I accomplished my goal. I got some painting done this summer. Five paintings. That was pretty good. But, of course, such an accomplishment is always followed by the question of, “What is next?”. Even if I was a financially successful artist and the completion of five painting meant a show or some money from the sale of the paintings I imagine the question of, “What is next?” would still be the same. Though the process might be longer the question would still have to be asked.
I have a few answers to the question but none of them are as big a project as getting five paintings done in a relatively short period of time. It’s getting back to the reality of day to day life after being involved in any big project that consumes your life for a time.
One of the first things I want to do is to work on some videos. By that I mean that I want to figure out how to present my art on video so that I can present it on social media. I’ve dabbled in such things in the past but never to my satisfaction. It’s tough trying to figure out how to get any kind of attention for art in the social media world.
I have a lot of art to show. Decades worth. I have paintings, prints, drawings, and lots of other stuff to show. So far the only thing I can really think of is to stand in front of a camera and show it. I’d probably have to talk about it too but what do I say? Do I talk about technique? Do I tell stories about making the art? Do I make up stories about the images in the art? Do I write a script about what I’m going to say? How do I edit it? Do I edit at all? So far I have no answers to any of these questions. I think I’m going to have to just get my camera out and start something.
Though I have been getting one a week of my “Dreams of Things” covers done I have fallen behind on drawing new ones. I’m coming up on issue number 300 and I’m going to do multiple covers for it. Just in the last two days I’ve drawn and inked a couple of new Dreams of Things” covers so I’m getting back in the grove of that one. But that’s easy because I never really stopped.
Getting back into the groove for my Great Gatsby illustrated book is going to be a little harder. I haven’t worked on that one in months and though I don’t have a lot of work left on it I still can’t seem to get going. I’ve done plenty of illustrations for it but I really don’t like the design I did and I have to rethink it.
I think that what I’m going to have to do with the Gatsby book is to strip it all down to the basics and start over with the design. Maybe I don’t have to delete the inDesign file or anything like that but I’ve got to start fresh and clean. Probably the best bet would be to turn the page in my sketchbook and start making some design sketches. I think that’s what I’ll do.
I have to start writing some comic strips again. I’m ahead of writing my “Four Talking Boxes” strip but that’s because I wrote a lot at the beginning of the year. I’m going to lose that buffer eventually since I haven’t wrote one in a month so I’m going to have to get started again.
That is unless I want to create a whole new strip. But that’s opening a whole other can of worms and will be a ton of work. But I sort of want to. We’ll see.
Another thing I have to do is to figure out what I want to do with the paint markers I bought. I spent a bit on money on them. I think I spent over a hundred dollars on the markers and refills. I should have some sort of plan for them. I already had some cheap paint markers that I drew on Funko Pops with but these are a step up.
I’ve already tried a few times to work on some technique with them but so far I have nothing. I used them on a couple of pieces but only as finishing touches and accents. Nothing major. I think the marker tips are a little too small for most of my ideas for them. So what did I do? I spent another $20 on a set of 15mm wide paint markers. Those ones are much bigger than the 2mm tips on the ones I already have. Maybe too big. We’ll have to see.
I did manage to set up a second computer as a back up. A friend gave me an old (2019 I think) MacMini. I mounted it underneath my drawing table and got a small $50 portable monitor to hook it up too. I also got a wireless keyboard and mouse so that I could operate it without any extra wires on my drawing table. So far I have it set up to watch videos as I work but that’s enough for it.
I probably have even more stuff to choose from for what to do next that I haven’t even thought of yet. I’ve always got a lot of stuff underway to give myself choices and some of it gets lost in the shuffle for years. Many a time I’ve dug something up and thought, “Oh, yeah, I remember starting that” before going on to finish it.
One more thing about “Dreams of Things” and issue 300. I’m thinking about stopping that particular project and starting a new series of “Covers for Comic Books That Don’t Exist.” I used to switch between a variety of titles with different themes and styles before settling into DOT. I could switch back to the variety or come up with something totally new. Of course I thought the same thing with issue 200 so maybe I’ll just keep going. That and I’ve already pencilled six alternative covers to issue 300. So it’ll be a while until I have to decide what’s next.