It's a 'White Easter' this year in New Brunswick

I'm supposed to look overjoyed in this sketch,
not sad!  (Just so you know the difference.)

This week, even though it was short, was a hard one to pull through.  I had set myself set up pretty bad after missing Monday's classes at school, and the staying at home to work on my speech got me nowhere.  I felt like I was only digging a deeper whole with my schoolwork in general, and just as I figured would happen, my pain and suffering was only an allusion to a sudden metaphorical growth.

This week's moping seemed to bring me out of my trance.  I've been so consumed and drawn into my academics as of late that I seemed to forget who I was and why I'm here, as I do so often.  Every now and again I need to remind myself that my marks aren't everything; they aren't the basis of how well I'm doing, they are only one aspect of my life!  Well-being, for me right now, should be based on just how content I am with myself, my social life and my art.  However, when an outside force begins to command all of my attention, I seem to let the others slip and fall into a trap.  Luckily, towards the end of the week, I seemed to find myself again; I know where I'm headed and have gotten my bearings straight!  (It's about time, hmm?)

I have come to realize that in one a quarter year's time, I graduate!  That's a big deal.  It means a lot to me.  And so once I graduate, my life isn't going to be based on whether or not I know "What combines with hydrogen to produce water?" but on how skilled I am as an artist.  Let's face it, artists don't need much in the way of grades to get into their courses.  Nope!  You need dexterity and determination, talent and will power!  Enough of this stressing over things that in two years time mean nothing to me... My mind is now set on art!

I feel like I need some art and blogging therapy right now, so I'm going to fill you guys in about what I've been working on:

• Page Four of my comic (Now set aside until more concept art has been completed.)  
• Maps: Over the course of this month, I have come to develop a real 'finalized' version of the map that includes all the major locations needed to tell the main story of my comic.  
• Settings: I have sectioned off different regions of the map and tried to use my imagination in constructing what I feel some of the places should look like as seen from the eyes of a bird soaring over the various kinds of structures and terrain. 
• Character designs: I have just resurrected a couple of the characters that will have a major appearance in the first book.  My art style has developed over the months since I have undertaken this project.  
• Blog Posts (Here are a list of ones that are currently in the drafting state): "Welcome to the Internet, Mus'ka", How to scare a Nerd (saving this one for next Halloween), Picture Storage (only used to hold the odd image as I travel from one computer to another; disregard), Len Square (A post about my efforts in trying to make a cartoon version of myself for my blog), Seventeen (A post from a back in January that never made it out.  I don't know if my vision for it is still the same?), Deviously Cute (Reviewing my experience in designing a t-shirt of the deviantART 'Cute Monsters' contest), Another Winter Shelter (I will give instructions on how to make a shelter out of fallen trees and snow.  Originally written for my outdoor pursuits class at school.),  Pokemon and Nostalgia (describing what it felt like to start to replay Pokemon Blue as a teenager), How to Build a Quinzhee (instructions to building a secure snow fort; another OP class creation.  Plus, an inked and coloured version of one of my comic's settings as part of its concept art.), *{There are many more that are in the planning stages and just haven't made it into drafts yet...} 
• Tidying Up: Going back and fixing various grammatical and spelling errors I've made in my earlier posts. Rethinking the use of some of the tags that you see at the top of this page.  
• Photography: I've dug out my camera again, so lately I've been taking lost of photos!  My cousin has really inspired me with her sudden interest in photography.  I was inhibited by Vista's horrible way of organizing stored images, but now with windows seven, I feel much more comfortable in trying this.  (Fingers crossed!  Hope I can get some nice ones to my blog without too many problems.)
• My Themed Life: This part of my blog and deviantART is currently on pause in real life (I have assigned no theme for myself this week.)  I have many posts backed up that I would still like to get out there for my audience with my two themes Pokemon and The Hunger Games, so until I've worked the life out of them, I am at a pause with this.  

Below is a list of posts that are either finished or in the making for the "My Themed Life" section of my blog:

• Pokemon Week: Favourite Pokemon (completed), Replaying Pokemon Blue (have information written down, drew some sketches, still trying to finish the game up to the point where I can carry out the 'Mew Glitch'), Outdoor photography featuring my Game Boy Colour and I in a winter landscape (Photos have been taken, downloaded and selected.  Written portion of post still needs to be done; no draft has been created), Pokemon Black and White 2: My reaction (nothing has been done yet.)
• Hunger Games Week: How I Pictured Things (need to find and make copies of cartoon characters that look like the ones I saw in my head while reading, no write-up has been attempted), One With Nature (made sketches almost daily for a week, photography has been taken, no write-up has been done), My Hunger Games Strategy (just a though... nothing done.)

