I have to admit I have been really enjoying Florence and the Machine. Lately, I've found i really enjoy singers with a unique sort of stage presence.
Wow...it's been kind of a crazy month. In case anyone was actually wondering (i doubt it) the whole 30 days/ 30 characters thing didn't really pan out. Sorry. But the good news is several other exciting things happened this month, all of which should have an actually positive influence on my productivity.
I was really fortunate to attend the 3rd annual CTN Expo in Burbank a little over a week ago. I almost couldn't handle how many awesome people i got to meet and how much talent there is in the industry right now. Tons of amazing blogs to follow make me really want to put more time and energy in to this blog. I got a lot of great advice and feedback from people who looked at my work, and got to know more about ways to stay afloat in the industry. Overall, i was really really impressed with the level of passion and drive and devotion that so many people there possessed in regards to making art. It really goes beyond telling yourself just to draw more to finding the love and the pleasure and enjoyment that makes drawing something you WANT to do more. I think the fact that I have spent most of my time as an artist in school really made it hard to cope with the first few months after graduation. My art really suffered, i had to re-evaluate my reasons for making art and figure out what to do with myself once the structure that academics imposed on my life and routine disappeared. Even more so when i finally moved back to my family's home in Portland, OR, and found myself feeling truly up-rooted from the stand point of no longer having what i could recognize as my own individual space.
The thing I've missed most about school is the ability to just go into a lab, sit down at a desk and get to work without the obstacle of a clumsy laptop on coffee table/wacom in lap arrangement in someone else's living room. Turns out, it wasn't as hard as one might think to find a perfectly good cintiq for sale cheap on Ebay, and a after a few hours on craigslist, i bought a desk too. Once i got those two pieces, it was really quite surprising how quickly i was able to throw together a reasonably function able workspace. But who really cares, i think i would have been just as happy with the cintiq on my floor. it's been set up for a whole two days now and i really couldn't be happier forsaking daytime, sleep and regular social interaction for the experience of reliving my high school experience cooped up in a basement for hours with tea and a tablet and Photoshop and thick socks. Fuck it. You do what it takes.
Having a cat helps too. I don't know why, but at least i have the comfort of another living soul willing to spend as much time underground with me. Or it's just because we keep her food and a bunch of spare bedding down here.
