I threw it all away.

This is my newest sketch. It is totally different from anything and everything I've been doing this past year, and it was incredibly refreshing. I'd had this image of one of those public green wire trash cans toppled over with all sorts of gems spilling out of it floating around for a while, and figured it was time to put it to paper before it got lost in the recesses of my ridiculous head.

Most people who've seen my more formal work probably don't know that I absolutely adore typography and working with pen. It's been an area that I've wanted to explore on a deeper level for years, and I've only done so very, very lightly. I'm aiming to take classes in typography, hand lettering, and printmaking at some point this year. I really missed out on that front while I was still in school.

Day 101: "Knit" by Lisa Congdon

I follow the blog of talented Lisa Congdon, who is currently embarking on a year-long project involving daily practice of hand lettering. You can find it here.

I've gathered a great deal of inspiration from this artist, and hope to soon carry her confidence with color as an idea that will permeate my own work.

For some reason, I haven't been doing these little sketches for about a year or two. I think I was too concentrated on filling my portfolio with things that look cohesive, a.k.a. exactly the same. It felt great to get this little idea out and finished within an hour--I hope to make many more of these. And if I'm going to have a real illustration career someday, people will want to see variety, right?