This photograph was taken directly under natural light. If you look outside my sliding door, all you see is snow. I was having a hard time trying to find good lighting to actually be able to take a decent photograph. So the picture ended up with a bit of a cool blue tone to it.

I didn’t spend too much time today working on this drawing. For tomorrow I’ll have to really figure out where I’m going next with this. Or perhaps I’ll get back to it later on tonight. No matter what I ultimately decide to do with this drawing, I should have something more interesting to post tomorrow. I’m noticing that nobody is really talking about my artwork lately, and I’m getting hardly any views, so I’m kind of going to be stubbornly confident in this particular piece of artwork and continue working hard on it until I end up with something awesome. That’s just how I work sometimes.

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See, I knew this was going to turn out looking pretty cool. There’s one problem though; the blue colored pencil I was using just would not sharpen correctly. It continued to crack and break until there was virtually nothing left. I wasn’t even half way finished yet! So, I’m a little bit stuck on what I should do. However, this is an abstract piece and I’m just going to continue on anyways. Maybe I’ll just change the colors up for the rest. Or perhaps go with lots of red.

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When I started this abstract design the other day, I was in the mindset of trying to create, visually, the feeling of an infinite number of creepy tendrils reaching for you from all directions. Claustrophobia, as well. So far, I think a bit of those feelings attached to it. Honestly, the “tendrils” idea kind of came from a strange thought. Imagine you knew that they were arms and hands, attached to angry people, reaching for you. Trying to grab you and pull you god knows where. But you close your eyes and so what you feel tugging at your clothes and limbs suddenly feels like it could be anything. Anything “tendril” like. It’s a strange thought, and I don’t often go into what my thought process really is when I start my drawings, but I thought I would share that for once.

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There’s nothing all that exciting going on today. The picture I’m working on is coming along nicely, but it’s certainly not especially interesting as I already know what it’s going to look like tomorrow. I’ll probably get half of the right side finished! I’m still trying to figure out a way to add something special to this picture. I guess I kind of like to “paint” myself into a corner, as they say. Start with some simple ideas and try to execute them well, and then just figure it out as I go along. Kind of like writing a novel or any script really. Seems you have some basic ideas to start with, and then as you go along you figure out the characters and what decisions they would make, filling in the plot details as you go.

Alright, question time again! I’m just going to answer one question for today. I have laundry in, and my dishes are soaking, and it’s already getting late in the evening. There’s only three questions left from the list of questions that Crystal posted anyways. Actually, I think I’ll answer one question each day for the next two days. That sounds like a plan.

What draws you to this project?

I may have answered this one a little bit with some of my more rambly answers from the previous questions. But I’ll take a stab at it nonetheless. First off, I’ve done a lot of drawing in my life. It’s kind of been something that I’ve felt really defined me. While I was growing up anyways. Then I stopped as I did more “adult” types of things. Like getting jobs and moving around a lot. Now, I’m at the point in my life where I want to do something special. Something I can feel good about doing. I’m realizing, as I’m going along with this project, that I really love to create things. Whether that be characters, environments, or entire worlds. It’s something I really feel like I need to do. I’m 100% dedicated to figuring out a way where I can make a living creating.

So, a more simple answer would probably be that at first I was drawn to this project for simple reasons. You know, “Let’s try this out because I used to draw a lot. It’ll keep me busy while I have nothing really going on in my life.”. Then it kind of became more important to me. I have to finish what I started, and make it a life changing experience.

I figured it would be a good idea to post today’s drawing progress now, before I spend hours filling in half the image meticulously with black ink. You know, while I can still feel my hand. This is going to take awhile, but I’m actually excited about it! The last few days, after that swamp drawing, I’ve been feeling a bit… off. I think winter is finally getting to me as I haven’t been out much, and I’ve been very tired. I’ve found that I’m sleeping in later and later in the mornings, and I would even go so far as to say, if I look at myself in the third person, it would seem I’m a bit depressed.

Even when I sit back and realize that maybe I’m being impatient about everything (Hurry up Spring! Hurry up money! Hurry up feeling better about stuff and things!), I still feel like everything is moving entirely too slowly. I guess, when I’m feeling sluggish myself, it certainly doesn’t help any. Ah well, it’s January, no matter how I feel or what I do, the next few months will eventually end up behind me and I can perhaps look forward to something more positive. I miss being excited about stuff. You know, beautiful warm (dry!) days, having/making money, doing something new!

At least today I’ve felt a little better as I’m content with today’s drawing. Right away I started using my 0.05mm Micron pen (for the first time! that’s the smallest one I have). It felt pretty good! I didn’t plan anything out, I didn’t hesitate, I just started drawing. The left and right sides of the picture will have a black background, and I’m not sure what will be in the center yet. I’ve tossed around a few ideas while I was drawing the curved figures, but I haven’t settled on anything yet. Maybe there will be nothing in the middle!

Alright, question time! I have like 4 or 5 more questions to answer. Here’s two more for today:

How can you help people?

I don’t believe I’ve ever been told that I “inspire” anyone, but I think that would be… well I don’t know how I’d actually feel. I mean, obviously it would be a positive feeling to be told that you inspire someone. Maybe there would be a lot of disbelief mixed in there too. Anyways, I think that would be a pretty cool way to help someone out.

I guess I have inspired people to do some things before though. My nieces are pretty excellent artists themselves. They’ll probably be famous for their creativity a lot sooner than I’ll be! Oh, also… I remember my cousin Brad, who’s always commenting on my posts here, started a blog of his own several years ago after reading my old movies/TV/video game blog I used to have. He may have only wrote a couple posts, but he found motivation from me. Well, inspiration, I guess.

So, to summarize, I guess the best way I can help people is to inspire them. I would love for more people to make the decision to be creative, and if it’s because of something I did, I think that might be pretty cool.

Why are you taking on a year of creative habits?

Well, when I started reading Crystal Moody’s blog, I, myself, was inspired to take on the challenge, after going through most of my life unsure of the reasoning for why I’m even here. For most of my life I tried desperately to hold onto motivations for goals I cared nothing for. I saw what everyone else was doing, and I was told what I should be doing, and just went along with it because it was easy to follow along.

I felt the need to do something new and vastly different than how I’ve spent my time previously. “This Crystal chick wasn’t doing what was easy! She was trying to do something interesting.” She was promising a new piece of artwork, and a blog post, every single day. I put my time in drawing crazy creatures and such while I was growing up, and I had a blog for a few years too, so I could write decent enough! It was making too much sense for me to do this year of creative habits thing.

As I’ve mentioned, I used to be good at drawing, and spent most of my childhood and teen years drawing on whatever I could find. I figured it would be fun to see how much I’ve forgotten over time. So I dropped everything and make the decision to take this challenge full on. Hell, it’s not like I have any other obligations going on. And now I feel like I have a purpose. I really don’t know precisely what’s going to happen from here on out into my future, but it’s definitely going to be revolving around my creativity. This creative habit project will be the most important decision I’ve ever made.