I’ve recently felt inspired to do more sketching. To capture the energy around me, and to keep drawing, even if it turns out bad. I haven’t felt that way in a long time. Perhaps it’s a summer thing. Overall, I’m prioritising mood over quality, though it’s also nice if the sketch turns out good at the end.
I’m also working on this piece that I’m just calling “hot pot” for now. I have a thumbnail composition already, and my plan of attack is to do studies of the individual aspects of the image before hashing out the final layout. Oh, and I’m experimenting with dip pens + water colour, and I really like it so far! My favourite part is that you can draw kind of crappy and this medium will make it look intentional lol.
In general I’m going for a more relaxed, imaginative and playful approach with this piece. I don’t want to always have to rely on reference images, and to check if every single detail is correct (my normal mode). It’s just so exhausting and really takes out all the fun. It’s hard to work alone because all I hear in my mind are those critical, perfectionist thoughts. I realised that I am a lot more easy going when I have someone to talk to while working. Just like in my personal life, I wish that in my working life, I had more of a balance between working alone and working with people around me.
In the mean time, my strategy is to be mindful – to notice when I have those extremely self critical thoughts, and then to let them go. It also helps to have relaxing music while working, here’s my drawing playlist in case you’re curious!
BTW, you’ve seen this already, but here’s the printed version of the feature illustration I did for Spectre Journal Issue 3! AD: Gabe Berlin, he was awesome to work with!
Finally, I signed a contract for another project with the Ban Ki-moon Centre in Austria. Here was the first project, in case you missed it. I’ll be starting next month, so I’ll keep you updated!