Tag Archives: cartoon

Artist’s block and little rewards

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It’s hard work keeping a blog.  Sometimes I wonder what it’s all for. Is it for me or is it for them (the inhabitants of the blogosphere)? If it’s for me, then do I really need a blog? I could carry on doodling in my sketchbooks and half-heartedly patting myself on the back if the drawing is passable.

I suffer from chronic self-deprecation which is probably why I never made it on the creative front – I was never confident enough in my own ability and knowing how many extremely talented people there are out there, I found it difficult to find my own little patch.  But on further reflection,  I enjoy drawing and there’s a little part of me that hopes my cartoons bring a teeny tiny smile to someone’s day.    Talent shared (average or not) is happiness gained…I think.  Ooh did I just give myself a compliment?

It wasn’t until this week that I was given a little ego boost when I discovered that people do actually enjoy my work. When someone other than your family and friends says “I like your cartoons”, it makes it all worth it!  And so I must extend my gratitude to the blogger, Michelle who writes for her own blog, the Green Study.  She kindly nominated me for a Beautiful Blog Award – Thank you!  I must now bestow this kindness on someone else, but it will take time, I need to do my research…

Following the slight head inflation, I immediately sat down to draw only to find I had no inspiration. It happens to all of us no doubt.  So what better way to tackle the situation than to draw it.

Feel good

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I just spent the last half hour looking through some old artwork and discovered a piece of animation I did at university (the second time round).  I love animation and wish I was better at it but unfortunately, the process is too painstakingly slow for my taste and I have little patience in that department.  I like art that is instantaneous and so even though I have dabbled in oil painting, watercolour, textiles, lino-print, screenprinting etc. they never grabbed my attention for long enough.  As much as I’d like to see my characters animated, I’m afraid I’m likely to stick with the cartoons.

So for laughs, I thought I’d share this dire attempt at an animation – I really am a tad embarrassed but hey, I’ll get over it.  Trust me, it isn’t a master piece and in places it is unfinished, so I have used stills/sketches to show how the story progresses.  Essentially it was a short advert to promote Feel Good Drinks. The character, Brian, hates life and grumbles at everything including the sun, until one day he stumbles across a bottle of feel good and his life is turned around!

Movember

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Everyone is talking about Movember.  It is the one and only time of year I wish I had facial hair – imagine the things you could do with it!  In case you don’t know what Movember is: During November each year,  thousands of men men across the UK and around the world grow moustaches with the aim to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and testicular cancer.

In the image below, I was testing my new brush pen…

Performing monkeys and job interviews

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I’ve done it!  I have found myself a new job and gleefully handed in my resignation! I leaped through rings of fire at my job interview, presenting the biggest, boldest, most articulate and inspiring side of myself – I was a true performing monkey for 2 whole hours!

So now, after three long years of working from home, I will bathe myself in colleagues and office gossip.  I will go to the office parties and invite people for drinks after work. I will speak to an IT person if my computer is broken and talk to people about my workload before making a coffee for the person sitting opposite me.  I will commute with a solemn look on my face and groan when I miss the bus.  I will clock watch on a Monday then kick my heels up with that Friday feeling at the end of the week.  I will clear my bedroom of mountains of paperwork and liberate my shelf space to join the millions of you out there who call yourself an OFFICE WORKER!

Oh to have an office

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I know I have been somewhat tiresome with my recent rants about work, but it is one of my biggest irritations, no, hates at the moment.  I’ve reached my absolute fill, the homeworking quota has been exceeded, my own company is becoming tedious and I have to escape.  I daydream about the good old days (with rose tinted glasses of course) when I worked in an office. Oh how I miss the daily commute, the people watching, the office gossip, the office politics, the impromptu drinks after work and the regular, face to face contact with other human beings.  As the years tick by, I feel I’m slowly losing the ability to communicate, I’m becoming introverted and find it difficult to make idle chit chat with people who ask ‘how has your week been?’.  For the most part, my working weeks are quiet, monotonous, uneventful, uninteresting, uninspiring…you get the drift. 

As my other half comes home each evening, eager to plonk on the sofa and relax in the peace and quiet,  I’m looking to escape the confines of the apartment which seems to be getting smaller by the day.    That’s the problem you see, if you don’t go to work, then you don’t come home from work – it all just blurs into one.  There’s no shaking off the day when you walk out of the office building. I just turn from my work computer to my home computer – I’m in the same chair, at the same desk, in the same box room. I eat dinner, I go to bed, I get up, eat breakfast and sit at my desk ready to do it all over again.  *Sigh*  I think the ideal balance would be to work in an office three days a week and have two very focused days at home.  That way I could have the best of both worlds because no matter how much I whinge, there are definitely some upsides to working at home.

Anyway, before you start playing your mini violins, here is today’s cartoon on the subject:

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Mind melt

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Recently I have had a series of what can only be described as premature senior  moments.   These range from the usual, I’ve-walked-into-the-kitchen-to-get-something-but-now-I-haven’t-a-clue-what-that-something-is or putting-boiled-water-on-my-cereal-instead-of-milk moments, to more the irritating organisational failures.  Last week:

  • I double booked a couple of meetings.
  • I bought a non-refundable/non-moveable train ticket to Brussels only to discover afterwards that I’m scheduled to deliver a training course in England on the date I’m away.
  • I drove 50 miles up the motorway when my petrol light came on.  After another few miles, I pulled into the petrol station and reached for my purse only to find I hadn’t brought it with me. Unsure whether I’d make it home on the red light, I had to humbly scrounge some money from one of the delegates at my training course.  I’m thankful for small mercies – at least I hadn’t filled the tank BEFORE I realised I had no money. That could have made for an interesting cartoon!

So, either I’m showing early signs of Alzheimer’s (God forbid) or my brain just has far too much information to process.   I hope it’s the latter and suspect this is what happens…