I was meaning to write a blog post in June, but...June was a lot. I had a car accident early in the month, work has been stressful for various reasons, there was a repeat of March's family medical emergency, AND at the end of the month I myself had my first thrilling trip to the ER, where after keeping me for five hours and taking multiple tests, they released me after finding nothing wrong despite how I was feeling. So...yeah! Not great!
There was some good, though: after a friend hosted figure drawing in his home at the end of May, which I got to take part in, I hosted my group Defining Bodies on June 12th for the first time in 16 months! We had a great turnout and amazing models, and it was just so good. Both meetups were small, limited to a certain number of vaccinated folks. My drawings on both nights weren't great, but it was a welcome return, and felt like a dormant part of myself had awakened. I felt whole again. I missed it so much! If you're subscribed to my Patreon at the $5 tier, you can go back see EVERYTHING I drew, as well as the continuing weekly poses from our online space.
I need to break the text in this post up with art of course, so here's last week's pose which I'd taken myself of my girlfriend at the lake:
I've spent part of this week hammering out the details for another figure drawing meetup at the end of the month with a different host, as well as starting to plot out when I can host in August. We've already got someone planning to host us in September too! Figure drawing lives on and I'm so happy about it!
Also in June, I took another quick, short paid comics gig illustrating a five page thing for Mark Stack! It revolves around some of the same characters from a different project we never got off the ground last year, and was cool to revisit them.
If you sign up for his Patreon that he's set up for the entire project, you'll get to read the whole thing! Here's a finished page sans dialogue:
After finishing that up, I was itching to work on more comics, so I've got a new Another Dream short on the way starring Ninel. It's only two pages, and will be up on Other Sleep tomorrow! Again, Patreon subscribers have already gotten to read it, and they got to see process stuff too.
Been trying to map out things for the rest of the year too, with the big change I hinted at in my last post starting to come up. First off, I will once again be at Projexx in Johnson City this Saturday the 17th for the JC Punk Flea, along with a number of artist friends! The one I did back in May was a lot of fun and ended with music, as will this one!
On August 7th, you'll find me at the Music and Makers Craft Festival at the William King Museum of Art.
I've applied for a show in September, but won't hear back on that until next month, I think, so we'll skip it for the moment, but October is going to be STACKED. On October 9th I'll be at the Bristol in Bloom Art Festival. The weekend after that, October 16th, I will be at Bristol's TriPride! And the weekend after THAT...well, I'm not sure we can talk about that one yet but it's a returning show that I'm extremely excited for.
So yeah! I'll be busy later this year! After only doing ONE single event last year, this feels like playing catchup. And they're necessary shows too!
I've got other things planned out too, but again, can't really talk about those. Not here at any rate. I've opened up about a couple things on Patreon, and will do more for sure though. And of course I've gotta get back to Slimepunk!
Oh, one last thing: here's a painting I finally finished back in May, which I'd actually started in October or November of last year, called Slow Motion Splintering:
Okay, yeah, I think that's everything for now. Take care, see you next time!