I mentioned above about doing colourized versions of different settings in my comic.  Since this is a frosty scene, I thought that I'd couple it in with this post just so all of you good lads and lasses can have a looksy.

This is the rough draftwork I made while sorting out how I wanted the Southern-most region of the fictional world to look. 

I am really excited about this one!  Through different sources I've found online about beta versions of video games, movies and such, I have discovered that the concept art plays a big role in achieving a concrete model of how you want things to look in the end for your product and that if I want to make all of my panels featuring vast and complex backgrounds to look anyways congruent, then I need to try and replicate this somehow.  So I've tossed my main pages aside and started in on concept art. 

I know that it's only the penciled version, put it's looking pretty good for something that only took me a couple of minutes to sketch.  Good copy will be coming soon in the post "How to build a Quinzhee."

As the title of this post implies, it is Easter and there is snow on the ground.  How's that for being Canadian?

We went from having this one day...

To this the next.

I can honestly say that this is not an uncommon sight here in New Brunswick, and I have many earlier-childhood memories of running about outside searching for Easter eggs in the snow with my cousins, while trying to dodge the odd snowball.  What fun!
_________________________
Oh!  I just looked at the clock and noticed that it is now past twelve.... So much for having this posted on Easter Sunday.  :|  (Frowny face)  "~Happy Easter Monday, Ya'l!!!"
I went skiing directly after making this.  I just couldn't stand all this excitement! 

(Page 3) My gift to you~*

I saw page three come sailing in, 

Come sailing, come sailing in. 

I saw page three come sailing in, 

On Christmas day in the morning!

       How are you all on this wondrous morning?  Good, I hope!  ...Well, I'm glad to hear it.  Oh, and since I didn't get you anything this year, I thought that it might be worth the while to do a little something:  

Here's page three!
       I wanted to have something to send out on the net for the twenty-fifth, but I couldn't seem to find out just what.  Then, I remembered... "I still haven't posted the third page to my blog!"  So, here it is.
       I don't really know what has kept me from posting this one and I hadn't really stopped that to think about it all that long.  I guess that I just wasn't as excited about this page as I was with the rest, but now I've come to find myself in a good bout of inspiration and I plan to get a lot done towards my comic and to what you folks see on the net (because you don't get to see very much of what I have at all!) during the next two weeks that I am at home.  'Two weeks!' isn't it great!!!

There were a couple of boo-boos made with Page 3, I know.
Just in case their not all that obvious to you, I decided that I would point them out:

  Here is what the page looks like when you scan it in black and white.  The black in the background is far more solid when you do it this way and it really strengthens the lines in the details of the cloud and rock. 

  When I went to fill in the solid black myself, I experimented some in using two different kinds of black to see which would work better.  

  Bottom line: Do not attempt to shade things in two shades of black, using different markers, when planing to scan things in colour!  

The results from mixing "Copics with Faber-Castell" can be messy... 

You've been warned. 

Even when I compare it to 'Grayscale' things begin to look different.  

It's good to know your scanner and your scanner's settings well so that you can use that knowledge to your advantage.  

I myself, plan to scan everything in colour when doing the prologue that I am working on now.  And, although I am only using all of the blacks and grays that I have in the Faber-Castell: Pitt Pen series, I find that the variations between the warm gays and the cool grays comes out better when I scan things in colour.  

It's just helpful to be able to identify what it is you are looking for from your artwork, to then be able to choose the right scanner settings that best suit your style's needs.  

________

Okay, so I know that it wasn't exactly Christmas Day when I posted this, but in my mind I had hoped to have it posted for that day.  However, it is a hustle and bustle kind of season, Christmas, and you must understand that I am a busy man.  

                                                                                                                       -No hard feelings, Right? 

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That's All Folks!

We are now down to... umm, 5 days before Christmas everyone!
I just wanted to take the opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas just in case I didn't get to post something again before the big day.  I hope that I will, but you can never be too sure with those kind of things.

