It’s not easy to get anything done. That’s the way the world is. It’s easier to get things done when you’re being paid to do them but even then it’s not always easy. I’ve known plenty of people who didn’t want to get anything done even at their jobs. It’s easier to do nothing. That’s the way of the world.
That’s why, when it comes to my own art that I don’t get paid for, I like to keep a lot of balls in the air. That may be the wrong metaphor since there is no danger of anything falling if I don’t catch it but you get the idea. I like to have a lot of projects in different media to work in so I can switch from one to another if I can’t get something done. If my drawing isn’t working I can switch to inking. If that doesn’t have it going on I can do some painting with watercolor, gouache, or acrylic. I can break out my markers and draw in color. I can work on some digital at if that gets me going. I can even work on some photography. That’s what’s been missing lately. Photography.
There are two stages to my photography. Taking the photos and then turning those photos into some kind of finished photo. Often I use Photoshop to digitally manipulate the image into something I want. I’ve got a few different methods of finishing a photo digitally and I go with whatever way moves me at the time. Except none of them have moved me lately. I don’t know why. I just checked my calendar and according to that it’s been about six months since I’ve worked on one of those. It seems like I must have worked on one since then but maybe not. I’m not even sure why I haven’t worked on one except that I haven’t been moved to. That’s what I’m pondering. What moves me. Or anyone else for that matter
“Judge Too Much”
I also haven’t been able to get any of my large drawings or paintings done. It’s obvious to me why I can’t get those done though. Money troubles. As a freelancer I’ve had periods in my life when the money wasn’t flowing. That is never fun. During these times I seem to have a hard time getting anything big done. Its a psychological hurdle. I can’t think big during those times. Once things get better and I feel more secure I think big again and want to make bigger art. I’m guessing a lot of artists are like that. I’ve been wanting to work on some big 22×30 ink marker drawings but haven’t had it in me. That’s the way life is. But at least I got that one figured out.
What I’ve not gotten done at all in the last few months is my iPad edited street photos. As a photo editing tool I really like the iPad. It does a really good job. Over the years I’ve collected various photo apps and kept the ones that I like. There are about a half dozen of them that I use regularly to edit my photos in. It’s fun. Using a touch screen and my finger to edit photos may not be ideal if I was doing really delicate work on them but mostly the work is blunt but subtle. I’m not doing stuff on a pixel by pixel level but I don’t need to. The programs do a good job of changing the photos overall.
Back in September I even put together a PDF photo book of my iPad photos. That took a while. It’s not a book that will ever exist in physical form though because it’s pretty big and prohibitively expensive at one go those short run printing places. There are about 150 photos in the book and 150 pages. I think the price of a physical book was over a hundred dollars. No thanks. I like the way the PDF book came out and that will have to be good enough for now. After that I’m not sure how many photos I’ve made.
I post things on Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/artbyosborn/ Usually I post my art or my photography. With my art it’s pretty easy since I have most of my stuff scanned into the computer so I can use one of various programs I have set up to view my various files, pick one I like, and post it to Instagram. I only do it to get things out there for people to see. I only have about four hundred followers and get maybe thirty likes on any give piece but it’s still fun.
The way I’d post a photo to Instagram is that I’d make it there and then. I’d look through my digital files of photos until something grabbed my eye. They I’d transfer it over to my iPad and use those photo apps on it. It’s not a long process. I’d say I took fifteen minutes to half an hour on the outside to get one done. Not a huge time investment and often I’d make them while sitting down and watching TV at night. I usually found it a relaxing thing to do. But not lately.
I’m not sure when is the last time I made a photo on my iPad. It must be a month now. It’s my habit to try transfer my photos from my iPad to my desktop when after I made my Comic Book Haul YouTube videos on Thursday nights. I have to plug my iPad into my computer anyway so why not bring the photos over too? So I notice when there are no photos to transfer. Most of this year it’s been rare to have none. But not lately. Makes me ponder.
The only reason I can think of for not wanting to make photos is that on some level I’m upset with my iPad. My iPad is old. It’s an iPad 2. Apple’s update to iOS 10 left me behind. My iPad can only run up to iOS 9. That saddens me. Pretty soon all the new apps will be leaving me behind. I can still use all the old ones and work on my iPad as usual but it still bothers me. I don’t know if that’s really what’s holding me back but it’s all I got. I think I’ll keep pondering.
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