I have returned to the blog after a year...!

I had just returned from a two-week long trip to Buffalo, New York. The trip was meant to serve a few purposes, among them being a time to rest from work, a change of scenery, and for my partner to finally visit his friends and family after the pandemic started. Additionally, and the reason I'm writing a blog post about this, I wanted to establish a habit of sketching the places I visit.

After landing and having a day of rest, we spent the first few days of that trip in a cabin in the middle of the woods with my partner and two of our friends. It had the essentials but no phone signal nor WiFi. It was very much the 21st-Centry version of being isolated. At first, I was a little alarmed. How do I contact my family? How will I keep in touch with friends and colleagues? How can I maintain my detrimental online browsing habits?

I didn't expect this to happen, so I didn't prepare for it. But I'm an adult, I can handle a few days without connection--it'll probably be good for me anyway, I thought to myself.

It became apparent pretty quick how often I pulled out my phone to look at social media outlets. This was especially noticeable the morning I woke up, when I usually check my phone first thing after waking up. Not being able to connect, I remembered I had some eBooks and digital magazines on my phone from my library. I filled that message-checking habit void with reading PleinAir Magazine (not sponsored)--which I may add, I enjoyed far more than I ever did browsing social media or newsfeeds. It's now a habit I've maintained weeks later.

Later that day, one of our friends--who had cell phone signal--turned on the WiFi-Hotspot on his phone so we could check message and contact family. It's been a whole day since I've been online. What did I miss? My phone connected to our friend's phone, the notifications came in, and... 

You know, maybe overconnectivity isn't great for me.

There was nothing negative in any of my message or social media feeds, but in the short time I didn't have signal, I actually enjoyed being disconnected. Unavailable. Nothing but me, my friends, the cabin, and the woods.

It was a nostalgic feeling. It took me back to a time before everyone had a computer in their pocket. Don't get me wrong--I'm not going to be bitter and proclaim "It was so much better back in my day! Before Cell Phones, Facebook, and Twitter!" because I don't have that opinion and that attitude has been pretty silly throughout the various eras of advancing consumer tech. And I remember how I felt about this sort of thing when I was growing up. I would've given up my leg for a computer I could take everywhere I go. But... I think that happend, I wouldn't have those moments where I got lost within my mind. Those long car rides, those school nights where I was up passed my bedtime, those summer mornings hours before I crawled onto my desktop computer. I spent those moments lost in my head, dreaming up stories and drawing. It's those sort of moments that brought me to where I am today. How would things be different if I had a phone, then? 

I don't know. 

And obviously I'm not about to preach to throw your phone away. That's also very silly. Our phones are fabulous tools that help us with essential tasks every day and that have connected so many people--for better or for worse. And the "for worse" moments shouldn't spoil it for the "for better" moments, but we seriously need to learn how to live better with them. Whatever that means depends on who you are, so I'll end this train of thought on this note. But I will stress the word I already used, and I want whoever reads this to really think about it and how it may apply to you: overconnectivity. 

Wasn't this about sketching? 

Well, yes! All that rambling is about sketching! With no phone signal, there's no social media to cycle through and get me hooked for precious minutes out of my day. My library books were great, but I can only read them for so long. 

So there I was, out in the woods, with my modest sketching supplies and no connectivity--just good friends--to distract me. ​

This was my first sketch of the trip. Before I went, I watched videos of the great Glenn Vilppu do on-location sketching from New Masters Academy (also not sponsored), and the thumbnails before a more finished sketch was lifted from his video. While I enjoyed drawing, I think I overworked the tree and didn't stay true to the idea of sketching. I enjoyed the thumbnails a lot more.

​Later that day, I tried again.

I quite enjoy this one as well, but I still feel like I overworked it. I was concerned with the clarity of the sketch, but in the end I think there's too much linework and not enough clarity in shape and value. 

This is definitely one of my favorites. I took from my thumbnails on the first day and aimed for something very simple. Just a quick study on the color temperature and value of leaves. It was a good time. 

At the cabin and throughout the rest of the trip, I read a couple books about urban sketching, and was delighted by the pen and ink drawings I saw many urban sketchers make. Inspired by that and my previous attempts to sketch, the day I caught my first fish, I made a quick drawing of the lake shore to celebrate. I was without my watercolors but was with a pen and small sketchbook.

