An unexpectedly really hectic month with a decent amount of time spent off-line and using online time for hammering on projects.
# WINS
At the start of the month I was finally able to do a long hard effort without coughing post Covid. Yeah for Zone 3 HR workouts! We traded my partner's old exercise watch for some handmade beeswax candles from @mooretrees. We are hoping these candles bring our living room Hygge from a 10 to 11. A major part of the hectic month was I had a science communications proposal accepted. I needed to do some calls, meet some people in person, and generally rearrange my zine making schedule to accommodate. Fortunately, the articles I had planned on producing for the zines are the exact content that I wrote about in the proposal. Nothing changes with my yearly plan, except now I need to take the longer form article versions of the zine content more seriously.
# IMPROVEMENTS
I am really delving into the live sketchnotes as a viable way to make income from art and learn at the same time. One of the self-criticisms of my current live sketchnotes is I have not worked the visual hierarchy muscles enough to do layouts on the fly. Practice, practice, practice. On my road to imagination drawing I am working on rotating relatively simple forms inside of an imaginary box and then drawing them from multiple angles. This is how one gets really good at being able to draw anything from any perspective.
# NEW DIRECTIONS
Minds eye to hand to pencil and back again. A lot of practice to get what I can imagine in detail in my mind onto the page. In theory this is similar to having an object in front of you, but I want to be able to do it while also rotating and maintaining the details. The profession that is really good at this is industrial design. I am working through some design sketching tutorials and exercises from this community. Once the simple forms are mastered, then the sky is the limit. My art buddy and I attended a life drawing session in the next town. Many of the same folks come to the community drink and draw, but we met some new artists as well. 5, 10, 30, and 90 minute poses of the same model in different positions, different clothing, and different lighting. Drawing from life is always way harder than from photos or a screen. $20 for the session hosted 1x per month. A new art expense.
# DRAWING
In my quest for 1000 figures from my imagination I am currently at 490 (including all the figures for the lettering and reporting on this page).
Various drawing stats, but I finished 2 new portfolio pieces that will be used in social media, my blog, into a zine, and potentially prints for sale.
I spent what seemed like an absurd amount of time creating a zine creation plan that also had the exact techniques I would learn/try for both data viz and illustration. However, all the detailed thought came into immediate use once I got the proposal acceptance email. It was easy to slot these new "products" over the next 18 months into the "work" category.
# OUTDOOR ADVENTURE
Various stats illustrated by boxmen 440-446.
# WORK
In working on the proposal last fall I was doing research on various masters in science writing programs. I am not actually interested in more school, but I am interested in just doing the curriculum to build up a portfolio of better than typical blog content, but less time than a full peer reviewed scientific manuscript. The key though is figuring out how to write for more general audience, especially about topics that you may have expertise in, without it sounding like jargon babble. The products I am going to produce as a part of this are listed in the sketchnote. The topics are mainly just extensions of the things I am already interested in and have plans to do the research for zines anyway.
My science communications contract is up at the end of July, 2024. Even if the contract is extended, on August 1, 2024 I am going to try living completely off creative income. This will provide some more hustle on the creative, business, and frugality side of things. I will allow myself to have an emergency fund buffer, but this will consist only of the art/commission income I get between now and then. Tick, tick, tick.
The work section is gradually going to be overtaken as an art business. I pre-sold a poster print! I need to ship it soon. I had a goal to have a zine for sale on an etsy shop. Zine is ready, etsy shop requires bank account info. I need to go to local bank in person to create account. We have gotten hammered by snow this past week so this task is postponed by a few days. (damn you short months!)
I created a file that includes all of the zine fests, trout related shows, and outdoor shows around various US Western Cities. I have the information on where the Native Trout ranges are so I need to integrate the two data sources for travel optimization. This is mainly around coordinating timing of when watersheds are open for fishing with the zine fests. Huge bonus if I can make this line-up with visiting friends or ERE folks in the West.
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# SOCIAL
We went to a Nordic ski themed wedding. Delightful humans. Delightful skiing conditions. Delightful weekend.
My partner and I discussed where we thought we were on the minimalist vs. maximalist versions of our current life and the one we are building together. This is in-part due to the discussion on the forum about how 20M might or might not change your life thread. We basically decided that it would not really change that much other than spending even more time on creative projects, potentially while living abroad. We have been in the minimalist side (from our perspective) of things for so long that doing the same things in a different country is actually not that interesting. We can just do that now if we really wanted to.