Dig, Dug, Dang!

I've been staying with Violet's parents over this weekend, so I've been forced to work in pencil only for the time being. Speaking of which I should mention my appreciation for a couple I met on the train to Haymarket. One Colin and Elizabeth, who bought from me a couple of quick portraits I done of them as a souvenir of their trip. I hope the castle wasn't too draughty!

I feel more like an archeologist than a pencil artist at the moment. I've unearthed a number of sketchbooks which have remained dormant on the discarded level of my bookcase in the corner. They hold dates like '2005-06' on them. This is history. Not only history, but my history. The evolution of my ideas and the lines my hands crafted once.

A great many of them are unfinished. And this is where my work begins, and the point of this entry finds itself. I must learn to finish what I begin. This is the lesson I have seeking to learn. I lack the patience to see a task through to its' completion. I came up with a character who is the personification of such a trait. He is the antithesis of all that I am.

If you have ever reached that point in an endeavour, where the interest wanes and your attention begins to split under the pressure, then you know where I'm coming. If you want to deal with this, then you're going where I want to be. So I've been going through these sketchbooks, and adding the lines which need to be there to achieve things like clarity, and lose the ambiguity of diminished focus. To some part of my mind this has become blasphemous. 'What are you doing!? These are snapshots of how you were at that time! Why the hell are you ruining them!' I feel like some heretic in the halls of my own making, scrawling on the walls, 'WRONG!'

I'm not doing it to all the drawings, that would be counter effective. Only those which deserve that something, that drive. This has led me to the creation of a To Do Folder. So much more than a list, it contains the items in question. They're not prioritised yet, they have no order, I jump between them. I'm wondering if this is a way of working which suits me. Project hopping, like a frog on electrified skittles.

So far I have finished 0/16.... getting there!