Completed Coil Project

My coil project has been sitting here complete forever and I am just now posting the photos. While it is far from what I had in mind when I started it, I'm happy I followed through and finished it. The current question is... what to do with it now?

Inaugural Marks Made: Sketchbook Cherry Finally Popped!

After several consecutive days of internal false promises--- I'll start my Sketchbook today. Ok. No, really. I'll start it today. Ummm... today? Maybe tomorrow. It finally dawns on me. It is nearly mid-October! This thing is due in THREE months! And I have an awfully busy fall ahead of me.

After laying around recovering from another crazy, busy day, I finally forced myself to unearth The Sketchbook. Me and Basil, The Sketchbook Project, the daily sketchbook, and a bag full of pencils got into bed together with a glass of wine. There we sat. Why the hell am I so intimidated by this thing? Many minutes spent leafing through the blank pages and looking at the thumbnail sketches in the daily book, and I decided it didn't have to be a cohesive story. I've been getting hung up on that over and over again. I needed to dump some of my self imposed rules to free me up to just dig in. Start somewhere. Anywhere.

Deep breath.

I now have the foundations of three sketches. I will just go down the checklist of ideas I've made and make some sort of progress everyday. That is the only rule in place right now. EVERY Day.

I'm not totally thrilled with the results of those first sketches as they are now, but I am relieved to have the pressure of making that first mark alleviated. Here we go!

In other news, I've gotten together with my fellow artists from this past summer's Art Sale, and we're planning a bigger, better, Give Good Art Sale. We're moving out of the "McFerren-Curcio Mansion" and into a real live venue. A pretty amazing one at that. So effective immediately, I will be heads down, making a ton of pottery for our sale at Mississippi Studios on December 5th! So exciting. The creative juices are flowing again and I'm off to the studio to throw some clay around.

Excuses, Excuses

Where does the time go? So October 1st becomes October 8th... that's not terrible. Is it? Rather than list all of the reasons my project is late (and possibly incomplete), I thought I'd show you through sketches. I've become a bit obsessed with the Sketchbook Project. I carry my personal sketchbook with me everywhere to work out new ideas that I may have about it. I sketch random people for practice. Most of my subjects are sipping a beer, enjoying a meal or reading a book. Occasionally I get ambitious and attempt to sketch something non-human, like the Flat Iron Building pictured above.

A Conversation with an Architect: Corey Martin- lecture series I've been organizing at work. Just a few folks from the audience.

The Basement pub with the roommate (referred to here as "Zaugg"). He stated that the girl on the right was MUCH cuter than I drew her, not sure how this lead to the thought bubble commentary above her.

On the left, a poor rendition of a co-worker during an extremely painful marketing meeting. On the right, drinks with the roomie at Produce Row Cafe. It doesn't actually look like Mike, but more like Ron Perlman. I skillfully drew what I imagine the back of my head looks like.

As for The Sketchbook Project sketchbook... Ugh.

When we last "spoke", I was lamenting about that allusive first mark in the actual Sketchbook Project book. Well, I'm still afraid of that thing, damnit! I did make some marks... super lightly with pencil, but that is as far as I got. I have been working on it though as noted above. When I'm out and about, I chat up my friends about the project, sometimes we brainstorm ideas over drinks. I furiously scribble lists and make thumbnail sketches in the non-Sketchbook Project sketchbook. Here's where I'm at...

Originally my concept was to illustrate all the places your name could appear over the course of your life; from the cradle to the grave so to speak. In the last day or so, I began to envision a different way. It could be drawings of all kinds of people: ethnicity, sex, size, shape and profession. This would be more about diversity and that you could really be anyone. Your name could appear anywhere. Maybe it's a combination of both ideas. I think I have been contemplating the nature of people, their similarities and differences, too much lately. It's spilling over to my art projects.

So here we are. I vote we alter the project plan. Let's post pictures of the sketchbook progress weekly for a bit. What say you, Miss Mandy?