Nowadays, not so much. I consider myself happy if I'm able to do even one drawing a year (and I won't even be able to keep this year's one; my oldest sister had her first kid earlier this year, and I wanted to do something that would cheer her up a little). Part of it's because some small portion of me is annoyed with my drawing style, and part of it's because there's no place in the house where I can just sit down and concentrate on my artwork without a bunch of hairy beasts walking all over my efforts (sorry Sabrina and Callista, I'm talking about you.)
I'm also... unmotivated. My mother told me once that if I was so inclined, I could probably make a career out of drawing by working as a comic strip artist. She's probably right, except for a few things: #1, I go through most of my days in a daze, feeling somewhat empty-headed, tired and unwilling to do stuff that I don't consider important. #2, I'm lazy and somewhat of a procrastinator. I don't know much about the comic strip industry, but what I do know is that a lot of deadlines need to be met. I hate, and I mean hate needing to rush to do anything.
(I suppose an alternative would be to draw a webcomic, but... yeah, that would still require a lot of work.)
Ah, well... I don't think much of my art anymore, as I said before. Some of it I consider 'alright', such as this picture of my creation Ellen Harrison below (click to see it at 100%)...
You can't tell by looking at her, but that's her "Ha-ha-ha-ha
-ha-ha-this-is-really-funny!" face.
...but the rest, not so much.
This particular character should give you an idea of how twisted my imagination can be at times. As a baby, Ellen did not make noise. At all. No crying, no audible learning to speak, nothing. Instead, she waited until she had a solid grasp of the English language before saying anything at all. In fact, her first words were not "mama", "daddy", or anything like that. They were: "...You're standing in my light", spoken when her mother cast a shadow over the Tom & Jerry comic book she was reading. Even to this day, she rarely goes out of her way to talk to anyone and generally only speaks when spoken to.
I'm not done yet. Out of all 5 kids, Ellen's the only pure-blooded human. Yes, you read that correctly. She and three of her siblings were quadruplets: her sister is a felinoid, like most of my other characters; one of her brothers is a human with cat ears and a tail, and the fourth one is a Black Maine Coon. The last child, born a few years later, randomly changes between the species once a week.
If that doesn't make you question my mental stability, I don't know what will. >^_^<
In closing, I have a request to make. Most of my current drawing skills came from this one particular book that my older brother used to have in the late 1980s, early 90s or so. The book focused primarily on various techniques used to aid one's artistic ability, but there were two characters that played a dominant role. One was an aspiring artist who was willing to learn and improve, and the other was a stage magician who demonstrated different tricks that could be used to improve the artist's drawings. I remember that much about it, but what I've forgotten is what the book is called and who wrote the book in the first place. If anyone reading this knows those things, please let me know. Thank you.
