And Then There Were Three

In the interest of organisation and simplicity I'm creating two complementary blogs to keep this one company in the cold dark waste of the internets.

Additional Blog #1

I tried formatting my Reading List as a page attached to this blog but after a certain amount of books, the page refused to show any more and either deleted entries from earlier in the piece or didn't show later additions.

After temporarily conceding defeat (i.e. ignoring it for a while), I've finally created a separate blog to list all the books I've read and what I thought about them.

It's as much a personal record as a way to share these books with other people.

I'm afraid my descriptions and reviews tend to run to superlatives and generalisations but I can promise you 'no spoilers' because I have a soul and some common decency.

So here I give you Ricochet's Reading List which I will be bringing up to date shortly.


Additional Blog #2

As one of my freshly made New Year's Resolutions, I vowed to make one comic for every day of this year.

As I've found public accountability a great personal motivator, I've decided to post them all online.

That and the fact that whilst art for art's sake is an excellent and worthwhile pursuit, it really is much more fun when you share it around.

So in order to avoid cluttering up my normal blog space with comics, or allowing myself the cheat of pretending that they pass as normal blog posts instead of writing normal blog posts, I hereby declare this corner of the internet Pinball Panels.

Once I've spent some quality time with my scanner and had a fiddle about with the template settings and whatnot, I hope they will be made welcome and that the elder sister of the three blogs won't feel jealous of the twins and start bullying them.

They're just little, Pinball Mind, they don't know any better!
And they're both kind of one trick ponies so you've really nothing to be worried about.

A Den of Ink and Long Island Ice Tea

My memory is terrible.

I can't remember how I heard about Molly Crabapple, her art, her wish to make figure drawing more accessible and enjoyable and less intimidating but I certainly won't be forgetting the first session of Dr Sketchy's that I attended.

Dr Sketchy's is an Anti-Art School. Not anti-art but anti-'art school'.
It poo poos the idea that to be good at art you have to have spent years before the easel man-and-boy or that you should feel anything less than joy when creating at whatever level you can.

Dr Sketchy's is a figure drawing session with a significant difference.

All the models are burlesque and/or circus performers.

And they are fabulous.

All you need to attend Dr Sketchy's is enough in your pocket to cover the modest entry fee, something to draw on and something to draw with.
The music is light and quirky, the costumes are divine, the drinks are plentiful and the mood is fantastic.

It's like attending a party where all the other guests are madly trying to capture their fellow revellers' likenesses because they forgot their cameras and nobody minds a jot.
The performers perform as well as pose, the MC has a wicked tongue and the sheer beauty of the tattoos that I've seen would melt your eyeballs out of your head.
Also quite a lot of feathers, satin and shimmering sequined nipple pasties.

I've never had the guts to attend a 'proper' art class, worried that I'd either be completely bewildered if they started too quickly or bored silly if they started too slow* but each session of Dr Sketchy's that I've made it to has been a breeze.
So breezy in fact that the three hours are over before you know it.

You can search for local branches on the website which I would heartily recommend.
They're a warm, welcoming lot, art nerds.

I might have a way to go with my technical skills but I'm certainly going to enjoy the journey!



*Or that I'd laugh if the life model farted. Or that I would have attended school with the life model...

Hourly Comic Day 2009

This year I had a shot at Hourly Comic Day.

I have an amazing amount of respect for the other 'comickers' who made it through the day and live in awe of some of the artistic talent on display in the forums.

I also hope that over time if I keep drawing my abilities will evolve, or at least by next year I might have learned how to use the scanner...

If you click on each of the little panels you will be provided with larger versions complete with ghostly rubbed out lines and ghostly lettering!