Well so I haven't been doing much of anything lately as far as art. I have been writing more than drawing, but still creating. The cool part is that more people are requesting art from me because it is apparently what I do. So I have been doing a lot of stuff for free for close friends and family. It pushes me out of my comfort zone, it also let's me see how quickly I can make work and be satisfied with it. This piece was done as a christmas present for some friends, and I think it turned out quite nicely. My only payment was getting a copy of the book. I am off of work from the 24th of December until January 2nd, and I was hoping that over the break I would get a chance to work on an animation project, but then reality hit. As I move into a new phase of life and career I need to find a more realistic balance between time and projects. So instead of trying to squeeze a project out in an unrealistic amount of time I have decided to focus on getting into the masters program at the university I work at. Good art comes from good stories. I have a lot of the mechanical pieces down, like graphics creation, animation and presentation, now it is time to focus on creating compelling story-lines. The most useful writing tool I have found up until this point are some rules laid out by Kurt Vonnegut. The two I find most useful are, "start as close to the end as possible," and "be a sadist, do horrible things to your main character to see what they are made of." Well as I put together my writing portfolio, I am going to make sure to keep these rules in mind. I think they will really help me put some edges on all the stories I have created up until this point in my life, but seem like they are missing something. My plan is to post some of them and get your feed back. I also found that I have to just write and not worry to much about correctness, but to just keep the words flowing. This is much how I approach my visual art and I have always been satisfied with the results. Thanks and let's make the most of 2012.
