Progress Wednesday: 3 parts of my personal challenge ... and a poem.

I decided, after trawling the internet for the last week, that I would have one day a week where I discuss the progress I'm making on my Personal Challenge, and my monthly targets. I decided today may as well be that day considering how much work I've gotten done in the last two days. I've managed to finish another drawing and two pages of Witchan. I'm very proud of myself for getting this done.

 This is just all of the pages I've finished together. The colour is surprisingly good considering that it looked bleached out on the camera screen. They were all drawn using a 3H pencil and the colour was created with water-soluble pencil crayons. They took me roughly 2 days in total to complete and although the comic pages need to be editted slightly the first picture is pretty much how I want it to look. I seemed to hit some form of massive art surge that has gotten me creating large amounts or creative things in comparison to normal.

The colour isn't as good on this picture but you can see the general idea. The reason for that big border around the edge it that the Sketchbook Project books aren't A4, they're a little smaller. As it is I need to cut it down before I stick it into my book. The theme is 'Travel With Me' as I've probably already said so I thought I'd explore the hazards of travel. The sea was surprisingly fun to do with the crayon, just loosly sketching in the voids and joining the rest together. I like the slightly bleached appearance that the watercolour gives as it implies the sheer heat of the desert island.

These two are Witchan comic pages. I need to scan them in and edit them on my image editting program before they're ready to go up but ah well. I like the mixing quality of the water soluble pencil crayons and also the way that the pencil has run on the second page to emphasise the ink drop feel that I was going for with those black blobby things. I still need to place a white border around them as well as sketching in the text that is there but can't be seen on the photographs. I really love the image editting programs.

I also found myself writing a poem today. It started as a few lines I had when I was half asleep the other night and I've since expanded on them using as many of the senses as I can. It seems to be evolving in my head into an entire series based on a single theme. I want to do a little research into it before I write any more but I will put this one online once I've finished it.

Now onto a different subject. After a bit of consideration I've decided that I'm going to have specific themes for certain days. Here's a little list;

•  Progress Wednesday: In which I inform readers of my progress in both my personal challenge and the monthly targets. At the minute the two are slightly joined but now and then there will be things that are solely related to one or the other.
• Friday Links: Links to sites that I frequent or have found useful in someway and want to share with you.
• The Sunday Workspace: On this day I'll show you a little of what I have in my works in progress pile, whether art related or writing related. This will basically be a chance for you to get a little peek into what might appear soon 

I hope you like the thought of this, it'll help keep my blog update regular and let you know what to expect when. I'd love to hear thoughts about this though so please feel free to email me or comment on the blog.

1 drawing down, another half finished, just another 33 1/2 left.

Yup, I've managed to finish one of my drawings, probably one of the most experimental of the lot and am starting to get in the mood for experimenting with the others, rather than just doing a straight up drawing/sketch onto the paper.

So here's a picture of the first illustration I've managed to finish out of the 35 I set myself.

 

My chosen theme for the Sketchbook Project was 'Travel With Me' so I decided to do a colour map of a fictional country with the journey of the characters marked on in red. I plan to stick this to one page and print out a bit of jargon to about it to stick the facing page. Thankfully I've chosen to hand bind my Sketchbook once I've decorated the front and that should give me some room for sticking a load of stuff in. The map itself was first sketched onto a full A4 page and then coloured lightly with pencil crayon. Then I soaked it for a couple of minutes in warm tea before sprinkling instant coffee granules on it to give a more gradiated look. Once that was done I left it to dry slightly and then dabbed it with the teabags before shoving it under the grill on a low heat to finish it drying. Once that was all dry I got my watercolour palette, a small little white box, and started lightly painting in some of the detail. The place names and the journey route I inked in with a pen.

This is another illustration I'm working on. I figured I'd show some of the dangers of travel, in this case, getting stuck on a desert island. I think I'd been watching Castaway with Tom Hanks and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl which is why I've gone for palm trees. It's drawn in soluble pencil crayon over a very very light pencil sketch and once the whole thing's done I'm going to run a paintbrush over it lightly and then cut it out and stick it in. I did originally draw this straight into the book but couldn't remember if I'd used normal crayons or water soluble ones. I figured I'd just start again on a new sheet.

 So I thought I'd include this picture to show my creative workspace. I've got the majority of my art books, sketchbooks and the more frequently used notepads in the shelves and my journal by my bed, that's the little blue/green book close to the left hand side. You can, if you look closely, make out all the Terry Brooks books I've amassed, as well all my work for the Sketchbook Project. I'm going to have to pick up some PVA glue and tissue paper for some of my drawings for that but hopefully that won't be too hard to store, even in my little room.


In other news, I've gotten really into bookbinding. I've managed to bind one book so far, a rough paper one that's just going to be used to sketch out designs for my webcomic pages, nothing fancy. I've managed to create a whole list of book types that I want to bind though which is just a little odd, even for me. There's some that can wait but there's one definate idea that I want to have bound by the end of the year. I'll expand on that in another post soon once I've worked out a few details, along with any other book binding attempts I make.

In the meantime keep an eye on this month's to-do list to the right of the maind body of the blog. You'll be able to see the targets I set for myself this month and how I'm getting on with them.