Dec Secret Sketches + Yt video preview :-]

Hi :-] 

During December there tends to be some silence from the book publishing industry, so I'm having a pretty relaxing month just working away at my own stuff, filming some videos, and chipping away at longer-term book projects. I'm also working on filming a video for the Deciduous patrons which is a revamping of an old "100 Things I Like To Draw List", but it's admittedly ...slow-going. Lots of second-guessing and layout planning going into it. That video will be a treat to watch because you get to see me really struggle. <3

I've put little short descriptors on each image which can be seen in gallery view, but I'll elaborate on some things below if you're interested.

I find it very difficult to draw myself in a way that is a realistic representation of me, but still stylized. I could very easily make it super cute--but it wouldn't look like me. I would love to draw big eyes and super crazy proportions like long noodle legs and huge shoes, but I just don't feel like that's how I look. There's definitely a way to stylize my face and body and I've certainly played with lots of different options over the years, but I don't know if I've "nailed" it. I don't know if I'll ever nail it, and I might continue to draw myself wildly different every time. I have a big ass and tiny eyes and sometimes its HARD. 

On a different note, my new youtube video is fairly simple: my room feels stale (again) and I am rearranging it on camera, as well as discussing my thought process throughout. It's a weird thing to try and vocalize, I realized. Sometimes things just feel right, or not right, and explaining why it does or doesn't is difficult. This is a large reason of why I wanted to document this specific human experience--everyone feels it at some point and it's hard to put into words. 

Another reason I filmed this video was to discuss the feeling of "aesthetic fomo" which I've kind of talked about before in a previous video, but wanted to go more in-depth. I think I've been feeling weird about the sheer amount of vlogs lately where the person's life seems "perfectly imperfect". Like the name of the video is "figuring out my 20s" but it seems the person actually has it figured out pretty well. And then it makes me, and i'm sure many others, think "wait....I must really be lost". Is it a humble brag? Is it "vulnerability" masked by beautiful camera angles and lighting and pre-cleaned surfaces? It makes me think their struggle wasn't really a struggle at all. Obviously, this is because everything is produced, staged, and intentionally edited. My videos are too, maybe in a different way than what I'm talking about, but vlogs will ALWAYS be some form of a highlight reel. 

So much of my time is spent thinking, second-guessing, procrastinating, so on. I am procrastinating right now! I should be working on one of my books because my deadline (set by me) is in two days!! Haha!

That's it, that's all I'll say for now. The video should be out in the next week or so. Thanks for listening to me ramble. :'-]

-JG