My table's set-up:
Above is a painting that I made a while back, I think that it was sometime last winter.  Anyhow, it was one of the pieces of artwork that I took with me when I went to that Christmas event at one of the high schools in my district on December 7th, and was probably one of my works that received the most comments.

There was such a rush for me to get everything gathered together that night, even after two to three weeks of preparation, that I was literally just throwing things into a book bag, zippering it up and leaving the house, not knowing if I had remembered to pack everything I needed or not.  Luckily for me, I had.


There were some interesting remarks made about my artwork, and some rather awkward and intriguing reactions:
       Some walked around my table as though in a hurry, some approached, stood there for a bit, said nothing and then walked away as though they had seen nothing or had nothing to say, others startled me by tiptoeing there way shyly over to my table as though they were trying not to wake a sleeping giant or otherwise planing to do something illegal, and then piped up suddenly by yelling "Gee sir! These paintings are real swell!" almost knocking me out of my chair mind you.  A group of young girls came along and bickered over which frame they thought was better, which I didn't mind besides for the headache it gave me.  There were I couple of people who asked "if I knew so-and-so, even though it was highly unlikely that I would ever know so-and-so, but they thought that it would be good just to ask if I knew so-and-so, because that particular so-and-so knew another so-and-so who did art", meh... I just said "no?"  Some were actually really helpful though and gave me a good insight as to where I need to improve my art.  There was a lady there who had worked with my mother before, and knew her quite well, that recommended that I get in touch with an old neighbor of hers who moved to somewhere in Ontario and was a well known Canadian artist for his colourful and highly visual narrative paintings.  This, I liked.

I had a bit of trouble in trying to get people to take a handout with them as they went, so I had to put my sign-making skills to the test rate on the spot.  This is what I came up with.  It was a long sheet of paper that was looped and folded on the back so that it sat in a shape of a triangle; until I had made this, I had virtually no takers.  Of the ones I cut out and stapled together, only four were left.  Yet, I still managed to print too much by having seven sheets of them, both in colour and in black and white, to take home with me when I left.  Oh, darn!  I hate feeling wasteful, but I do suppose that it is better than having too little to give.

Things went by so quickly, but, IT WAS GREAT!!  The fact that it went by so fast was partially my fault, having shown up so late, yet I can't held but to seek for more satisfaction.  This surely will not be my last exhibition of my art, so I can look forward to doing something like again, by all means.  I will also have a better understanding of what to expect for next time.

If anything, this was a major confidence booster.  It helped to affirm my ability in art and self reliance to both me and my parents, and we are very grateful for all of the lovely comments we received.
Thanks to all who came~!

It's funny, actually, how the number of Russian views I get has taken a jump.  It's all because of me mentioning there being a town in Kosovo bearing the same name as one of the main settings in my comic.  Maybe I should consider adding Russian to the list of languages I want to learn to write and speak before I die?  Hmm, who knows when that may come in handy?!

Speaking about death, I just realized something!  A year and one day from now, the sun is said to explode...!  Hmm, perhaps that dampens the mood a little too much... Umm, "Marry Christmas! Hoho-haha-ahum" [coughs] ...Yeah.  

Christmas At The Lobby

Hey! Glad you could make it! (whoever you are?) ...Gosh, this is exciting, isn't it?
Just to let you know, I haven't really ever invited anyone else to come and see my blog, personally that is, besides a couple of my close friends, so this is definitely a new venture for me.  It's kind of like my first exterior viewing of my blog in a sense, and it truly is this great and wondrous feeling.
Everything feels so peachy for me now; just rate fine and dandy, you know what I mean?

It's been a busy past two weeks, but it looks like I've finally made it here!  This is my first time having my art on display, ever, so if I seem a little nervous, that's because I probably am!  I may not look it, seemingly calm and collected as I am, but I'm probably screaming inside!
     "Oh-gosh, oh-my-gosh! What am I doing here? ....And with all these people?! Why did I ever think that this would be a good idea? Why did I bother coming...?"
     Ha-ha, yeah, that sort of thing.  But, don't get me wrong!  Maybe I won't get that way, but just to worn you, I have been known to do that in the past, so be gentle, okay?!


I am apologizing to you in advance about the little amount of stuff I brought here tonight.  I could have arranged to gather some more, but with such short notice... eh, I couldn't be bothered.  "This is all you get!"
It's kind of funny, actually.  I just reminded myself there of that one famous moment in 'Oliver Twist' when the little boy is like "please sir, can I have some more?" and the older man at the cauldron is like "More? You say you want more?!"  I feel bad now. You're still enjoying this though, right?

