And a Blessing of Spirit

I love my job.

I've never had any illusions about this creative career business. It won't sustain itself. Best case scenario is that I have a lifetime of people asking when I'm going to write a 'real' book.

I will always have the other job, and this one is sweet. It's involves all the things that were never meant to be in bar work because they would be too amazing. But these ~60 hour weeks are burning me out.

These next few days will be different.

I won't be at work.
I won't be anywhere near work.
I won't see anyone I know from work.
I won't think about work.

I will get out of town.
I will drink wine and smoke cigars with my mum.
I will get a new tattoo.
I will write. My word, shall I write.

Then I will return, and I will love my job again, but remember how to have time for the other loves.

Commissioned Piece Vs Cobwebs

Recently my brain broke I decided it was a good idea to do a commissioned piece for one of my bosses. One that he wanted to give to his brother as a wedding present no less. I have four bosses, so the chances of all of them thinking messing this up was worth instant dismissal aren't great, but I'd still never hear the end of it.



I'm happy enough with it. It's a smaller piece (12" x 16") so it was always going to be tricky and the woman's lips turned out a bit warped but the eyes seem to take the focus.

I suppose the main reason I took this up was to get me out of a creative lull. My lightbox broke over a month ago and I only got around to fixing it in order to do this.Hopefully I'll be able to put aside the time for more work soon, now's not the time to fall off the camel.

Fucking camels.

Amanda Fucking Palmer

I had the pleasure of seeing my greatest Muse perform last night, and even got a vinyl signed for my trouble:



The last time I saw her she was with Zoe Keating, David Davidson, and the Danger Ensumble (four actors from Zen Zen Zo). It was a very theatrical performance and finally dethroned Tool as the best live show of my life. This time around had a more improvised street theatre feel to it. Like something I'd find in a random, dark tent while wandering around Woodford Folk Festival close to midnight. Which is no bad thing.

In other news I'm currently ankle deep in a rising sea of sketch paper working on a short comic for Phatsville as well as a small mural for The Mana Bar. Simply put, I could be gone a while.

Minor Moral Dilemma and Inner Demons of Comic Writing Resolved

Just over a year ago I wrote a 9 page comic to submit to my former university's yearly Creative Writing students anthology. It wasn't accepted for printing reasons, or maybe they just told me that to be nice. I decided to continue the project anyway treating those 9 pages as a prologue. For a number of reasons, that project is only recently starting to take shape. One of the changes I'd like to make involves the character Emmanuel, who was originally named Nicolas. You might want to read the story to get all the context here, but basically I changed his name when I realised I'd subconsciously named him after Nicolas Yewdale, a friend of mine who died in high school.



Nic's a friend of mine who died in my final year of high school. Myself and 4 others have matching tribute tattoos to him. I think around 6 others had different tribute tattoos done. Mine is under my right bicep, mirrored to where his Misfits tattoo was. Contributing to his mural is what initially got me into spray painting.

I hate changing character's names. Almost every time I go to mention him in the comic scripts I'll still write Nicolas the first time. I'm now thinking I'll leave the name as it is. It doesn't bother me so much now that this is who the character is named after. It bothered me at the time, because it wasn't intentional, and I don't like the idea of my subconscious sneaking up on me like this. But I suppose things like this are going to stay with me.

The character himself serves as the protagonist's main motivation, which I think is fitting. I'm now happy to have him in the story, now that the name is there on my own terms I suppose.

Life Drawing Underground Styles

I should be heading to this tonight:



Last year it was held at a dingy but I suppose nice enough strip club in Spring Hill. The girls were nice and chatty, but the regulars would get territorial and the manager would get shitty that we weren't getting lap dances. This time around it's in a trendy little cocktail bar in the Judith Wright Centre. It may lose some gritty underground charm and gain some pretentiousness but I'll just have to see.

Check the facebook or Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School for more details.

I've been stuck behind a creative block for the last few weeks. Consequently, I'm going to spend the afternoon reading comics before heading to this event. If that doesn't force it out I may have to perform an exorcism. Absinth may be involved.

Specialists Review the Year in Tears and Call for Drastic Measures

2009 was a year full of things I thought I would never or should never do.

2010 is already looking unclear but promising. All I really know at this point is where I'll be living. I just signed another 12 month lease for my studio apartment/cubby house. I don't know what I'll be doing for a living until someone decides to call me back on my job hunt. I don't know what creative outlets I'll be favouring, although the current goal is to get a decent submission folio of a comic together (first 3 chapters drawn, whole story scripted and a polished synopsis). I don't know how much longer my car will last, but I'd love to buy a van and paint it up a treat.
In the meantime, here's my first drawing of the year.

I draw pictures sometimes.