Classes, Kara, and Arthritis- February 20th (Patreon)

Hey Artnerds!

How's February treating you?  It's gotten cold here in Louisiana- although that shouldn't last long, as spring is right around the corner in the South.  I've spent all week recording easy watercolor tutorials, working on recording and creating demos for the second session of How to Draw Anything, and working on 7" Kara Chapter 9 thumbnails.  

Prepping for How to Draw Anything Class 2:

I have mixed feelings about this class.  Of course, I'm looking forward to teaching it in person, but even though I generally overprepare, I think I REALLY overprepared this time- the Youtube version of the class is going to be long and dense, with a LOT of demos and walkthroughs.  While that sounds great, it's difficult to juggle all that information- for the in-person students, I really just want to demonstrate how it's POSSIBLE to use Volumetric Construction to draw anything, and provide some examples, without spending too long on any of those individual examples.  We only have an hour together, so it makes it difficult to balance lecture with exercises, and the in-person exercises give me an opportunity to see their work and offer feedback.  I don't want to overwhelm them, but I also wanted to create a lot of demos that hopefully make the students go 'oh!' and help them start to see things Volumetrically.

So generally, my rationale with these classes is since I have to draw all these demos anyway, I might as well record myself and make a digital version of the class.  This is beneficial in a few ways- it helps me organize my thoughts and practice, it allows in-person students to revisit the topic after the class, and it allows me to share the workshop online to potentially help even more people.  This works well sometimes- I do really enjoy having ready-made demonstrations in my presentations, handouts, and sketchbook- but all the narration and editing makes it a pretty time-consuming backend endeavor.  And Class 2 is particularly long- so I'm worried that while there are a lot of great demos and I'll have spent a lot of time drawing, voicing, and editing the workshop, its length will deter people from giving it a shot.  I do plan on putting chapters in- and I'd prefer to refrain from breaking it up too much since I want it to work as a coherent class.  And I'm also going to release little bites of tutorials on Tiktok and Youtube shorts, so hopefully, this class will find the people who want to see it!

After teaching the class:

I definitely feel like I over-prepared and had way too many examples- an hour is a pretty brief amount of time for teaching art classes, and I should really cherry-pick just a couple examples, and then hyper-focus on that, rather than trying to give a smattering of everything.  If I teach Volumetric Drawing as a 3 class series again, I'd love to have maybe an hour and a half, and I'll definitely focus on fewer exercises, but making sure everyone gets the gist.

I'm currently working on editing the video version of the class.  Even with a lot of timelapse and voiceovers, it's still almost 3 hours long!  The video is longer than the class itself!  But hopefully people will watch it and find it helpful- there are a lot of exercises, examples, and demos in there, and I legitimately demonstrate how Volumetric Drawing can be used for almost anything!

Artnerds, I'll have the presentation, handouts, and early access for the video version of the class out to yall as soon as I have it uploaded to Youtube! 

Working on 7" Kara Again:

I really thought doing thumbnails would be a lot harder than it actually is. Thumbnails are always the hardest part of comic craft for me- since I'm taking a written script and turning it into visuals (everything else is frankly just refinement)- it's a bit like alchemy, and it takes a lot of concentration and focus.  Fortunately, so far, the thumbnails have been relatively easy, and I'm making steady progress thumbnailing Chapter 9. 

I think part of it is that after a year-long 'break' from comics, I've really refined my messy garbage thumbnail-> clean digital sketch process, and it makes it easier to get out of my own head and do thumbnails that are legible, but open to a lot of revisions and restaging.  I've finally gotten to the 'just get it out onto the paper, it's easier to refine than it is to create' stage, and that honestly frees me up quite a bit.  

I just wrapped up the last of the thumbnails- Chapter 9 is 33 pages.  I'm going to give myself a short break, critique my work with fresh eyes, get it scanned, send it to my beta readers for feedback, and share it with Patrons sometime next week.

Arthritis

All this drawing (class prep is several hours of drawing demos a day, and then thumbnails take a couple hours) plus the cold weather has been really hard on my arthritis- my right hand is killing me!  I have a paraffin hand bath, take breaks, stretch frequently, and soak it in hot water, but until the workday is done, I can't use any pain relief or ointments.  The pain relief part is because if I'm taking Advil, then those pain signals aren't reaching my brain, and I'm likely to do way more damage to my hand from overwork.  And the ointment part is because I don't want to get oil or wax on my paper.  I've been considering buying a heating hand massager- do any of yall have any experience with those?  I asked on Twitter and got a lot of unwanted advice on OTHER treatments, but no one's said anything about hand massagers.

Backer Exclusive and Early Access

Easy! Colorful Lensflare Watercolor DIY Bookmark Tutorial: https://www.patreon.com/posts/early-access-diy-62529556

Easy!  Rainbow Bookmark Watercolor Tutorial: https://www.patreon.com/posts/early-access-62222104

Golden Stars Easy Watercolor Tutorial: https://www.patreon.com/posts/early-access-62222003

New to the Public:

Tuesday, February 8th: Kokuyo Enpitsu- Artist Reviews Mechanical Pencils: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlbbbrCfimg&t=8s (stationery, stationery review, pencils, mechanical pencils)

Saturday, February 12th: Cutie Cupid- Color With Me! Valentine's Day Art Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHD3noWIErU&t=37s (alcohol markers, art markers, marker tutorial)

Tuesday, February 14th: Pilot Fure Fure Corone- Artist Reviews Mechanical Pencils: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7befb3BTNgw&t=1s (stationery, stationery review, pencils, mechanical pencils)

Saturday, February 19th: A Starry, Glowy Witch- Arteza Round Watercolor Block Full Review & FIeldtest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJEzTZ8RyGo&t=2s (watercolor, watercolor paper, watercolor painting, watercolor tutorial)