This is the space for our members to discuss and share their creative projects, ranging from written works to drawings, photography, and even craft projects such as knitting and woodworking. Self promotion is welcome (websites where we can view and/or purchase your work). Please do continue to preface if content is NSFW and be sure to properly spoiler/link such content.

More or less completely come to terms with this year probably being an outlier in terms of artistic production. As mentioned a few posts back, part of it’s external—some personal stuff that’s (mostly happily) shaken things up—and part of it’s the crazy (and I fear soon to be relatively endemic) heat we’ve been having recently; even with my window unit, it’s hard to commit to extended painting sessions in my place and I’ll often resort to the library for doodling or prep work. This has considerably abated in the past few days, but it won’t be the worst idea to brace for it again.

Part of it, too, is feeling like I’m at a crossroads; I’m pretty happy with how my drawing’s come along over the past decade (it’ll be a full ten next Thanksgiving), but, though I really like the (self-appointed) best of my work, I can’t help wishing I had a more fully defined or distinctive painting style (and that it had more “conversation,” so to speak, with my drawing and sketching). It doesn’t help that I’ve hardly done a lick of the latter for the past couple of months. That said, I did my semi-annual solstitial weed-out Thursday and I’m at a solid four paintings in the “gallery” for this half of the year (I like to do at least eight paintings I’m pretty pleased with every year and that’s a good barometer for measuring how things are going), which is at least right on schedule.

The header’s a small sketch I did of the Detroit skyline from Belle Isle Beach, where I spent a glorious half-hour or so on Juneteenth just soaking in a relatively small but vitally strategic sliver of the Great Lakes (after a twenty-mile bike ride that finally—briefly—acquainted me with Jefferson Chalmers and portions of Grosse Pointe). Some very unexpected artistic inspiration as a result (it’ll have to be a painting, too, so that works great) and I’m going out there again tomorrow to (maybe) have coffee with an old acquaintance, hit the DIA for the first time since New York, and watch a Detroit City match, but I expect I’ll try and hit the beach at least a little.

How’s your work going?