I sold my camera on eBay and bought a wee pocketable one for taking spontaneous drawing-reference photos. As my friend Margaux says, “The best camera is the one you have with you.”
I’d been contemplating buying a smartphone, but, thankfully, am not in a position to enter into a contract (i.e. leaving far before 24 months would be up). And, really, when I thought about it, all I wanted was a camera on my person. I don’t want to be any more connected, and I don’t want to drop a bag of money on something I don’t really need. The iPad works just fine as a mobile office. The lack of precise pen input is annoying, but the new Jot Touch pen works decently — for colouring; I still could never draw with it.
So, because I had a camera with me, I’ve been able to catch a few things I noticed around town…
The creatures that live around Wick are strange. We’ve noticed slugs crawling up the front of the house at night, like they’re following a line to some destination:
You can’t see them here, but the slaters (AKA potato bugs, wood lice) crawl up there with them. It’s like a party for all the beasties nobody likes.
And the birds pick moss out of the gutters. I have no idea why. They’re just disposing of it, like it offends them. Maybe bugs live underneath.
I got an e-mail from my client this morning outlining a whole book he’d written that he wants me to illustrate. This came out of the blue for me, but his timing was excellent: I’ve been feeling a creative itch lately, so this is a dream project. He’s going to get the Marketing team to clear my schedule for the rest of the month so I can work on it.
Yesterday, my schedule was light, so I took the day to answer all my e-mails and line up my projects, then… I kind of lost the plot. Even though I keep all these lists of things I want to do, sometimes when I’ve actually got some spare time, the pressure is too much and just drives me crazy.
How handy, then, to have this come along — a creative outlet without the stress of feeling I have to express every serious and funny thing that’s ever occurred to me, all at once.
The book I worked on with Dan earlier this year isn’t out yet — November is the latest launch date I’ve heard — and now we’ve got this other one starting up. I touched up a few of those illustrations the other day and was struck by the evolution in my cartooning style since then. It’s probably imperceptible to anyone else, but I see it. So here I was expecting I might have to go back in and revise some of those drawings, but Dan’s already onto the next project. I like that: Just get it out there rather than tinkering with it forever.
Weirdly, this book may leapfrog the other and come out first. Whatever, I’m grateful this is happening!