I never thought it possible, but it turns out I had enough visual art lying around to make a gallery out of! I used to draw quite often, especially at my old job with the after-school programme; except I decided to stop drawing during post-snack quiet time, because the kids were supposed to be reading, drawing their own stuff, or doing their homework, not stand over Miss Tina's shoulder and watch her draw. After we came back in from outside, though; most of the kids were more interested in the Keva and LEGO sets than drawing at that point (usually, there were always exceptions). I lost most of those drawings though, since I never had the opportunity to go back to the room before I started my new job at the office, so all the sketches I had in my box had to stay there. Oh well—some of those were manga-style portraits I did of the kids, so I wouldn't have posted them on the gallery anyway.
Around that same time, though, I would draw on my Galaxy Note 8 fairly frequently. That's why I went with the Note 8 over another S series in 2018... well, that and price. The Note 9 had just been released and the Note 8 was yesterday's news, so I was able to get mine at a very steep discount. It was originally a $1000 phone that I got for $425. The pen just stores right up there inside the phone; it's got its own storage compartment and everything that it clicks into and it won't come out accidentally as you're walking down the corridor; and a rudimentary but easy-to-use notes app that opens whenever you take the pen out, so I could just pick my phone up and draw whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. This meant I was able to deploy editorial cartoons onto tumblr much faster than in the past, because if I had an idea, I could just take the pen out, draw the idea, screenshot it, and put it onto tumblr within 15-90 minutes (depending on how complicated I decided to make it); and it could look like everyone else's drawings that they used a Wacom and Krita for. I also discovered that I could photograph drawings I'd done in sketchbooks and use Notes to colour over them, letting me make somewhat more professional-looking full colour sketches without having to spend more money on art markers (have you SEEN how expensive some of those things get? You can get a 20-pack of Crayola fine-tips for the same price some of these people ask for one single brush-tip marker!).
The reason there's so much in the phone sketch gallery from Rocko's Modern Life is that I started relating to Rocko big time when I started my job at the after-school programme. This had been my first job in about 6 months and the first ever where I had to interact with children on a daily basis, plus I was facing a lot of "punch yourself in the face" style adulting, as I had to keep rescheduling a training seminar because I was sick. COVID-19 wouldn't show up for another year, but I had to wear a mask anyway so I wouldn't get the kids sick (hence Rocko lying on the couch with a thermometer in his mouth). Rocko stuck with me throughout 2019 and 2020. I have a bunch more Rocko sketches that I'm not going to post here because of reasons, but it's pretty obvious that Rocko was basically my fursona for about a year.
The reason there's only one self-portrait here is that all of my self-portraits are of pre-transition me. I often drew myself, but I'm not real comfortable with displaying any of those. The Pokémon Go status report was my first trans self-portrait; I had shaved off my facial hair and was in the process of altering my wardrobe at the time, even though I was still dressing in mostly men's clothes. The outfit I'm wearing in that picture was what I had worn that day; a baggy sweater, khakis, and my black New Balances (though the shoes in the picture are brown... not sure why I changed that); along with the Mimikyu hat my avatar was wearing. I wish I could find a real hat like that... or make one? I don't know. I'm not too sure about sewing... it sounds like the machines these days are designed to break, and I've got no money, so...
Even though the phone sketch gallery has more in it, I've actually done much, much more pencil sketching. Like I said before, I've only had my Note 8 since 2018, whereas I've been drawing for most of my life. Basically, the only stuff I have anymore is from 2012 onwards. I'm not totally sure what happened to all of my earlier stuff, but between shifting flats, moving out, and stowing things in boxes, it's been mostly lost. I probably wouldn't post it anyway. I don't need to be reminded of that bit of my life since I spend so much time there in my imagination in the first place. The oldest drawing in my gallery is the "Broken Modem" stuff. I used to think I was going to have a comic blog on tumblr, called Broken Modem (after the fact all of my WiFi routers kept breaking down 3 months after they were installed), and I developed a particular style for it that I could easily replicate in MS Paint just drawing with the mouse.
These were from a project I was developing for a while where I was writing Shel Silverstein-style poems for young adults and providing illustrations to go along with them. I'm not sure what put the stop to that project, but I suspect Donald Trump had something to do with it. I only did these and 3 other drawings for the project before stopping. It's kind of hard to date these accurately because this was before I started signing my sketches. I didn't develop my monogram until 2017 and I started drawing Broken Modem comics in 2014, so that puts these at either 2014 or '15. I'm going to say '15 just because there was too much going on in 2016 for it to have been from then and I wasn't drawing much as a result. You can see just how enthusiastic I was about growing up back then, can't you?
At some point in the next week, I'm going to make another page for the gallery, showcasing all of my Bob Ross-style paintings (that I care to display in public). I took up landscape painting shortly after coronaquitting my office job so I could feel like I was still contributing to society in some small way. People like to insult landscape painters, especially Ross-trained ones; saying "oh, it's just a derivation of this one other guy's style, it's not real art." Confusingly, these same people also claim to hate art snobs.
I look at painting the same way I used to look at picture books when I was a kid: there's more going on in this world than what meets the eye. Frog and Toad may live in this particular part of the forest, but they're not alone here; they have neighbours and acquaintances just like you and me. They go to the shops, they have a daily postal delivery; just because we only ever see the areas relevant to Frog and Toad's adventures doesn't mean there's nothing else going on here. I have a painting (well, several actually) of the moon rising over a ranch. The ranch doesn't exist in a vacuum; there's a rail trail that goes through the property, they've got cattle, they've got chickens, they go into town to sell their stuff and celebrate friends' birthdays and things. This ranch exists as a small part of a larger world that exists in my imagination. I'm not going to paint the entire world, because you don't need to see everything to know it's there. "But, if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Of course it does, Socrates, that's not the point. The point is that you appreciate art by making it a part of your own experiences. There doesn't need to be an inherently political or moral message to art in order for it to carry weight, it just needs to fill a niche in your imagination. You're allowed to not like a painting, but that doesn't mean it's devoid of meaning; you can not like a painting while the person next to you does. That's what being human is all about, stupid!
Got off on a bit of a thing there. I think that's the signal I need to stop writing now.
--3 July 2024--