day #365 - the end of an era

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I thought I was on top of it; I had finished early and was looking for a movie to watch already 3 hours ago. And I don't know how time went by. A phonecall, some networking studying, some online shopping and here we are, already past the time for an early movie. Regardless, today is a special day. The blog is over! I finished 365 days of daily painting and recording it, whatever that means. A big part of the process I will have to keep doing mainly for myself. Perhaps taking daily photos of my work and saving it on some folder. This has provem useful many times when I trying to date a piece I've been working on. Also making a small diary of today's achievements. It's still useful. But this will be done for my eyes only. I also don't know if I will be continuing my obsessively daily painting. How would life be if I had days off? Now for example that I'm moving out and I have to daily chores that until now were completely taken care of, perhaps I'll allow my
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day #16 - Desert Friendships

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It was already 3am and I was writing code; a power-cut (six actually) forced upon me that fact that I couldn't work anymore today. Oh yeah, then I remembered I still had work to do. Draw something, and post it. Probably I'm the opposite of all these social media artists. I make it sound tedious and unpleasant. And to a degree it is. I mean it's the 16th day in a row that I wished I wouldn't stay up to do a drawing, after 12hours of work and still counting... Imagine how many hours I'd work if I were being paid?
Obsessiveness...

Anyway, this is my blogging space to express myself so I don't want to water it down. It's funny. I have memory of times (not so long ago) that I'd feel guilt for not drawing every day. And now, I feel guilty for drawing.

So today's piece was (thank God) forced by the power-cuts. Otherwise I'd still be coding now, and then I'd have to start drawing (it's almost 5am) - then again it could had been the day that I finally manage to break the implicit-commitment, who knows... (I'm not to optimistic though)
I was tired so I thought I'd go easy on myself. Also yesterday's piece was quite elaborate so I was okay today with something quick and sloppy. I'm also severely deprived of playfulness in my life so I deciced I'd sketch something lighthearted . I remembered I had this beautiful black ink (Deleter Black) so I decided to use this for a vibrant ink sketching on my (cheap) notebook. I started with a fineliner doing a random shape and soon I had the beast ready and then I did the nomad, the pillars, the stairs, the pool and the dunes in the background. Then I took the ink and started filling surfaces with black. Towards the end I stopped adding ink, and was only working with water and the ink residues; it was fun! One day I'd like to try and do tones with black ink!

I like a lot about this piece. The atmosphere, the existence of a narrative, the feeling of the desert, the contact between the two characters; the lighting. The tranquil lake, the contrast... There is a nostalgia. The desert always makes me nostalgic in a metaphysical way; as early as a kid I'd watch movies about the desert-folk and fill with awe. I also love Frank Herbert's Dune ;-)

Anyway, lot's of nice things about this piece, and most of all, it was relatively quick!

PS. I always write these posts at the end of my day. The next day I usually proofread last night's post and discover dozens of typos, time for bed now.

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