Image Preview - March 27

A brief note:  The last few images for the month are a bit late, the painting especially, and will be posted to everyone probably at the beginning of next month due to the server automatically archiving images at the beginning of the month.  This will give people time to grab the image without having to re-upload the whole thing.

This week's image is fairly cartoony and even a bit saccharine for most people's tastes.  Though it's actually quite important to me for several reasons.

I suffer from anxiety.  It's a thing I've had for decades now, just one of those life things that gets thrown your way and that you have to manage.  It's something I've been told a lot of us creative weirdos have in one aspect or another.

A part of how I manage anxiety is by drawing ridiculous things.  Sometimes its just random nonsense, other times it's a doodle that will make me smile.  Lately it has been something I've dubbed the 'This Poni' series.  The idea sparked from a couple places.  One was from friends, who thought it would fun to see, the other inspired by a little 'inspiration dragon' series of drawings I had seen on Twitter (the artist's name escapes me sadly).

So I've drawn about 30 to 40 of these little quick drawings.  Not just on bad days, but every day.  The rules are simple:  One has to be drawn each day.  I'm not allowed to go back and obsess over *any* detail.  And no idea is allowed to be called 'too stupid/silly'.

Those rules serve another purpose as well.  It's allowed me to quiet voices of doubt I get when starting any artwork of any type.  It's helped me stop obsessing too much over small mistakes, and it's got me drawing something every single day.  Not to mention the fact that it serves as a perfect warm-up series.  I've actually had days where I drew a straight tabloid sized sheet of these when the project image I was doing wasn't going as well as I had hoped.

It's catharsis to the core.  It features (largely, but not exclusively) Cinders, a character very dear to me, and is simply about the things she does/says/enjoys in an almost Charles Schulz-ish way of drawing (the big head/little body style).

I won't be posting tons of these, but I figured I would at least show off a few of them because.. well, they made me smile.  Hopefully they'll make you all smile too.  They don't take away from any other work I'm doing, so now and then I can toss a few of these out there to just break up the rather gloomy pictures I've been drawing lately.

So that's all for this week.  The last of this month's images will be posted just after the month rolls over, as I've said above.  I hope you all have a good weekend, and a happy Easter to those who celebrate.

Links to go out shortly.

-T.J.