Chore Day, Feb 29 -- Cooking (as usual), Doing Laundry, and Drawing Hands

Graphite and Brush Pen

Chores, chores, chores! Some days I embrace them, and other days I’m out of touch with them. Today was a day of being present. My chores — doing laundry and cooking food for the week — give a gnawing feeling that I should be working on my book. My chores were a welcome relief from drawing and learning Clip Studio Paint EX. For the first time in months, I slept a solid 7 1/2 hours without waking up. What’s going on with me? Have I had an elevation of consciousness? Have I “leveled up” to a new plateau of awareness? Or was I exhausted and simply lucky enough to get a good night’s sleep?

I’ve been drawing lots of hands lately. Hands baffle me. What works best for me is to draw every bone as a cylinder and every joint as a sphere. Doing a wire frame for hands gets me to the point that I can draw an almost human hand…almost. The effort is worth it. Hands are a comics artist’s best tell for showing a character’s emotion. Practice! Practice! Practice!

Chore Day, Feb 15, 2020 -- Looking Eastward

Chore day is traditionally filled with thoughts of food, from shopping for food, to cooking food, and to eating food. Today I went to the co-op as usual, and cooked my furry boys’ food, as usual, and baked some cookies, as usual. What I did not do was cook a big batch of meals for the next week. I just didn’t feel like spending all day in the kitchen. I’ll bake the veggie loaf and Brussels sprouts (with pecans) tomorrow.

When I had a few moments I made a quick sketch of the view from my kitchen window using a plain old pencil.

Chore Day, Feb 8, 2020, and Being a Young Artist

I’m a young artist. I’ve been drawing and painting for only four years, which makes me a very young artist. As an artist, I’m just getting started. I’m just a four-year old kid, a potential juvenile delinquent. I’m having this thought because I saw a 64-year old fashion designer with four years of training being overly praised for doing a good job at her age. The people praising her didn’t realize that she’s a young designer, as young as an 18-year old who has been designing clothes since the age of 14. Age is irrelevant to Art. Art is is long, and life is short, no matter how young or old you think you are.

My chores today included shopping at the co-op for the week’s food, cooking the furry children’s vegan chow, and baking some chocolate-oatmeal cookies. That’s it for the chores. Hurray for oatmeal cookies!

There’s no image today because I couldn’t figure out how to crop an image in Clip Studio Paint. Wow! I futzed away half an hour looking for an obvious way to do what is obvious in Photoshop. CSP has a very steep learning curve. I’m operating on blind faith that Clip Studio Paint will eventually help me work more efficiently. In the meantime, I’m frustrated.

Chore Day and Clip Studio Paint Obsession Day

This week I scaled chore day back and cooked minimally for the coming week. I made vegetable broth, barley, quinoa, butternut squash — that’s it. I won’t starve, but I’ll have to add some spices to everything to make life interesting.

I’ve been obsessing about Clip Studio Paint. It’s got every feature I need to do comics and picture books.. Yesterday I watched an awesome Skillshare course by Reuben Lara, Intro to Graphic Novel Coloring. His Youtube channel is also awesome. I dreamed that I was painting someone who kept asking me, “What value are you painting my coat?” I couldn’t answer.

Yesterday I started reading Marble Cake, by Scott Jason Smith. The book had been been sitting on the shelf for six months since my partner bought it at More Fun, our local comic book. She had put the book aside and eventually forgot about it, until yesterday, when she put the book in the bathroom for reading while on the throne. It’s awesome reading. The writing is perfect — I know the characters from my own life. I can see myself in some characters. I like that kind of writing.

Chore Day, Jan 25, 2020

Today I shopped and cooked and updated my iPad apps. When I checked the App Store I found 36 apps needed updating. The only app I use regularly is Procreate.

Chore day is the day I rest my brain. I sketched for about an hour to relax. I’m searching for Jimmy’s permanent hair style, one that I will feel good about using for the rest of this series. I want a style that I could write down simply, such as “three prongs of hair shooting over the forehead, with the bottom prong curving to cover the forehead. Thick glasses rather than thin. No iris in the eye…only the pupil.”

Today’s sketch shows Jimmy with a prong of hair curling over his forehead, and a slightly pointed chin, which makes him look about 10-years old. Getting the character to look his age is proving to be challenging. The thin eyeglass frames look too mature—thick glasses would look younger. I look at his ears and think, Do I need the ears? Jimmy didn’t have ears in the first book, so why am I adding ears now?

Chore Day, Jan 18, 2020 -- Doodling

Myy Saturday chores were exactly the same as last week: shopping, cooking, etc.

After I finished my chores, I spent some time doodling in an effort to draw some figures that are cuter than what I usually draw. One thing I consciously did not do was hatching. I love hatching. I hatch everything possible, but I see that hatching is not at all cute. It makes cute things look dark, heavy, and serious. Hatching is off the table. It looks like I’ll have to exercise a little restraint, if I have any in me.

Chore Day, Jan 4, 2020 -- Cookin' and Sleepin'

Today I ran out of steam. The hectic week caught up to me, and my body said, “Dude, get some rest.” After I went to the local food co-op and did the shopping, I baked burgers for my furry children and made a plant-based cheese-like sauce for myself. Then I crashed on the Kivik (a piece of IKEA furniture) and slept the sleep of an exhausted artist.

My wife took this photo because she thought I looked picturesque and a little angelic. On the footstool are issues of Apartamento Magazine. By my left foot is the air filter we need to deal with the summer air pollution.

Chore Day, Dec 28, 2019 - A Day for Deep Thought

I’m thinking of my book. The publication date will be Dec. 31 and I have three days to pull it all together. With time running short, I’ll do the print version first and the eBook will have to wait. My big concern now is that my book has many technical errors that will mark me as a rank amateur: the characters are drawn differently from page to page, the color palette changes now and then, the line work sometimes looks digitally slick and sometimes looks as rough as a pencil drawing. I can go on and on listing flaws, but I’ll summarize by saying, I’m concerned that my first book will be judged unforgettably amateurish.

Frankly, I’m scared to put my first effort on display. But there’s no way I can move on without publishing this first book, warts and all. I gotta do it.

Other than endlessly mulling over my future as an artist, I did some cooking. I baked a batch of vegan bean burgers for my furry children, and put together an interesting Bolognese sauce for myself. After hours of excessive self-examination and kitchen work, I suddenly felt deeply exhausted. I took a restorative snooze, and when I woke up, all was well again.

Chore Day Dec 21, 2019 -- Lots of Whole Food, Plant Based Cooking

When I say “lots of cooking,” I mean that I put in eight hours of kitchen time today. I cooked enough food to carry me through the week. I started at 10am and washed up the last of a sink full of dishes at 6pm. That’s the price of going entirely whole food, plant-based — you have use one day a week to cook your own food. I may be exhausted now, but in the end, I feel good knowing that I’m eating food that gives my body a chance to do its thing

Chore Day, Dec 14, 2019: I Put My Name on the Cover of My Children's Picture Book

Today I moved another centimeter forward: I added my name to the cover of my children’s picture book: Doug Doukat, I thought a lot about the font and chose a comic book font named “Jack Armstrong BB”. It’s one of the default iPad fonts. The main title uses the Impact font, a brute of a font. I figure that using a comic book font lightens the mood and says,This book will be fun and serious at the same time.

As for chores, I cooked for my furry friends, and for myself. I made more plant-based cheese sauce. There’s not cheese in it, of course. It just feels and tastes something like cheese, but better. Really. It does taste better.