Day 127

'All Jacked up', Pen and Marker on Paper

It's sometimes easy to get caught up in the moment and allow our morbid curiosity to overrule our common sense and better judgement. One reason seems to be that our search for adding that extra bit of excitement to our lives or alternatively the notion that we might miss out on that chance of a thrill creates a buzz that doesn't allow us to go out with a whimper. Instead we tend to allow that excitement to rile us up and get us into those situations some good ,some bad and some just plain hilarious. It's not good for your health to get this way to often but every once in a while it really is necessary.

Day 126

'Seemed Like an Idea', Pen and Marker on Paper

I've always been one of those people whose mind is overrun with ideas, thoughts and notions but I don't always make the most of them. Thinking about this recently one of the reasons being as I'm sure most of you will agree it's sometimes hard to decipher between what defines a good idea and what constitutes an idiotic one. As when you think about it all ideas seem to start off with that instance that normally sounds something along the lines of, 'wait a minute I've got a great idea', so all ideas there are inherently great in their conception. What then really marks the difference between a good idea and a bad one is none other than the passage of time... time allows us to reflect upon our brilliant scheme and see just how inconceivable it really is. This lends us to come to that similar conclusion all to often of,  'it seemed like a good idea at the time'. The issue then becomes that as we shoot down many of these ideas or have it done by another marksmen it begins to become increasingly more difficult to differentiate between a good idea and a bad one. As we allow ourselves to believe the idea to be idiotic before it's even had the time to gestate and gather momentum. The result is many of the ideas that we have that could actually end in something great become forgotten. It is important then that when we have an idea to dwell upon it a little longer... as although time can cause an idea to seem more daunting it can also allow us to figure out what to do next.

Day 125

'Call me Al', Pencil on Paper

Had a Little more time than usual today so thought that I would spend a bit more time with the drawing, as recently I've had to do mostly quick sketches due to time constraints. Having extra time allowed me to also get back to drawing more of the people that have been a large part of my life for the last few years. Over the next few months I want to attempt to do at least one of these portrait drawings per week, as this is a skill that I really want to improve upon. Anyway there isn't much more to say today other than another day another 'draw' and you can call him Al.

Day 124

'Something I forgot to do', Pen and Marker on Paper

It's funny how we always seem to be remembered of that thing that we forgot to do at that exact moment were we should have had it done. Sometimes it's by stumbling upon the unfinished task ourselves, other times it's happening upon the actual person that we were supposed to carry out the task for. It all lends to giving us that terrible feeling of having just disappointed someone, leaving us to then have to shuffle awkwardly around our words trying to formulate some tenuous excuse to justify our inability to keep a promise. The worst thing is the real reason for not having done this is simply as something else more interesting came along, like watching hour after hour of vapid drivel on TV, rearrange the objects on you desk, trawling the internet for hours clicking on link after link to something that has the tag line 'epic fail', just staring into space vacantly waiting for something more interesting to occur. My point here is that even the most inane things we can possibly conceive are enough to distract us from the real task at hand, it's a case that we are serial procrastinators and most likely will always be that way. The important thing is that eventually we all get round to doing those things that we are supposed to it just takes much longer than we initially conceived.

Day 123

'One door closes', Pen on Paper

One door closes and another opens is one of those old idioms that people have a habit of uttering whenever a rued opportunity raises its head, however there is a little more to that phrase in a few of its other iterations and variations.

"when one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us". (this variation is attributed to Alexander Graham Bell)

While normally the phrase is uttered as a means to maintain an air of optimism, in it's entirety the phrase has a slightly different meaning. It lends to highlight that in these moments when opportunity slips our grasp we tend to focus on the rued chance more than the new opportunity. The optimism that we so often speak of is seemingly lost on us then as we are to preoccupied with the door that has just been shut in our face. The result being that we tend to let a further opportunity pass us by and as the cyclical nature of the beast maintains once this opportunity is missed then another one is sure to raise its head. Things are then destined to follow this pattern, that is until the optimism that we allude to finally overwhelms and something gives just long enough for us to break the cycle and finally take advantage of a chance to do something different. 

Day 122

'Minimal gardening', Pen on Paper

One of my house mates and I have been talking about growing our own vegetables recently, it's something that I need to look into in a lot more detail before jumping into things headlong. In saying this though it would be quite amazing to actually do it, as a result been thinking about what form it would take, as firstly we have limited space and secondly we rent a house so cant really turn the garden into a vegetable patch without pissing someone off. For this reason it needs to be a structure that takes up little space is functional and hopefully looks in place and aesthetically pleasing. The drawing then is a brief concept pertaining to the notion of 'better out than in' as if I didn't put something down on paper it would just gestate and possible lose all momentum. It is very early stages but I think it has a lot of potential to be developed a little further as my understanding of what exactly is involved grows.

Day 121

'Techno for an Answer, Pen on Paper'

Another concept for an illustration that came from a a very brief conversation last night for names for band albums, this being for the Techno infused concept album. As I alluded to recently I'm thinking about indulging my desire to learn some sort of musical instrument, who knows maybe I'll develop a penchant for Techno and this can be my first release.