IT'S DONE.
So, I've had a Skillshare membership for approximately 1000 years now, and enrolled in a number of classes there. But trying to find a lot of time for both watching videos, practicing, and creating projects has rather eluded me until this week. I found Nicholas Felton's Data Visualization: Designing Maps with Processing and Illustrator course, and immediately I was hooked.
Which makes no sense, considering it's got !!!PROGRAMMING!!!!! - my old nemesis.
But on the other hand.....it also has maps, the objects of my greatest visually-inclined-geography-nerd love. So I figure that's the key.
And really, the programming? Not so bad! The Processing syntax is pretty familiar and very approachable, with the Javascript and Python dabbling I've done in the past, and Nicholas explains everything in a way that makes sense, is easy to follow, and easy to replicate. And processing.org has tons of easy to use (and understand) resources.
Course Project - Mapping Meteorite Strikes by Mass
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- Total Horse Population by State
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- Distribution of Horses per Square Mile
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- Horses per Person
Processing seems like a really awesome, powerful tool. My execution maybe needs more refinement, but I'm excited to jump in and practice with more maps, and puzzle out how to make even more kinds of graphs and charts, to really round out my infographic makin' skills.
Part of a larger illustration for a poster that's in progress and also AWESOME. Had to share because I'm completely jazzed about how he's come out - stay tuned for the rest soon.
(Watermarked on the off chance my pony drawin' turns up on google images and someone decides it's worth using in their article or blog post or whatever - figure it could be one the tribulations of being/drawing a Triple Crown winner)
Some practice with digital painting and trying to solidify more identifiable, accurate portraiture. Skipping around a little bit between them (story of my life) but just working on more painterly rendering in Photoshop - Kyle T. Webster's amazing brushes are a big help. Of course I still have 3+ more Avengers to go after my 3 favorites here...
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- 22. Natasha Romanov (Black Widow), The Avengers. Another one I wasn’t totally sure about, but I’m glad I didn’t ink it because I have an idea stewing for a new and improved version.
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- 23. Why are so many of these bittersweet tributes?? RIP Mr. Pratchett.
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- 24. 30 Rock. To be more accurate, this is actually Jack Doneghy’s throw pillow.
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- 25. What we should all aspire to.
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- 26. This is another one that should probably get revisited and redone.
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- 27. No longer the catchphrase of my favorite podcast, Comedy Bang Bang.
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- 28. Meek Mill, “Dreams and Nightmares”.
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- 29. This is one that totally changed between pencil and ink, which strangely didn’t happen often throughout these. Maybe it should have happened more?
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- 30. Gaslight Anthem, “Boxer”. The Bruce Springsteen for my generation of Monmouth County angst.
Concise end of the month thoughts: I'm so glad I followed through on this. I need a break from doing this. I can't wait to more fully realize some of these. Overall: I call it a success.
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- 15. Just something I need to keep in mind. And I need even more practice drawing effortless looking decorative swashes.
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- 16. It’s San Fermin again. The same song even!
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- 17. This was a suggestion from a friend, and might be my favorite of all of them??
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- 18. Liz Lemon. I can’t even think about rating my 30 Rock fave quotes.
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- 19. Christina Yang (Grey’s Anatomy)
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- 20. Death Cab for Cutie. I thought about finishing this, but I don’t love it, and it would have probably meant finding a ruler and using it. We’ll see.
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- 21. The question mark is because this doesn’t seem like Nathaniel Hawthorne, but I couldn’t find a source for who else may have actually said it.
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- 08. from “Sonsick” by San Fermin
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- 09. In honor of Biggie Smalls
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- 10. What did I say about decade old song lyrics?
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- 11. From the Shawshank Redemption
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- 12. “Never tickle sleeping dragons,” which is of course the motto of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
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- 13. A phrase that’s stuck with me from a beautiful poster I cannot afford.
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- 14. Liz Lemon. This will not be the last 30 Rock quote, but it IS one of my favorites.
I should stop being so wordy and let these stand on their own more, right???
Haha, just kidding. They all have captions!
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- 01. In case you thought this was going to be deep and meaningful quotes: NOPE. (RIP Harris.)
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- 02. I love this quote so much I actually have it as a cross-stitch sampler (which I sewed myself).
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- 03. OK, so some of them might be sorta more along the lines of normal quotes.
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- 04. The overwhelming majority will probably be “lyrics from songs I loved as a high school sophomore” though.
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- 05. See previous caption.
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- 06. See, I wasn’t joking.
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- 07. You’ve read Yes, Please by now, right?
So I've read about a million different inspirational, motivational articles or blogs or Instagram photos about creativity and habit-building - all boiling down, basically, to "Just do it." I'm trying to remember that not everything that results from a pencil touching paper needs to be perfect and precious - just that it needs to be finished before it can be anything. Trying to come back to the art of sketching or doodling and just letting that be where a bigger, more formed idea comes from. And that I need to be doing all that waaaay more often than I have been lately.
So for the month of March, I'm hand lettering one quote, or phrase, or song lyric, etc, each day. Nothing precious, nothing precise - just taking something that I like or that sticks with me, and transforming it by putting it on paper in my own way. So we'll see how that goes, though I'm really dedicated to sticking with it, because follow-through has always been my biggest hurdle.
These are just tidied up - upping the contrast and removing some of the more egregious smudges (the lefty struggle is real). Otherwise, they'll be just how they are in my sketchbook, for all intents and purposes "finished" but maybe a few could act as thumbnails for more labor-intensive pieces down the road. We'll see!
Obviously it's not to blog. I am the worst at regular blogging. I'm going to try again now, though! Because I'm revamping my website for the twelve billionth time.
So, at work I do keep busy, doing the designin' thing, making all sorts of posters and whatnot. And I've even been drawing lately (more on that soon)! But sometimes, outside of work, when life gets busy, those extraneous creative pursuits fall by the wayside in favor of Ben & Jerry's and consuming entirely too many episodes of television in one sitting.
Luckily for me, I have good friends who love coming up with ridiculous things for me to Photoshop for them. These creative excursions are the subject of this post.