A period of shift

It's been a bit since I last updated here.  I've been terrifically inert.  Days staring at a computer screen, watching the same TV shows over and over again, staring at a blank page, somewhat more productively staring at a book.  I hit upon an odd idea while looking at some of my older work.  I tried to polish the rust from my hands, and it took a few failures to actually get something out that I liked a little bit.  The whole thing isn't that good, but when I set about it with a pair of scissors and remove the offending portions it should be better.



The second crack at this idea turned out far better than the first, but the scan isn't too great.  I need to start playing sad music so my scanner can lay down in slow motion and die.  It's getting close.  In any case, this-


After doing that one I realized that some of the problem had to do with a bit of a stagnant method, a bit of wrong surface to paint on, and a bit of lacking technique.  So I told myself I was going to try something new.  I'd always wanted to take a crack at ink beyond the dip-pen lines and plainness of what I'd grown accustomed to.  Again looking at some older work, I saw an idea that could use some exploration.  Putting this 'haunted by strange gods' business on hold, I'm setting about a series of things like this-


I cheated myself a bit there, resorting to gouache for the eyes, but today I picked up some proper red ink and it's fantastic.  I finished 3 more things like this tonight, with pencil down for a further 3 more.  I'm still treating them as ink experiments, though one of them makes use of graphite and watercolor (for which I tried a creative use of fixative solution.  My eyes are still burning).

In short, I'm back to actually doing things.  It's just as well.  At this point in time I need a hearty distraction.  Today has been a repeated kick in the fork.  The consolation prize is two weeks paid vacation from work, starting Sunday.  I've got nothing to do.  What I anticipate is long hours in my room, alone and trying to paint and passing time.  I mean, I hope for otherwise.  But it appears I've got an annoying habit of hoping for too much.  The gods are always thwarting best laid plans.