Still not quite making art

[avram]

I’ve been trying to push myself to do more with shading, something I think I’ve always been poor at. Not cast shadows, but the shaded parts of objects, using solid black to create more interesting shapes.

I started this one on Monday night, at the mall, waiting for the 9 PM showing of The Day After Tomorrow (quickie review: way cool visual spectacle, worth seeing just for that, but huge piles of stupid in the plot; also, what, did that tidal wave come up the East River and hook a left turn in midtown? also, moron, you’ve got an axe, break the door down! anyway...) and finished it at Ground a day or two later. I think feathering the dark regions was a mistake; it looks OK on the paper, but lousy in the scan. Some young guy came over and praised the hell out of my sketches, offered to interview me for his school paper come fall, made me feel like maybe I oughta get off my ass and do some real art.

I’m clearly not going to get any comics work done in time for this year’s SPX anthology, but it’s painting that’s got me excited right now. The other day I was strolling over to the Shop Rite to pick up some fruit (cherries!), and I was so busy looking at the surrounding buildings and running Photoshop filters on them in my head that I walked right past mcroft without even seeing him.