Mousing Around

Almost looks like a mouse, except I put the scroll wheel on the wrong end.  Tonight was a horrible drawing night, so I'm not complaining too much.

New Job, Online Dating, and a Thingamajig

Got a new job.  Two weeks ago.  Won't be starting until January, but the position and pay is a LOT better than my current job as a Billing Coordinator.  The interview lasted twenty minutes, easily the shortest interview I've ever had in my life, so I walked out of there thinking I didn't get the job, but they extended an offer only a few hours later.  I was utterly shocked.  Beautiful offices, located two blocks away from the Empire State Building.  It took five months of intense searching in this crappy economy, but at last my search is over.

New apartment, new job

Now it's time for a new girlfriend.  Am I pushing my luck yet?

For the first time in my life I'm jumping into the online dating pool.  I've signed up with two of the biggest free dating sites: okcupid and plentyoffish.  I'm a little worried because I had a friend who met a bunch of his girlfriends online, and they all turned out to be whack jobs.  I've heard about the success stories, but is that the exception or the rule?  Personally I'd rather meet someone in person, but I'm not into the bar or club scene.   Ah well!  Won't know unless I try.  Wish me luck.

In the meantime, more artwork!  Just a shape study using a really terrible freehand perspective grid. Now that my job hunt is over, I can focus on drawing again.  More abominations to follow!

Car Form

Guess who's getting the deposit back from his old apartment!   That's right, I'm getting a check for $1150 baby!  Whoo!  I thought for sure management was going to deduct the hell out of my deposit to cover the cost of repairs, especially since the place had fallen apart over the course of my 10 to 12 year stay.  That apartment was such a wonderful place too.  Let me count the ways:  The bedroom lights stopped working after a blackout, two of the burners on the oven crapped out, the refurbished refrigerator died, the kitchen floor tiles were cracked to hell, the ceiling in my bathroom caved in once due to a plumbing problem upstairs, and even after the repair job it still leaked, just like the radiators, the list goes on and on.  During my last week the pipes under the kitchen sink broke and flooded the poor lady downstairs.

Ah the memories.  I thank myself every day for having moved out of that hell hole.

So today's masterpiece is dedicated to the $1150 deposit check that I hope to see in the next week or two!

Inking Practice and Memorized Art

Above right is the preliminary sketch.  Above left is the final inked drawing.  I never got the hang of inking, which is probably why I hate doing it.  The linework here is a little better than my usual, but it's still jittery, and the transitions from thick to thin are awkward.  I wish I knew how to make it look right.  Maybe if I sit down and ape Al Hirschfeld for a week it'll sink in. 

Anyway, today's drawing is my default attractive female face.  If I'm hanging around a bunch of other artists for an art jam, this is the one I whip out to make them say "look he can draw a pretty girl!"  Drawing a pretty girl automatically gets attention.  And this girl is different from my other drawings.  It's a mindless, memorized sketch that I can whip out on command in minutes, if not seconds(I'm refering to the sketch on the right, not the finished linework on the left, which could easily take another thirty minutes or more).  If I'm having a really bad art day, I sketch this out to make myself feel better. 

In general, I prefer drawing with construction lines because it forces me to use my brain to solve forms.  Memorized sketches like the one above teach me nothing, but it's nice to have a library of them on hand when I need to make something look good in a hurry.

Anyway I finished moving in to my new apartment recently.  And the first thing I want to say about that is WHAT A PAIN IN THE ASS.  Moving is a PAIN IN THE ASS.  Just had to get that off my chest.  I found my digital pen a couple of days ago, after scrounging around for WEEKS.  Almost had to buy a whole new tablet, which would've been another $400 bucks down the drain, but thank god I found the pen.  Before the move I even said to myself "John, you better not lose this god damn pen", so I put it in a safe place where I'd NEVER FIND IT.  Brilliant.

But now I'm back.  But not back to normal.  At least I can draw a little, but it's gonna be sporadic until I get one last thing settled, which I'll talk about when the time is right.