Category Archives: Time management

Not idle, just busy.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Inking a bike cartoon by Jon Tremlett for Soulcraftcandy.

A very small pang of guilt always accompanies  the short gaps which crop up between posts. Try as we might, I’m sure most of us amateur bloggers suffer from the same twinge every time we look at our records and note the time passed since the last posting. And lets be honest, most of us are juggling busy everyday lives, where the opportunities to grab an hour or two for “doing your stuff” are often few and far between. If like me, your blog relies on a fair bit of creative output as well, then finding the time to “make your stuff” as well presents its own pressures.

 

Busy times make for lots of juggling, and grabbing the briefest moments in which to exercise the creative muscles. Being short lived, these moments often fail to embed themselves fully in the memory and one finds oneself often thinking that you haven’t done much at all. But this isn’t so, it’s just one perception of the extension of the period between starting something and actually finishing it. small steps mean slower progress, but progress none the less.

 

So here above is where I am in the inking phase of the drawing I showed you in pencil layout in the last post. Having not done a full blown biro drawing for a while I’d forgotten how much effort goes into them, but it’s pleasing to have got this far, and see it emerging slowly from the paper in all its glory. It is slightly bigger than previous efforts, I put some pens in the shot for scale, so will take a little longer anyway.

 

Much time is being currently spent adjusting to life with a new part time contract job, and its effect will ripple out for a little while longer as I find a new rhythm. I’m back working in an industrial design studio, something I haven’t done for quite a while. Although you never really forget how to do it, like riding a bicycle, it is only now that I’m realising that I am needing to use a completely different set of creative muscles than those utilised in just making models for folk and scribbling away at home. It is proving very enjoyable though, and brings much needed regularity to a freelance life riddled with the usual uncertainty.

 

Nevertheless there are lots of projects awaiting attention on the Soulcraftcandy side of things. There are some further investigations to undertake on the big format prints I want to create, there are some more spoof magazine covers lining up and a handful of fresh pencil layouts itching to be turned into something more distinct. And then there’s at least one post to write about my recent weekend trip to Berlin. Lots to do.

 

As I said, never idle, just busy.

 

Distractions, distractions.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Head_on_CafeRacer_©JonTremlett2013

Drawing and painting onto wood, drawing on metal with a Dremel, designing t-shirts, jewellery making, wood carving, sculpting, transferring images onto glass, painting rocks(!), etching, wire modelling, making enamel badges and resin casting. These are all ideas that have flown my way over the last few weeks. Whilst they are all valid, they are all residing in the possibilities box at present. Some are self generated and others come from those around me. Some arrive with the word ‘should’ tacked on the front somewhere, whilst others take a more open approach with the word ‘could’. I prefer the latter, it speaks of a freedom to chose, of open ended possibilities and creative potential, whereas the former does not, sounding often like a form of well meaning edict, but an implied command none the less. Anyway, there they all sit in the great lottery ball tumbler of options waiting for possible selection. While they are in there they churn around, the subconscious busy doing what it does best, sampling, analysing and interrogating each one in turn. I’ll report on what this process reveals in coming posts I’m sure.

 

This is a great thing but, my word does it create a mountain of distractions which have led to a kind of treacly inertia needing to be overcome each time the drawing board is occupied. I know that the best time to grab a new idea is when you can feel fired up about it, knowing that you will do something with it quickly rather than sit mulling it over. I can feel that moment coming but it ain’t today, or possibly tomorrow either. So in the meantime focus has returned to the drawings and paintings that have suffered from my neglect. The image above is where I’m at with a pen and watercolour rendition of one of those Rocker guys whose style seems to be popping up everywhere at the moment. Enjoy, and don’t forget, the store is open and has a limited stock of those greetings cards for anyone stuck for a gift for a biking mate.

Finally, with new followers arriving all the time, a big thanks to you all for your support and loyalty, it means a great deal and is a welcome spur to keeping going.

 

The thief of time.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Before anyone feels the need to castigate me regarding my absence from the world of posting, I would like to save them the trouble. My guilt over not posting lately has become something of a large stick with which I am now adept at beating myself with. It hurts, emotionally as much as anything else. Unlike compulsory things in life like school homework, writing a best mans speech and filling out ones tax return, a blog is thankfully voluntary. This makes it indulgent, personal, experimental and loaded with an intangible sense of achievement whenever a post is completed. It also makes it prey to that most horrible of thieves, procrastination.  Described in an age old adage as the “thief of time”, procrastination occupies a place in most of our lives. it’s just that some of us deal with it more effectively than others.

In a way I could describe myself as a life long procrastinator, though recently I’ve realised that it’s not as simple as that. If I were truly a procrastinator I’d get nothing done at all but, generally I get a good deal of stuff done, just not necessarily in the order and timescale in which I first envisioned doing it. What I have a tendency to do is constantly shuffle the order of my tasks which leads to me doing certain things as a way of avoiding doing others. Or as a way of making it seem alright not to do something that has no specific deadline. I had a quick glance on the net about this and have found an interesting article which talks about structured procrastination, the art of putting stuff off whilst getting a lot done.

I shall read further into this area and get back to you with my findings, when I finally get round to it!

Needless to say, the time between now and my last post has been quite busy (here I go exercising the procrastinators primary defence tool, the excuse). May, June and a bit of July got swallowed up with a big freelance job, and I’m in no position to turn work away. Yes I have remnants of evenings and weekends not working but to be honest with you I’m usually pretty creatively exhausted by the end of a long day. I had a short holiday in Turkey, on a boat, which I would recommend to anyone and work has picked up again since my return. Being summer there has been lots to do getting the garden into shape and there have been some great days out on the motorbike as well.

Though I may not have been posting I have at least been sketching out some ideas for some more drawings. The sketch shown here is an expansion upon an idea I had some time ago. The core theme, if there is one is based around the concept of a kind of monocoque that surrounds the engine and forms the meat of the frame and bodywork in a single form. It’s not a new idea in the sense that bikes have been designed and built like this for real but it’s an idea I wanted to explore in my artform. What’s great about drawings like these is that one can include lots of apparently extreme engineering ideas, like the mono-fork front end without worrying too much about whether it really works or not. Does it make the drawing more interesting, that’s what I’m after.

I’m sticking with my penchant for a great big engine in there and  bit of exaggeration when it comes to the other aspects of the bike without it looking too unfeasible.

I’m going to work this one up in ink on some decent paper, using my previously mentioned new light box, and I’m sorely tempted to throw a bit of colour at it in the way of a watercolour wash rather than a tightly precise painting. Not quite sure how that’s going to work but it’s worth taking the risk as long as I keep the original sketch to work up from again if I make a mess of it.

Watch this space.