After finishing Devotion I was almost burnt out. In the month that followed, I had a severe case of artist block. One of the main problems I was having was with technique. As it was, I felt I had pushed the red and black thing as far as I could push it in that direction. The further I got into the book, the tighter and more controlled I got. Near the end this hit a critical mass and I felt I really couldn’t push things tinier or more detailed. 

I knew that I really needed to loosen up and work freer and faster. I tried out two sketchbooks and it just didn’t click. I had a few ideas and those didn’t click either. For the life of me, I couldn’t make the work happen. I was even dreading spending 20 hours doing a small hyper detailed piece again. And really, if you dread working, why do it at all?

To make matters worse, my friend Tony and I were several weeks behind on a collaborative project. For Alternative Press Expo, we are creating a series of pieces inspired by music. Only I wasn’t inspired in my work. Then magic happened…

Two things happened in the same day which proved to be quite serendipitous. On Monday morning this week I received a package from my friends at Pentel Arts. I am doing a demo at Flax in November and Pentel sent me just about their entire line. Included in this package was a set of color brushes (!!!) with a black, grey, sepia, and a water brush to blend with. This was perfect timing because I wanted to do a value rough demo in my Illustration 1 class that afternoon.

In class I used the new tools to quickly knock out a value study of a Stone Golem. After five minutes of drawing, I felt like I had found a new soulmate in these tools. I knew I needed to explore this further…

The next day I was meeting my friend Madaly to grab lunch and draw for a bit. I needed to knock out some roughs for a client so I thought I’d play with the technique some more. I was able to knock out two roughs quickly in one sitting. I knew this would be a great way to do value studies and sketch, but I wondered whether this could be useful for even more…

After two days of intense freelance, I had some free time to draw on friday. I went to my favorite drawing spot, Borderlands Cafe, and doodled around. After about ten minutes, I had this piece (cthulu on the horizon):

While this piece is by no means “good,” it had enough going on that I though it was worth pushing further. In the next two days I had knocked out another six pieces, including the two at the top of this post. While I am a little hesitant to start in a completely new style, I know enough to always follow my heart and right now all I want to do is work like this.

This new way of working still has the same sensibility as the red and black work, but with a softer more nuanced feel. But mostly, it is FAST! It feels so good to create a piece in one short sitting and even better to create multiple pieces a day.  I am probably going to go back to red and black in a little bit, but for now, this is what I need to be doing… Lots more coming soon.