Anxiety.

Last years work.

I've been painting for a week, so I've made progress on one book: painted all the clothes and some other stuff, then the skin. Now I've compared it to the work from the last books, and it doesn't look as good. I had some suspicion, but I thought it was just that they look weak until they are outlined. So I compared to the drawings from last year (not the books, but the drawings, which look 300% better than the books, not that I want to boast, I'm just disappointed at how much gets lost in scanning and reproduction processes) and the verdict on my current work is bad: my skin tones are heavy and flat, my shading is crude, and I haven't been as careful mixing the colours.

Current work.

Allowing for the difference in the scan quality and lack of outlining, you can sort of still see inferior painting evident in the below example of today's work compared to last years better work. There's a bit of a test there as well, I'm wondering if I can photoshop the skin into a better tone, which does sort of work. Otherwise, I may start again, and just lose a week.

I think I've gotten complacent and lazy. Last time I was so insecure about illustrating actual books that I really laboured over them, but now I'm already an illustrator, so I must be good at it.

So I have to stop and think about it for a little while, go on to other stuff. It's partly also to do with work cycles I think, to use a hormone analogy. This is the PMS stage of the project where I've sunk my normal confidence, I think I'm fat (untalented), I have no perspective (everything looks terrible) my life (work) is crap and boring and I want to take a day off (a day off). Just need to let the cycle move on. I'm sure in a week it will all be better.

In other news, today my entry in ABC 702 Sculpture by the Desk was judged today and won equal first People's Choice! With 5 votes! Thankyou, staff of Matthias Media, and thankyou 5th voter who doesn't work with me.

Wet Paint!

Today I wet the paper! This is my workspace: the office kitchen. You can see I spread out, and I have a lot of things. Paint, piles of paper, glass of water to wash brushes, paper towel to dry and clean up messes, digital radio to listen to 2CH and James Valentine and WSFM PLUS Billy Joel month, water to drink, books to check work against.

This is my actual painting in progress. I have been angsting for weeks about what colour dress for Emily, since I'm avoiding pink and I've already used red and purple, and the boys are always wearing blue so it's all a bit too much blue. Today I had a brainwave: orange. I made a bit of a mistake and put red frills on it, I think it should have been all orange. But it still looks very cute with the pink stripy leggings!

And this is my plate of colours. This plate is often used for eating cake off. I've decided to leave all the skin tones till last, so that I can keep it more consistent. It's hard enough remixing strong colours, but subtle colours can vary so easily, and I think I did some correcting in photoshop last time. Hooray for technology! Nothing is lost (well, if not Nothing, at least most things can be clone stamped, retrieved or hacked from a pdf).