Warm-up self portraits

This week was warm enough for me to return to working in the basement studio, and while that still means wearing a puffy vest or wearable blanket and seeing my breath, it has been a true joy. Before I was working up in my house, which isn’t great! That’s the place where all the discrete, accomplishable, bottomless domestic work is, and where the mental load of family life is most distracting. Down here in my cold room of my own, the only thing around me are visual cues and tools to work on my own work. It shouldn’t be a revelation that working in a work space is helpful, but here I am, amazed and astonished by the blindingly obvious once again!

To start my hand moving on the first day I drew a quick self portrait. It was just fine!

The next day I wanted to draw something that felt more honest, and I was still thinking about that “slow and steady doesn’t mean easy” comment from the spin class I took on Hourly Comics Day, so I am become snail, a very slow destroyer of deadlines.

Then I got really excited by the idea of a theme for each week’s warm-ups at the same moment I got really bored of drawing myself. So I gave myself lycanthropy.

I want to draw more, I want to fail more, I want to cycle through bad ideas faster so I can find a few good ones, and I want to share more than I currently can while occupied by my big book & other things on the horizon. I think next week I’ll do a really silly, dumb theme for my warm up drawings. Til then, stay warm and have a great weekend!

Xoxox m