I love making art. It’s my favorite thing to do and my whole life revolves around it. For good or for bad. This is the time of year when my semester ends and I have no classes to teach. So I have some more time to make art. This is when I like to sit down and contemplate what types of things that I can get done in the summer. So I wrote a list. I’m not going to get to everything on the list but it’s a start. Here is what I wrote down so far.
Apply for more teaching gigs. – Yes, I really should find more paying work this summer but I really just want to make art. But still I should apply myself.
Set up LLC. – I’ve always meant to set up a business identity. That seems to be what everyone does. Even artists. I just never have but I often think I should. Maybe I finally will this summer. We’ll have to see.
Revive my eBay and Etsy selling. – I used to sell stuff (or at least try to on these two internet sites. When I started teaching it became too much of a bother for too little money. I kind of feel like trying it again though. Especially with some of the ideas that I have on my summer list.
Work on learning bookbinding. – I saw someone on the internet who takes old books and upscales them to journals and sketchbooks. She sells said books online. That seems like a cool thing. I already bought some bookbinding tools so I am almost ready to go with this one. Maybe this will help me revive my selling sites.
Work on publishing something. – This has to do with bookbinding and zine making too. I want to make an art book or a photo book and publish it somewhere. Even self publish. I just plain like books and haven’t made any of my own in a while. I’ve made digital books over the years so maybe I can make more of those too. I can even make a single art book and bind it.
Work on “Art From the Machine.” – I’ve got this one started. Art From the machine is my name for generative AI art. A few years ago I took one of my old “Organics” comics and ran it through an AI engine that turned my art into another style art. It’s weird but my comic was weird to begin with. I want to put together a comic that examines this weirdness and questions what AI art even is.
Make paint tins. – Here is something I’ve been doing for about a year now. I eat these “Big Sky” sugar free mints that come in a tin. It’s the same size tin as an Altoids tin. I take the empty tin, put in 14 watercolor half pans, and drop watercolor into the pans. I put a piece of magnetic tape on the bottoms of the half pans so they stick on the metal tin. I use tubes of ShinHan watercolor to fill the tins. I’ve made a bunch of them and I’ve been giving them away to my students. I think I might sell some on eBay too.
Work on a comic of my “Dreams of Things” blogs. – I’ve had this idea to take one of my blogs where I describe making one of my “Dreams of Things” covers and turn it into a comic. I’ll show myself examining the drawing and show the drawing. I still don’t have the idea solidified in my mind just yet and it may be too much work in the end but I’ll think about it for now.
Put “Dreams of Things” covers on actual comics. – Here is something that I’ve done before but only a couple of times. I print out one of my covers onto a piece of paper and then wrap that paper around an actual comic book. So in the end it looks like an actual comic. I’ve done this before and it looks fine but then I don’t know what to do with the comic. I could try selling them on eBay. We’ll see.
Make more “Super Talk” comics. – This year I replaced my “Message Tee” comic with one called “Super Talk!” It’s a one panel comic of a super hero talking to you. I like it. It’s a nice change from “Message Tee” but if I want it to continue in 2027 then I’m going to have to make more of them. Let’s see if I have more of them in me.
Make more art videos. – I’ve made about half a dozen art videos so far and have been porting them on my social media channels. I want to keep this going and make more of them. I think I have a pretty firm grasp on these and will make more.
Make more “Big Ink” drawings. – Since making my art videos I’ve had some of my Big Ink drawings out of their portfolio homes. I enjoy looking at them and it makes me want to make more. We’ll have to see if I’m motivated to actually make more.
Go to the library. – A few years ago I used to order books from the library. Mostly comic book collected editions that I don’t want to own but want to look at and maybe read. Then I somehow just stopped doing that. I think it was because I was falling behind on reading books that I bought and actually wanted to read. But now I’m okay with only thumbing through the library comics. I got back to library once so far but I’ll probably get more stuff.
Test out YouTube Live – I do a live show on YouTube every Friday night with Wilson and Paulo and we use software named “Streamyard” to get that done. YouTube has its own live software but it was generally not very good. Except that I haven’t tried it in years. Maybe YouTube improved its own streaming software? I don’t know because I never use it. I want to try it out to see how it works but not during our regular show. I need tried and true for that. I have an idea for a live show where all I’m doing is filling out swatches for my markers. I might go with that one day.
So there is my list of things to get done this summer. I doubt I’ll get to all of them but I prefer to overshoot and give myself choices rather than only have a couple of things and get locked in. I like the option to change my mind.