Lately I have been realizing, more and more, that just solo creation isn't ( fun ) enough for me. Although my creative process might be meditative, even therapeutic, at times, as someone who spends most of his time alone, I have long felt like changing my creative process into a more social event - instead of just sharing it, afterward, on my blog and waiting for feedback / interaction.
Thinking of a way that comes closest to a co-working space, when not in the same place ( nor country or even on the same continent ) - and inspired by the co-creation sessions started by my friend @clareartista , I decided to try and go for recording a long distance co-creation session with a friend, living in Japan, hopefully this week.
If I can get my good friend @selfhelp4trolls to join in - he isn't sure what ( way ) to create ( as he started drawing only recently and his creative process usually involves writing or guitar playing - but he isn't always in the mood for that ).
I get him and it seems like I'm taking him out of his comfort zone, but I feel it's gonna be interesting and fun to chat a little, while both of us are creating / working on our own little project.
If we like it, we are considering to make it more interactive and possibly a LIVE stream, in the near future, but right now I doubt my Internet and gear will even make that possible.
For now, up till the moment when my friend(s) and I actually co-create together and aside from my ( almost ) weekly Wednesday co-creation with @clareartista and others, I will have to make do with creating by myself.
As mentioned in my previous posts, I ordered a lino carving set and starting experimenting and playing around with that, in the last couple of days.
I am still far from the 10 thousand hours to expert level, not even made it to 10 hours but hey, I'm a quick learner and so far it's pretty fun and extremely challenging.
I carved the following out, this afternoon. It's an illustration for one of the 22 stories in my first dino book. The story is titled 'Hypersensitivosaurus misses his mom' - based on me not being able to be present at her birthday, in April 2020. This was due to the first of several lockdowns in The Netherlands. Due to Covid and my move to Portugal, in 2018, I have now missed my mom's bday 5 years in a row, so this story is pretty powerful. In April 2020 I was actually in The Netherlands though.
In the following pictures you see Hypersensitivosaurus thinking of his mom while a tear leaks out of his eye.
**After the carving, the next step is to roll over the plack of lino with ink. **
I used black ink here, but I also have red and green ink ( the colors of Hypersensitivosaurus and his baseball cap ( in that order ).
Then push the inked carving on a piece of paper or vice versa and peel off the paper carefully.
The following result made me realize that I forgot that the drawing would be mirrored. It doesn't make much of a difference though, it still shows Hypersensitivosaurus thinking of his mom.
The lino print looks pretty cool, in my opinion, but it also shows that I still have a lot to learn ( and logically so after having only spent a couple of hours on this, spread out over 3 days ). The last time I worked with lino carving, before last week, has been 25 to 30 years ago and I don't think I did it more than twice or thrice.
I wasn't actually finished with the carving but I was curious and impatient and it helps to see what it looks like when your carving isn't finished yet to get a feel of what's needed, what works and doesn't work.
I see I needed more ink and that I carved too deep and not deep enough in some places. I also forgot to ( not ) carve out part of the thinking balloon, some dots above the head of Hypersensitivosaurus are missing ( I carved instead of carving around the dots. I also need to carve out some more linoleum around the head of Hypersensitivosaurus' mom.
While carving, I also discovered that with the size of the linoleum I'm using ( 10 x 15 cm ) and the size of my carving knives, it's almost impossible to add certain details, so I am seriously considering to add some details with ( oil color? ) paint. I know more people tend to do this and I like the idea. It also enables you to add more than one color.
In this illustration, for instance, I would like to add some hairs to the head of Hyper's mom and color her lips as if she's using lipstick.
Okay, this is it, for now.
I am liking the lino carving process quite a lot but it's no doubt even more fun while chatting with a friend on a video call and feeding on each other's ( creative ) energy.
TO BE CONVINUED...
And to remind you, once again: I plan to make lino illustrations for the 22 ( or probably 21 ) stories of my first book, to make the 2nd edition ( that a bunch of you are longing for ) even more special. So if you're one of my fans, please bear with me. It will be worth it :<)
Let me end this with a picture of my view, from the table that I was sitting on. Not sure how much longer this will be my view, no matter how beautiful, as I feel like moving to another ( smaller ) house in the not too distant future. I need a change of environment.
For now I'm pretty happy where I am though.
