Hello! We made it to the end of January, in my opinion, despite being my birthday month, the worst month of the year. I hate the short grey days. I can’t for the days to feel longer and warmer. So congratulations for making it through!
January was a busy work month for me, I’ve been tattooing a lot and managed to make myself ill again. I’m writing this from the sofa, wrapped up in a giant blanket with a brew. I mentioned it in the mid month bonus newsletter that I have a couple children’s book projects lined up which I am really excited for.
I’m looking forward to being able to work from home a bit more and take a break from tattooing so much. I love it so much, but it can be a bit exhausting. It’s nice to have different eggs in different baskets. I can’t really say anything else about these projects at the moment so here’s some personal stuff I’ve been working on this month.
I made two digital paintings. If you missed it wrote up a little walkthrough of the whale painting you can read it here! I also have been working this photo-study of a Japanese street. I found the reference image on Pinterest. I’ve been a bit obsessed with Japanese streets and architecture at the moment. I will definitely be doing more of these. This one is unfinished but heres where it’s at at the moment!
I’ve also spent a bit more time in my sketchbook which has been really enjoyable. Heres some recent sketchbook spreads. I’ve been trying just to take the pressure off and draw straight in with ink. I’m going to share these pages even though I don’t think they’re great. That’s the point of a sketchbook! And thats okay.
Cartooning Workout Workshop
I found this comic workshop (its free!) on the website of The Centre for Cartoon studies. Its the school that Tillie Walden (AKA my favourite graphic novelist) studied at. It has little tasks, one for each day over the course of a week. I thought it would be a fun little personal project to push myself into graphic novels and comics. I would 100% recommend, it was nice to work to briefs for fun and took me back to being at uni. I will link the course here!
I’m only going to share the first day right now but here it is! The task was to make a 4 panel comic.
I had the little sketches of robots in my sketchbook and was inspired to make my 4 panel comic a little story about them. I decided to do it without text because I found it too scary. Heres the original drawing I did in my sketchbook and a digitally coloured it in photoshop. I think these little guys turned out so cute and might make them into a little postcard print soon? What do you think?
I read a crazy 9 books in January! Definitely the most books I have ever read in one month! Here they are along with the star ratings! Not included in the pic is One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston because I read this on my kindle but I gave it 4 stars it was a very fun time. Also I did not intend on them all looking to satisfying in a stack! Look at those colours, wow.
To end, I would just like to remind everyone that I have commissions available on my website! If you’d like one for Valentines day get in ASAP!
Some Nice Things:
I have been very much back into Stardew Valley this month.
The Souvenir (mainly for Richard Ayoade)
Books and reading has been so good for me in January. Add me on Goodreads !!
Dahl! (yum)
What we do in the shadows (tv show)
The Fantastic Fungi documentary.
What were you fave things in January and what was the best book you read?!
Also!! I made a little chat thread on here (we have no idea how it works but you can join and introduce yourself if you please!) It’s a lovely wholesome place! No pressure ofc <3
Thank you so much for reading!
Love Alice :)