For all of my school friends and others who have been to my site before, you may have noticed somewhat of a change in the overall structure of my blog from the last time you visited.  I decided to form a list of the more noticeable ones in this post, just so that you have a general idea about what's going on, and so that you don't get lost in all of its "newness."

List of Changes:

• Added a "Labels Display" blogger gadget to the side bar. 
• Minor changes to my profile information. 
• Swapped profile pictures. 

Here is the imaged I used as my old Profile Picture. Would you believe me if I told you That I had drawn this?  This was actually from around two years ago, back when I was in grade 9.  That was back before I even knew about copic markers or inking pens and I think that this was probably done using a simple package of fine-tipped markers from Steadler and just your regular a black ballpoint pen.  I surprised myself when I looked at the date that was marked on this one.  It said that it was from March 31st of 2010, and that's just the date the printer placed on it after it was scanned.  I don't think that I could draw an eye that looked quite as well if I tried here today.  I'm a little bit out of practice in drawing eyes with such detail in this way, and I can remember watching a lot of YouTube videos while doing studying this particular kind of art style in order to own my skills.  Long-story-short, I made this, yet, I don't know how?!

Hmm... It seem to me that there was one other little change. Now, what was that?  O-Oh, yeah...

• I RENAMED MY WEB-LOG!!!!!

For all of you newcomers and soon-to-be fans, the title of my blog (that's short for 'web-log') prior to now was just the name of my comic project I am currently piecing together, called "Knight's of Mamus'sa" (Pronounced: MAH-moos-sah.) Yes, yes, I know that's a tongue twister, but it is very original, and as far as I know, nobody anywhere is using that name.
{unless you consider that little Turkish town of 'Mamusa' in the rural parts of the Kosovo, and I don't think that the town of 5,513 people care to much.  Trust me on this, okay?  I even Wikipedia'ed it and everything!} Hahaha!

But seriously, 'Lonely Totem Pole', so much of a better name!  Plus, it's way easier to pronounce.
Pronunciation wasn't the only factor that lead me into deciding this, it also has more of a symbolic meaning to me as well.  It suits my website for its purpose more so than having my comic's title there.  Originally, I was only going to post things pertaining to 'Knights of Mamus'sa' on here, but then as time past I found that to only be a slender portion to the entire make-up of my blog.  There are so many different sections of my blog devoted to almost everything I do, so it just didn't seem as 'fitting' anymore.
(I also hear that it is a good idea to have a single pictorial representation of your enterprise, from a selling point of view, because it makes your products more commercially viable...)  I'm rambling on again, aren't I?

On another note...  

This little strip of paper is probably what most of you are holding in your hands rate now.  (and if you  don't have one then grab one now!) It's your personal invitation to my blog!  The address and everything is rate on there, so as long as you have a working computer, connection to the internet, and hands, then getting onto my blog should be a cinch!  (no excuses people!)  



My mother was generous enough to let me use her computer in displaying my blog here tonight.  So, if you don't mind, please stay within the bounds of my 'Lonely Totem Pole' blog and its pages here tonight.
"Don't go bustin' up me mum's PC, ya hear?!"

Also, feel free to check out the rest of my pages on my blog (just don't go hogging my mother's computer!)
To get started with your journey of touring 'Lonely Totem Pole', just click on the little collection of Labels in various sizes that I posted to the right.

*If you have any questions about my artwork, blog, or other things, I shouldn't be all that far away.  Finding me in crowd of people can sometimes be a bit challenging, as my mother can tell you, but keep an eye out for the one that looks like he's trying to hide, and the one who resembles the little character I use as my profile picture at the top of this page, chances are, it's me.  

Tag, You're It!

     This has been a very busy week for me, and I won't go into the specifics with what all went down like I usually do, but I will tell you that I was very tired when it came to Thursday's end ("Hurrah" for there not being any school this Friday!) and, although I am proud that I took some leadership in organizing and coordinating the grade 11 classes at my school, I do hope that I never have to do it for something so tragic as this ever again.

