Achewood

Back In the Art Studio

Added 2024-11-01 17:42:22 +0000 UTC

I spent about five hours in my new basement studio yesterday, and it was enough time to get back in the flow and feel free within the tools. If I take too long off, I get awkward and hesitant with the paints, brushes, and attacks, and that sort of stutter-stepping is the death of a canvas. My rubric for releasing a comic, or any writing really, is that if I'm not sincerely feeling and transmitting back-of-the-house (personal term for the subconscious) energy when I create it, no amount of conscious and deliberate manipulation can make up for that lack of origin power, and it can't pass muster. The art studio approach is, naturally, no different.

I'm expecting to get a few large canvases done in the next few weeks, in time for holiday shipping. There are also a limited number of Oh No It's Today classics, and I'll have a few other mid-size pieces. The little model railroad houses are also part of a new series I'm doing in 2025. (You'll see the idea on the desk in the first photo.) I made this little set of houses in about 1999, when I was building a model railroad layout, but got way too into the houses instead.

If you're interested in acquiring anything from these release cycles, you'll get word of it here on Patreon first, or you can always DM me here for a private photo tour of what's in progress.

I am extremely happy to be back in the studio. Before this last year of wedding prep and constant home renovation, the studio was a constant part of my life, and getting to transpose a base layer of myself into this nonverbal medium again is a true relief. I'm heading back in for as much of today as today will allow.