I made this list of figure drawing challenges, because who would’ve thought that drawing naked people could get boring?

The studio I’ve been attending is organzied so the nude model is in the same pose over the course of four 20 minute sessions—the long pose as it’s called.

Now for me, I’m much more engaged during the quick gesture poses before the long pose. My mind just seems to work better with fast and dynamic poses that are only a minute long. I like being on my toes and it helps me channel my intuition.

But since I was paying for the full class, long pose included, I wanted to curb my tenancy to leave early.

I realized that if you aren’t engaged in an activity, especially a routine one like this, then there’s no point to putting in the time. I simply had to make these four 20 minute sessions more challenging. And thus, this list of challenges was born!

When embarking on my first animation project, I quickly learned that I did not possess the drawing skills required to execute at the quality I wanted.

Now begins a series where I chronical my progress from eight months of consistent drawing practice—specifically drawing people, naked or in public, but typically not both. (Haha.)

I’ve been drawing since a young age, so much of the technical skill comes to me as second nature. This post isn’t about the technical aspect of drawing, but the intuitive side that comes once you’ve reached a certain level of proficiency. Once you no longer have to focus all of your conscious thought on the small movements your hand and wrist are making to make marks on the page, this is what you can do to grow next.

This is about getting to the place beyond conscious thought.

Recent work:

Before practice and mindset shifts:

To commemorate Inktober, a month-long artist celebration for ink during October, the local thriving comic book store, Famous Faces & Funnies, hosted a challenge event. The challenge: Within 24 hours, create a 24 page comic.

The event started, the room full of a dozen artists, laughing and having a good time. I joined, a bit self-conscious.

Now, before going into the event, I had made the beautiful mistake of reading the gorgeous and layout rule-bending comic, Sandman: Overture… The story is about dreams, timelessness, other dimensions, and the universe ending, so… Let’s just say that as a comic-making novice, I may have set my bar a little too high.

A year ago I wanted to die.

Or maybe a better way of saying it is that I was so overwhelmed with anxiety, stress, guilt, and tragic loss, that I wanted to alleviate the pain that I was being crushed under at every moment. Ending it all seemed like a potential solution. It would mean that I wouldn’t feel these horrible things anymore. All of my problems will disappear…

What saved me was holding onto the reality that this also a way of abandoning my family and loved ones, whose problems were very much so real. This minute long clip from the show The Blacklist explains this better than I can, and it’s a powerful piece of acting.

Suicide is a long-term and permanent solution to short-term and temporary problems.

Ending it all also doesn’t just mean preventing a future of negative experiences, it means preventing a future of positive experiences as well.

It comes down to a choice between committing to life or committing to death.

I committed to life.

Taking two months to complete, building and designing this website has been an educational and rewarding process. Here’s how I got it done.

Similarly, read New Beacon to see my purpose with blogging.

Here are the reasons that made getting this website up and running more urgent:

• I’m bursting at the seams with content that needs to be shared. I compulsively write blog posts that average 2,000 words in length, and come up with supporting illustrations and graphic concepts. I have a backlog of over thirty new and partially fleshed out posts… I wish I was exaggerating!
• I want to focus on completing the biggest project I’ve undertaken to date, the Lion Poem Animation, but I have no place to chronical my works-in-progress and learning, let alone a place to share the finished project (except the brevity of YouTube).
• Accountability: I want to finish what I start. Sharing goals publically adds some needed social pressure.
• Experiments: I don’t want to only leave a string of finished projects in my wake, but also behind-the-scenes and lessons learned from making them. I change things up frequently, lately oscillating between researching, writing, drawing, web development, and playing the ukulele, and I’ve been letting this playful and experimental nature lead my work. The results are rarely uninteresting.

Now, let’s get into the logistics, the What and How of making the site.