[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”2500.0”] A work in progress, with big eyes.  [/caption]

Bones

I am finding that I make the same mistakes when I draw people. I elongate the face, especially the space between the nose and chin, and I enlarge the eyes.

I noticed that part of that problem is how I sketch in these features. I’m sort of cartoonishly outlining the shape of the eyes and then filling them in. The outlines are large (because I sketch with a broad, flat, tool usually), and so the final form becomes larger and then they’re all wrong. And huge.

Secondly, I struggle to find a balance between mapping, planning, and sculpting a drawing and just diving in and piling on value, color, and detail. I need to slow down and measure and see. Speed will come with practice.

Drawing tech

I listen to the Good Point podcast with Rafael Rozendaal and Jeremy Bailey. I am an unapologetic fan of Rafael Rozendaal so I took it on the chin a bit when they sort of mocked iPad as an art tool. Well not really. They were discussing how painting and drawing become symbols of creative work and how products like the Microsoft Surface and the Apple Pencil are marketed to hypothetical artists in, perhaps, a cynical way to push technology they’ve developed into a market.

I love drawing on an iPad so I took some offense to this…but I see their point. But I think they have the cause and effect backwards. I don’t believe that Apple would have developed their Pencil if there wasn’t demand, or a pre-existing addressable market. Ditto for Microsoft. I also think they failed to ask the question “why is drawing emblematic of creativity?” I think the answer to that question is the answer to why every new technology platform has a painting tool.

Tiny little blogs

I created a Micro.blog account because I needed one more place to post things on the internets. It’s hosted at [abouthalf.micro.blog.](http://abouthalf.micro.blog.)

It is a distraction from posting on my “proper” blog but it’s also so frictionless and easy that it’s more fun and almost automatic. I also find that it works well as a front-end to Twitter. I can post things that appear on Twitter, without having to ever look at Twitter. This is a plus.

I like the idea a lot and I like that the platform integrates with many other blogging systems (but not Squarespace, unfortunately). I also can get behind the idea of individuals taking back the open web from the clowns in Silicon Valley. I’m hoping that writing there will fertilize more writing here.