Here’s a little illustration I did in Photoshop recently. I’m kind of inspired by the art of Samurai Jack, and I’m trying to incorporate some of the illustration techniques I see in the SJ artwork and put it in my own work. I still have a long way to go in terms of scale, composition, and color, though.
I realize that I have a bit of an obsession with forests. Looking at these images, I see that I’m sort of painting the same image again and again. It’s time to move on from this basic forest composition. I’m not saying I’ll never paint another tree/forest image, but I recognize that I need to explore new compositions and subject matter.
For the past several months, I’ve been working on these lace gloves. I started them in February, and I would work on them whenever I got the chance. Finally, they are done. I knit them out of some blue sport weight cashmere I had sitting around. In spite of the fact that my lace knitting has some fundamental technical problems, I’m very pleased with them. I know they’ll come in handy when it starts to get chilly in the office.
They are perhaps the most challenging knitting project I’ve undertaken so far. To begin with, I find knitting on double pointed needles to be ungainly, and it slows me down. (I do not understand all of those dedicated sock knitters.) I’m also new to lace knitting. I modified the pattern from its original form, and added the cutoff fingers. The pattern is here (but in Swedish). An English version can be found on Ravelry, the Wristwarmwers with Falling Leaves pattern.
As a break from the intensity of these gloves, I’m currently chilling out with some scarf knitting. However, friends of mine keep getting pregnant, which makes me feel the pressure to make baby sweaters. Ack. Who knew that being a knitter could be so stressful?
I’ve been wanting to use this time to improve my artistic skills, but I wasn’t sure where to start. I decided to do a speed painting of clouds in Photoshop, just to warm up. I used a photo as reference, but only for the general “look” of the clouds, and for the value range of the picture. I wanted to improve my brushwork and try a few new techniques. I’m not displeased with how this turned out.
My poor, neglected blog. I could provide many reasons why I’ve been absent from this blog for the past month or so, but it really boils down to two things: lack of something to say, and a failure to make the time to find something to say. But now, I have both something to say, and the time to say it.
This past week has been an eventful one for me. Last Tuesday (the 4th of August), I went into the hospital to have a non-cancerous, fibroid tumor removed from my cervix. For the next month or so, I’ll be recovering from the surgery at home. Perhaps the time will allow me to make more frequent posts.
The list of activities to keep myself busy is as follows: drawing, knitting, watching tv and movies, sleeping, and playing video games. Not necessarily in any particular order. Hopefully I will have the time for more creative endeavors, and if they are any good, I will share them here.