Am I an illustrator now?? (Patreon)

Hi Pals,

Here's some illustration work I've been doing lately using Procreate on my ipad. The first one is for a podcast called Office Hours Live that Chuck got me hooked on last spring (this is for a song they recorded recently live on the show). It's hosted by Tim Heidecker and it makes me laugh so hard. Historically I've only listened to sad dark true crime stuff, and not a lot of things make me laugh out loud, but these guys do. So of course I did fan art and started inserting myself into the show. Sometimes when you love something, you just gotta go for it, you know? The last photo is the hosts of OHL as chicken nuggets that I made out of sculpey, because why not.

Then my Uncle Mark Ridgeway asked me to do album cover art for him, and the idea was "fancy guy going to a Grateful Dead concert". This one was really fun, and I did some cross hatching in it, and now I'm like, do I need to start cross-hatching again?

The other two are for labels for New Harvest Coffee, whom I worked way back in like 2007 I think, scooping coffee beans, and I'm still friends with them because they're great and they've been having me design some labels.

I'm in a weird place where I finished The Weight but I haven't started something new yet, so instead of torturing myself like I usually would I'm spending creative energy on this kind of stuff. And it's not entirely fulfilling, but it's fun and keeps my pen going, and it's better than being paralyzed with anxiety about what to do next, I guess. I do feel like something is missing though. I think I need to be writing stories to feel whole, and that's not happening right now.

There is something brewing in my brain though. I just need to make myself sit down and work on it. That's always the hardest part of starting something new. I'm thinking about just putting out a one-off short story type thing that hopefully will inspire a whole book. The biggest mental block I have right now is not knowing how I want to draw it, and I think the low stakes of a short story might help. (Really don't want to do inkwash again!)

Wow I'm verbose today. I think because I've been sick and stuck inside watching Real Housewives.

Thanks for reading! Also, if you made it this far, can I ask if there's anything you'd like to see more of on my Patreon? Or stuff that's missing? I'm planning on sort of revamping it a little at some point and I need some ideas!

Anyway. Hope you're all feeling good, and feeling loved.

Love
MM