the week

(Sunday)
Saturday was busy, so didn't get to anything.  Sunday night now, felt like my body or head wanted to get sick.  Teasing a headache now.  Maybe three hours sleep since yesterday, in two or three shifts.  Nothing done again...stared at Sharon Mitchell's hand and couldn't wrap my head around it.  Some slight pencil smudging to clean up, a few tweaks to make but I like the body finally.  Might need to prep a new drawing to kick into the mental process of translation.  Emotionally mostly neutral.  No dreams. Hard to stay focused on anything, Been a surface-level kinda day.  Oogh.  Headache not thrilling but aspirin might aid sleep.

Had Chinese food.  The little cartons are meant to be unfolded into bowls you can eat from, but the manufacturer of these particular cartons doesn't seem to know it as they stick in wire handles that are difficult to disengage from the paper.  Really stiff wire.  I have my walking stick base element for the 1/2th figure!  I will fill out the legs of this figure with a mix of sawdust and Mod Podge and hope that it works.  It's a small figure so it shouldn't be so thick as to take forever drying.

Change of approach on the seated figure for Jesseca.  I've re-scribed the details down the front of the gown, better but not entirely satisfied.  I messed around with the arms a little and have decided that going forward with those in clay before baking will screw up what I have so far, which I'm already not happy with.  So better to preserve what I've done, and then so the arms and probably the collar and necklaces in Milliput.  I might lay down a base for the collar in clay and then bake.  I'm far from being proficient enough with Sculpey to do all the details in just that, need a ton more practice. 

Doctor's appointment on Tuesday.  Numbers have been tolerable but not great.
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(Monday)
Evening, restless.  Puttered at things,  got a little fussy bits done on different projects.  got a little more sleep  last night.  Still looking for my 8x10 tablet.  Medium texture is best for the Annie Sprinkle or a few other items where the source details aren't crisp. 

There are a few images I'm considering that are a little more creative but I'm forced to realize I'm not a concept guy.  Most that I've come up with over the years have struck me as facile and forced.  A few turn out well.  In theory, that would be one of those 'muscles' that grow stronger if you keep flexing.  Creative types don't just churn out brilliance, they mostly produce rubbish.  What fools the rest of us is that they produce rubbish in such volume that the relatively small percentage of great ideas still seems awfully high to us, and we never know how much trash we didn't see from them.
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(Tuesday) 
Leaving for the doctor in a few minutes.  Had maybe an hour of sleep.  No dreams of Dana but maybe a proxy sighting.  Again nothing I didn't already know.  Dana, I do know things.  And I've been fighting my life out to have you in it.  That ought to tell you something about misplaced fears.  Be a little counter-intuitive.  Telling me isn't going to cause a problem that already exists, it's going to solve one.  If you're reading this then you must wish this block wasn't here anymore?  Why do you still need it?  What is it insulating you from?

I'm looking at that portrait of her on cardstock, and I still love the look of that best.  If only that paper didn't rip up so easily from mechanical pencils!  It's a good drawing, if I can finish it in the same style.  I could draw from this photo a hundred times and the expression she wears would be different every time.  I think I could do a better job if I started over today and went 1/1 scale, but I want this one done too.

Oh, I deleted a paragraph from a post from the past week.  It was up for a day before I decided it might be taken the wrong way.
 
They say an artist should be aware of the world around him.  Today I  made myself aware of some chicken biryani, gulab jamun, and some hot chai.  Best Taste of India is my current favorite cart at Cartlandia,  a half hour walk from home.  Not enough money to go often, but I always end up at BToI.

Still looking for that tablet.    The Annie Sprinkle image is a centerfold someone scanned or photographed, so a glare obscures details at the gatefold.  It won't take up much more then the center third of the page, but her right side disappears off the edge of the photo.  Also some of the details will have to be made up, extrapolated, or supplemented from other pics.   So it will be an interesting challenge, but mostly for locating it on the page and  figuring out where to leave off.  She's got a faux-fur coat I expect to remain a mere outline.  Not needed, except to indicate body.  (Plus, it's kinda gaudy...sorry.)

Have now transferred the image, fits the page better than expected.  I hope this will be a lesson in how much I can get away with not drawing (her clothing) and still have a complete image.

The lines aren't actually that dark, it's just enhanced a bit so you can see it better.  It's in soft lead  which may be a mistake, I hope it will be easier to erase as I go and not sink into the paper.  Wondering where to begin...hands, hair, or face are the likeliest starting points.  The magazine glare crosses her hands and skirt, so that's the biggest challenge - I see some of the skirt's printed pattern but hardly all of it, and not the folds at all.  I may end up not looking for realism there. 

The joke of the photo will be missing.  She's squatting next to a  fire alarm sign indicating an 'automatic sprinkler'.  Her faux-fur coat might look better in black and white.  I mean, I like purple as a color...  I don't intend to fill that in, just indicate the space and texture.  We'll see. The picture dictates what it needs.

I read once that Jill Kelly did a scat scene in Europe.  I bet I could draw that.  Not a problem.  It's blood that I quail at.  Funny, maybe, coming from a horror fan, but (shrug).  No period sex.  More power to ya if that's your thing but I'll be in the next room.   Go to my other blog and read the review of A Snake of June.  It deals with fear of body issues. Plus, it's a damn good  movie.
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(Wednesday)
Spent most of the day working on the thrones for Jesseca's seated figures.  Scale replicas I've wanted to build are calling to me, and I must resist  them for now to get to more important things.  If these  are to be molded and cast then I'll have to build them so that the cast pieces will connect as if they were a model to be assembled.  I think I've got one such details figured out.  For the evening, I've reached the point where all kinds of things are beginning to go wrong.  Small, fussy things, but in rapid and increasing succession:  Sign that it's time to quit for the day.  The last thing to go wrong was discovering that the sub-assembly I was finally having a success with is made to an erroneous measurement, meaning it's unusable and will have to be done a third time.  OTOH, I know that my approach is working.  "Learning is never a waste".

The female figure sits too far forward in her seat.  I'll have to cut her in half, above or below the waste, and try to reconstruct her.  Not sure whether to bake what i ha first, but I'd like to not.
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(Thursday)
Great-niece and -nephew here for the afternoon and evening.  Work mostly will be later if at all.  I'm nearly four weeks behind on my Kolchak reviews, must watch the next one tonight and take notes.

Sleeping better the past two nights.  Not straight through but more hours.
 
Still trying to figure out the fuzzy details of the "Weird Science" screenshot.  Hand is washed out - glove, fingers, joint.  Eyes are too deeply shadowed, her cheek disappears.  I'm wondering if a ballpoint sketch  - or wash, or preferably both together - might be the way to go.  Getting the eyes right is crucial - if I can't work out the lines or hide the shapes, this is a no-go.  Get the eyes wrong and you don't have a picture, the rest won't save it.  There's an earring I can't see, and she's rocking an '80s mallbrat look that needs one.  I'll have to find one online and substitute.  The collar isn't clear at all either but the material is black.