Well hasn’t 2023 been a really testing year? Our family has seen some really tough times, as many are currently. But apart from some recent dire financial problems, and some serious self-adjustment-exploration/discovery, it’s also topped off by some harder times still to come. Hospital visits and a serious operation for my daughter, amongst several other things are making mundane worries hard to cope with. I don’t like airing all my personal life on the Internet, but I prefer to disclose a little, so you get a picture of why things are the way things are!
It’s also been a low and longer-than-usual dark patch, so my usual passion towards art has been thin on the ground (plus trouble with my wrist/thumb/shoulder, (still awaiting results) but my brain hasn’t stopped coming up with ideas on how to take my artwork upwards.
Keeping the smiles!
Amongst the stuff I mentioned, there has been some better news. I’ve been doing a lot of practical practising, anatomy, proportion, perspective, new techniques etc. It is SO important to keep practising this stuff, however boring, it’s the foundation of everything, and you can never stop learning new things. I’ve also been taking a break from social media, freeing up time and lowering stress levels! This is a double-edged sword though, I’ve had more time to draw, but no-one is getting to see any of it! But if you’re in a low patch, you often think no-one cares anyway, which isn’t usually the case.
Also, I’ve had to be super strong for the sake of my children, especially my youngest daughter, who has the op I mentioned earlier coming very soon. She’s incredibly brave, I’m SO proud of her anyway, but I can’t express how proud. So if she can keep filling my life with smiles, then the least I can do, is to be the best Dad I can be. She’s really supportive of my art, so loves seeing and contributing to what I’m working on, so that helps drive me forward too.
New Ideas and New Commissions!
I do have a couple of commissions in the pipeline, but the sort that won’t have W-I-Ps, but I’ll post the finished work, (if the clients allow, of course, the customer is always right!)
Whilst these are in the planning stages, or during down time, I’ve spent some time working on some more design ideas, originally as sticker ideas, but the sky is the limit really, t-shirts, badges, cups, underpants even.
As you can see in the pic below, it started with me doodling a mad-looking rabbit, then a tortoise. I then had an idea that I could doodle many ideas exploding out from a central scroll or centrepiece, featuring both outline drawings, plain coloured versions and fully shaded versions, as a sort of ‘flash’ sheet. If you didn’t already know, a flash sheet is most commonly seen in the waiting rooms of nearly every tattooist in the world, full of countless beautiful designs, of all sizes, but ready to go, a bit like clip-art before clip-art was a thing.
Once my Flash Sheet is full, I can pick ideas, and work on them, up the size, resolution and quality, then save them and post them, the best of the best can then be turned into badges, stickers, t-shirts, even beach towels, perhaps. It’s still in the idea stages but I’m happy so far. I even have ideas for themed flash sheets as time goes on!
I’m working digitally, using software called Sketchbook on a graphics tablet on a laptop, it’s a very time-saving medium, and corrections and adjustments are simpler. It’s great for the environment too, I’ve been getting through a lot of sketchbooks and pencils, this is costly, causes storage issues and isn’t very kind to trees, (I don’t always buy recycled paper!) I’ve not given up the sketchbook, but when you can rough sketch on your phone, paint on your laptop and post to socials almost anywhere, it does mean you can travel a bit lighter.
Back to the point. As I said, I’m happy with the project so far, here’s a few pics outlining where I am to date:
This is the very first layout, with the first four ideas. Each design showing 3 stages ‘exploding’ from the centre. At ths stage, I thought of adding little ideas to fill in gaps, which could feature as smaller designs or collections, perhaps insects, symbols etc. No space wasted and tons of designs for the future!
Several days later, I’d filled the workspace nicely, but as I filled in the last few gaps, I began to wonder if the outline and plain designs were just a little wasted. They weren’t ‘exploding out from the centre, so I figured, if I removed them, I could fit more designs into the work area.
Flash Sheet 001.
This is the finished ideas sheet, crammed full of designs. I have no idea exactly how many, but I’m counting as I re-draw each one!
(if you look closely, you’ll see loose scribblings here and there, these didn’t quite make it, but may in the future)
Here’s an example of the next stage of this project. Originally just ‘fill-in designs’, these fruit designs, once re-drawn, make nice designs in their own right. The eagle-eyed of you may have noticed that the original grapes had faces, but the fruit didn’t. To rectify this discrepancy, I drew two versions….
So now, there’s fruit, with and without cartoon faces!
And outline versions.
Some designs won’t warrant 3 pages of different versions, for example…
Here’s ‘Cactus Prickly’ 2 sheets, one with outline and plain, the other with plain and shaded. All bases covered on two sheets for the future.
I’ll be adding a whole new section to this website for this project, so keep an eye out for that and I’ll post all the designs on my social media pages, plus timelapse videos of some of the designs on YouTube and TikTok! Here’s one of the designs I’ve added to YouTube:
So here’s to the future. Whatever rollercoaster it may be, I can only do my best.
I don’t know what is round the corner, but I know it won’t be easy and probably won’t get easier. But there’s people out there far worse off than me, and my thoughts are always with them.
So I’ll keep making people smile with my daft doodles, I know some do, and if I make others happy, I’m happy too.
Keep on keeping on x
(Also, please pop over to my social media and do what you need to do to follow me and keep up to date with what’s new, plus this project’s progress, links below x)
Dean Perry aka pickledpizza 