What to Do With January

Hey bloggerfolk!

I’m coming at you live from what feels like a blizzard here in Nashville - nearly 6 inches of snow have fallen over the past 24 hours. I always look forward to Nashville’s one snow each year and I have to say they really went all out on this one. This stuff is DEEP and nearly every roof is now sporting life-ending, two foot long icicles. I keep waiting for one to fall and utterly destroy a lawn chair or something. It’s so frosty here that the plows haven’t been able to reach us, so the streets are fully in the hands of pedestrians and sledders. I even stood in one of the (previously) busiest intersections, (now entirely empty) just to feel the rush of being Where You Definitely Should Not Be On Any Other Day. I spent most of the day doing a big loop of the area on foot, enjoying all the quaint houses looking their most quaint, and gathering icicles for my beard before returning home.

i’m like an ice vampire

There’s really no better way to blog than with hot chocolate in hand and snow outside the big window, which is nice because I’ve been feeling the need to log my recent wintery art-funk.

Now that I’ve finished Arte’s Curio Shop and rested up from the endeavor, I’ve been thinking (often) and have been asked (sometimes) “what’s next?” Although I do have a project in mind, I’ve felt like it’s still too soon to be jumping full-boar into another film. For the past three years all my artwork has been in the service of just a few projects. My personal work has become much like my work work: scheduled, ordered, the same day-after-day with no time to play or even study up! With January being such a mundane, awkward month, maybe it couldn’t hurt to linger a bit longer in the in-between.

Now halfway through the month, I can’t help but feel a little lost and directionless. But I’m also making discoveries I wouldn’t have otherwise. I had planned several ambitious non-projects for this unscheduled month: learning to draw tigers, getting into paleoart, watching Moho software tutorials (all totally not projects guys.) But what’s actually ended up happening is that I’m learning how to draw clouded leopards?? The tiger at the zoo has been a horrible model but since the clouded leopard cubs stay way closer to the glass I pivoted and have spent the last couple weeks becoming a clouded leopard MASTER illustrator. I’ve been trying to understand incoherent muscle diagrams and doing some drawing at the zoo - “eating my veggies” as I’ve heard people say. It’s thrilling to be a student again - referencing tomes and having those eureka moments as you realize WHY an arm is shaped the way it is (it’s because of muscles, but somehow I never really understood that?")

very first anatomy study based on photo by joel sartore

anatomy study based on photo by bill attwell

But at the same time I miss connecting my work directly to a story, directly to a production, and frankly, directly with an audience. When you get up early to draw leopard triceps you find yourself asking “why” a lot and unlike my short film work, the answer doesn’t come as easily. When working on a craft as demanding as animation I want a clear purpose for why I’m doing what I’m doing. Especially since I could I could be watching TV, sleeping, or doing any number of easier activities instead. Yet I don’t want my artistic output to be stifled by the need to know that purpose NOW. All my “big” projects have been benefited by the tiny, forgotten smaller ones that preceded them. And maybe I should remember that a drawing motivated by curiosity or fun is still worth the fight to fit it into the schedule.

That’s what I’m trying to learn in January at least - what have you guys been learning? Hope your snow isn’t overstaying its welcome and that if you don’t have snow you can still look out a big window with hot chocolate at whatever landscape you find yourself in!

peace,

-dh