I like that this set up was super portable, but I did miss my watercolors and the ability to lay in large areas of value and color. 

Got my watercolors back for this one! The entryway to Six Flags, Darien Lake was a challenging subject, but I'm rather satisfied with it for a sketch. 

Shortly before the trip ended, I found a compromise between my watercolors and my ultra-portable pen and sketchbook: a small water brush big enough to fit in my purse to use on the non-water-soluble pen for those areas of value.

While this may be the anti-climactic end to this blog post, it's the beginning for my sketching pursuits. It'll be interesting to see where I am in regards to sketching in a year from now! ...hopefully that won't be when my next blog post will be published! 

Here's another exercise from James Gurney's video. I feel my brushwork is still a little clumsy but I can feel myself being more confident with the traditional medium.

What I discovered about this painting is that palettes can be extremely simple. Most of this was done with Titanium White, Ivory Black, Ultramarine Blue Deep, Raw Sienna, and very, very sparingly, both Chromium Oxide Green and Alizarin Crimson for some of the grass and the lawn chars in front of the house. The vast majority of the painting was done with just those four colors. It amazes me how much can be accomplished with such a limited palette. 

The first meaningful post on the blog (accompanied by updating this website)!

There's that old saying, "Do what you love and you never work a day in your life." It's a great, starry-eyed expression that I find holds some value. That being said, "Do what you love and you never stop working" is more true--at least for me. I my career at this point is very close to my ideal, dream job. Is it true that I never work a day? ...Let's just say I've been so burnt-out before that I got jealous of office workers--simply because they were able to go home and be free from work until the next day. I'll dive deeper into this subject another day.

I spent the better part of thirteen years doing art after work was done. When I went home from school, I drew. When was done with homework, I drew. Of course I did other things here and there, but most of my spare time was spent drawing. I loved drawing so much it was as essential to my being as breathing. However, I found out about two years into my dream career that even I had my limits and needed to cap art making after a certain amount of time. But what do I do? I can't draw. That's what I do for my job, and I need to take time to rest and do other things.

I spent a good deal of time strictly limiting any art or drawing to work hours. I was to do no art during my time off. This was good in theory, but remember how I mentioned that drawing was as essential to my being as breathing? In other words, my free time felt pretty empty. Sure, I had a good time playing video games, watching YouTube, and going out, but my free time still felt hollow. More recently, I allowed myself to draw if and only if it was for the fun of it. This was challenging, since it still felt like working. It was a lot of fun, but so is my job, and I was still at my work desk.

Luckily, James Gurney released a great video, announced via email with the subject, "Now is a great time to learn to paint in gouache". This caught my attention because I've been on-and-off relearning traditional paint since I left university, and gouache is one of my favorite mediums. Needless to say, the video lit fire under my feet. I pulled out my paints and cleared off a small table--one I put in my office specifically to do traditional art whenever I got around to it--to do the first exercise in the video.

Admittedly, I got a bit overzealous and missed certain objectives of the exercise. I was satisfied nonetheless, considering it had been years since I painted anything with traditional media. As I know from my job, good enough is fine--do better next time. If you ask me, the next time I did just that. 

After waiting a couple weeks for some more paints to come, I did the second exercise in the video. I took what I learned from the first painting and applied it to this one: being sure to allow the underpainting and transparent layers to shine. 

Either way, it was such a joy to make these paintings, and I certainly would like to pursue it more. Obviously, my first passion is comics and narrative art done in a traditional animation-esque style, but painting is quickly turning into something that I look forward to doing during my time off. The analog nature of painting versus the digital nature of my comic work makes it a perfect activity to do in my free time. It satisfies my need to make art without feeling like I'm doing my day job. I still have a long way to go with painting, but what thrills me is that--given the nature of hobbies and free time activities--it's less about what I end up making and more about the activity and learning. This best captures the spirit of when I made art growing up. I was excited to learn, to do, without the obligation of work. 

So if I gave you--or even me in 2018 during the peak of my burn out--some advice about what to do during your time off if you work your dream job, it's to find something to do that's still what you love, but different enough to feel like you're doing something else.  In a perfect world, it should be something that could take you outdoors. Thankfully, my paint set up is relatively portable, and I'm looking forward to taking it outside sometime.