It’s been a long time, I know! This is just to check in, and keep this blog afloat. I’m afraid to say that it still might be a while before I’m back to really putting some effort into my drawings and my commentaries here on the blog, but it’ll get back in gear at some point. I just finished another sketchbook – or in fact a “moleskine plain-paper notebook” – this notebook is utterly depressing to draw in, and I’ll be back to drawing on watercolor paper with the next one! For some odd reason (most certainly something going on inside of my head) my drawings are much better when they’re drawn on good paper. I suppose that I spend more time, and take a little more care, when the paper is more “precious”. I think that both sides of the coin have their merit. I hope that I’ve got something out of making these 90-ish quick sketches, but now It’s back to the good stuff for a while. (Or the good paper in any case). It’ll still be a lot of cats and dogs, though, but I’ll try and throw other things in there too. Today while working my nightshift, I found myself daydreaming (or is it just “dreaming” given that it’s a nightshift?) about making a big drawing of a couple of wrinkled hands in charcoal.. That was a nice dream. We’ll see when I get the time to realize that fantasy 😉
In other news, more and more of wonderful cat & dog owners ask me to sell them an original drawing which is really really cool. It’s got me dreaming of a future scenario where I resigned from my horrible nightshift (which outside of the summer holidays is just once per week) and did some 4-5 “paid” drawings per week instead.. I actually think it’s plausible. Granted, I don’t get THAT many requests, but it seems that there are almost unlimited possible clients on twitter.. If I were more open-mouthed about the possibility of “commissioning” a pet-portrait, I imagine that a lot more people would ask..
But where is all of this going, am I about to become Thomas the pet-portraitist? Well, it sure beats doing slave-labour all night, but ideally, what I want to explore in art will be much more varied. I can’t wait to do more landscapes, street perspectives, body studies and still lifes! I think I’ll have to mix in some of that much much more than i do now. Yes. Yeah! I’m going to sleep.
These were my 570th – 579th drawings since 9th September 2014
Love your blog! And the drawings 🙂 I draw way too little to make real progress and your daily drawings keep remembering me to stay at it. Just draw draw draw. Wishing you success 🙂
Thanks a lot! The consistency really helps a lot I think. Even if you only have 10 minutes one day.
I never did send you mixture to work with”. Can you stand doing one more car?. Send ,e instructions ar ladycat3.04@gmail.com. Thank you .
thanks for stopping by 🙂 these days I mostly do requests from twitter. Just tweet me a photo and i’ll put it in the draw!
Another great batch of animals……..you are truly gifted Thomas and I think your plan to get more “serious” with your work and begin doing commissioned work is a good one. I know those you’ve done commissions for have LOVED the results. You have an excellent eye for capturing personality – and pet portraiture is a popular thing as everyone knows, we pet people are CRAZY about our pets! Whatever you do – continue drawing…….you just HAVE to.
Pam
Thanks a lot for your encouragement 🙂
Are you giving up on architecture?
But seriously, I bet you could make a living as a pet portrait artist if you wanted to. I have a feeling you’d like more variety in your life though.
No, I’m not giving up on architecture 🙂 but I’m thinking about giving up on my job in the warehouse at night and replacing it by whatever kind of drawings people would pay me to do. Architecture is still the priority though, and once it’s finished (hopefully in november) I might scale up the pet-commissions temporarily as I’m out looking for a job.
Sounds like a plan.
Variety keeps the creative juices challenged, fresh and flowing but that doesn’t mean that your artistic career can’t have a particular focus.
I really like your use of purple in that cat portrait by the way.
Thanks 🙂 funny story – I lost my favorite pen.. two times. So I drew some of it with an ordinary blue Bic pen. I’ve got to buy some extra pens though!
Well necessity is the mother of invention.
Have missed seeing your sketches!
Thanks for sticking around 😉
Beautiful anipals! Your sketches are a great pleasure to mom so selfishly we want you to keep it up. No two ways about it you’re good and always learning a different technique here and there. I have a feeling you would be good at whatever you attempt. Your eye for detail makes all the difference in the world.
Shoko and mom
Thank you very much 🙂
You are becoming quite the expert in animal art. 🙂
haha.. Not sure about that.. but thanks 😉
I’m just coming back after a long hiatus too (is it something to do with hot weather or what?) but these are great little drawings. You’ve come such a long way even since I’ve followed you.
I hear you about materials though, bad ones can really sap your energy. I’d say go for broke and get a better sketchbook sooner rather than later so you can enjoy the process more 🙂
thanks a lot 😉 I wish it was the hot weather, but every day is like November here in Denmark these days !