daily-ish notes…

  • of peaks and valleys.

    I’m in a bit of a valley right now.

    I’ll admit, the daily drawing has resulted in a few recent pics that I haven’t been in a rush to upload and post. Anyone who reads more than a page or two on this site will know that I’m not a professional, but rather a guy who is trying to document his self-taught approach to learning to paint watercolour. By self-taught, of course, I mean lots of reading, lots of watching tutorials, lots of comparison, and lots of trial and error.

    This valley has been a few successive days of the error part.

    That happens.

    And while I do get down on myself when it happens, I need to kick myself in my own butt and remember that error is part of learning and the valleys are sometimes just as important as the peaks.

    So, I had a nice peak early in the month (in my own personal opinion) and while I may be in a valley now… another peak is likely just about to show up in front of me. Or, at least that’s the mindset.

  • on brush care.

    A couple yards of fabric, a sewing machine, an evening of work, and a simple idea.

    I spent Wednesday after work and until bedtime using my crafting skills to make myself a paint roll-up, a slotted case into which I can tuck each of my paintbrushes into a neat, organized row and then roll it up into a carry-along case.

    Rather than stuffing those brushes into pencil cases, stashing them into the random plastic sleeves that they came in, or storing them on random shelves around the house (where they were probably left to dry) I can now keep them neat and tidy in one place.

    Ten bucks of materials, and two hours work.

    Nifty.

  • re: the renaissance man.

    The term “renaissance man” is one of those labels that someone is not allowed to give themselves, I think.

    A renaissance man is a term for someone (man or woman, I think, gender identity aside) who cultivates a broad and expansive interests and expertise in many areas, creating a skillset that reaches into both diverging and overlapping crafts, fields, technical abilities, and other uncategorized fields of knowledge such that they are adaptable and malleable to create, produce, support, or teach many different complex things.

    Someone with lots of smarts, a PhD or other advanced degree maybe hella intelligent, but it doesn’t automatically make them a renaissance man if they are highly focused on a narrow speciality, say.

    But a Youtuber craftsman, who produces their own videos, markets their own work, composes their own theme music, does complex woodworking on screen, writes a blog about it, and then goes on tour to speak and teach about it all, she could be considered a renaissance man.

    You can’t call yourself that, but other people can recognize it in you and bestow that label upon you, and I think I see it as an aspirational goal if that kind of broad and expansive life is interesting to you. Reach for it.

  • on daily surprise.

    It may be a surprise to learn that when I wake up each morning during these daily efforts of drawing or writing or whatever, I don’t actually have a plan.

    The point of daily effort is sometimes the emergent nature of the effort itself.

    For example, today I had no idea (as usual) what to draw for my daily sketch. Another pinecone? (I’ve got multiple photo references!) A scene from my photo library? A view from the window? A random object? A weird and wonderful robot?

    Lunchtime came and despite the cold I went for a walk with the dog. There in the park, sitting on the branch of a tree huddled against the cold an old, fat magpie was sitting glowering at us, cawing a warning as I stood there a moment to watch.

    I pulled out my camera and took a photo… then promptly went home and started my Wednesday sketch.

    Surprise!

  • drawing on complexity.

    Today’s sketch caught me doodling while looking out the window of my office during my lunch break. I work nearly twenty floors up in a downtown office tower, and have a panoramic view of the city.

    I was looking out the window with my mind set on drawing a building or two and before I knew it I had started sketching buildings in detail, with complexity, overlapping and jutting with perspectives and shapes and shadows and forms and nuance.

    The result was a sketch that is opposite of what I might more often draw, simple shapes and colours.

    There is some element of realism to it, but largely it turned into a loose, but quite complex, illustration of the view of the various buildings five to ten blocks away.