Orange

I recently dug up this little number I did during the last Christmas holidays and stuck it in a cheap photo frame. It shouldn't be hard to believe it was inspired by a Vogue photo shoot. In it, the model had the front of her hair dyed a different color in each picture - this generally matched the background and even her clothing. I never really considered coloring in any other parts of this, but it has a sister painting which I started to fill in and my put up here later.It sucks a little, but I won't be able to do my usual weekend drawing/painting relaxation routine as I've got to be 100% ready and rehearsed to film the last episodes of Handful's first season on Sunday. Still, I'm steadily getting better at training myself to do enjoyable, productive things to relax. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with just crapping out in front of the television, video games or Internet distractions - it even sort of has to be to done once in a while - but awhile ago I set myself the goal of gradually shifting the balance of my relaxation activities from that category to the kind that leaves me with something for my efforts and I'm glad I did.

It's tricky, though, as it's not enough to do something productive - you have to make sure you're not getting lost down the path of Yet Another Skill To Try and Perfect. Otherwise the relaxation portion, the having-something-you-can-forget-about-when-you're-not-working-on-it bit, goes right out the window and then what are you doing?

I can't believe that after this Friday's Handful update we'll already be halfway through (Sept 12 will be the last update). If nothing else, this experience is certainly helping me refine my definition of what I want to do for a living.

I also can't help noticing how this blog has been transforming from a record of what I'm seeing to a record of what I make for others to see.

Hrm.

Movin' on up

Click To Play

So this Friday was the last of the episodes from our first batch of filming. I've just started looking at the footage for the next episode and the difference is like night and day - and not just because we got rid of the desk. Tonight I'm doing another interview and that too should be improved by the moderately hard-won lessons of experience.

It all makes me want to go back and call a Mulligan (or something). But oh well, it's the natural trajectory for this sort of thing. I can't think of one television series or webcomic I've enjoyed that didn't get a lot better after that initial period where the writers were still figuring out their voice and all that jazz. It would be just a tad presumptuous to think myself above this process!