now there are too many sneaky A.I-generated illustrations masquerading as human-made, but with weird fingers and eyes.