     Anyways, to get to the main point of things.  It is no real shocker to you all that Christmas is soon on its way, and so too are all of its corresponding festivities: Decorating, cooking and all of that 'fun stuff'.  But, what would Christmas be without its Concert Gatherings!  If you know me, you know that I am not much of a stage performer myself, or at least not as much as others from my school.  However, as you were informed in my last post (and if you haven't read it, then you should go and check it out!), I told you all that I was interested in showcasing some of my artwork at a local Christmas event, and, good news is, I got accepted!

{Hurrah for that, too!}

     It was kind of funny how it all happened, actually; I kind of got myself signed onto this on a whim.  My mother had told me about it a number of weeks back, and it really hadn't crossed my mind again until just two weeks ago.  

     I was like "Mom, do you know if they're still doing that Christmas thing at the high school this year?" 

     And her response was, "As far as I know, yes?" 

     Then I told her that I was still thinking about signing up for it and that I would like to know more about it before I went, so that I would know what to bring, how to bring it... Blah b-blah b-blah.  She told me that she would look into it for me, and come back to me when she knew more about it.  As it turned out though, when she finally did find the rest of the information online and got back to me, registration for it, she told me that morning, ended at 3 o'clock that day!  

     The rest of that my Friday was spent scrambling around my school asking teachers to recommend me, and for my mother, it was spent exchanging emails with representatives and people in charge of the program.  But, in the end, I did get accepted, and everything fine. (only now I need to scramble around trying to get things ready for the big show, December 2nd, and I only have a couple of things ready to bring!  Yeash!) 

     I will let you guys know a little bit more on it latter, but for now, I think that's good enough.  

     You are probably wondering what 'Tags' have to do with Christmas concerts, so let me explain.  In order for me to feel confident enough to let a lobby full of people probe around my site, I decided that I have a little bit of 'tidying up' to do.  I wanted to make my site more user friendly in order it to handle the mass influx of people that will be visiting it from the community, and placing Labels on all of my posts is one of the best ways I know how.  Here are the first batch of labels you will see floating around my site:

• Comic
• Holidays 
• Inking/Colouring
• Life Stories
• Notifications/Updates
• Pages
• Seasons
• Sketches
• Thoughts
• Video Games

     On another note, I have tons and tons of more content getting towards finished on my comic.  Some of such content includes Page 3 of my prologue to 'Knights of Mamus'sa'.  That will be heading your way real soon, once I get finished with this Christmas event of mine.  You can also expect to see some slight aesthetic changes to my website (leading up to/after) the 7th of December, so let's keep an eye out for those as well.

     Thank you for taking your time to visit my blog and I hope to see you all at Wednesday's big show! 

Too Late for Halloween?

       Okay, so I know that it's nearing the end of November and all, but I really wanted to share this little image I did specifically for my website and comic with you all before it got too late:

       I decided to do something a little "holiday-themed" for my blog, and I guess this was the result.  I just wasn't feeling enough in the Halloween Spirit (if there is such a thing?) and I find now that doing something art related usually helps.
       This was my first real educated and purposeful event in using copic markers (I had to consult our overlord YouTube for some assistance) but, I think that I pulled things off quite nicely.  Don`t you think?
       My particular interest in doing this image was how I would preform and go about doing all of the shading and the lines of the pumpkin; I think that in the end, the pumpkin has become the real centerpiece and focus point of the drawing.  You see, pumpkins were always a challenge for me to draw in elementary.  I mean, most of the other students in my class, they would just try and draw them completely round, like circles, but I would never stand for just that.  It use to drive me up the wall!  I knew, because I was always such an observant boy, that pumpkins are not perfectly round at all.  They'er not just circles! There is much more to a pumpkin than that!  Heck, I'd even go as far as to say that they were rectangular and square-shaped when you take their dimensions when copied onto a flat sheet of paper into account.  But I think what really got to me the most were the lines; those individual bands of creamcicle-orange, oh! They seemed to scream out and taunt at me above all the rest of the physical features that make the pumpkin such a mind-boggling and strenuous task to draw.
       I think what present me knows and what past me didn't, is perspective.  Once you understand how to apply perspective and viewpoint to a pumpkin, drawing it becomes a much simpler task.  Just ask any good artist, and they'll tell you that perspective is "key" and plays quite a vital role in many forms of art.

       Here, I was going to write some kind of story of how my Halloween went this year, but I think that it's too far behind me now to even bother.  It's not like anything particularly exciting happened to me this Halloween anyhow.  I suppose that I could have used some of my excellent story telling skills to whip something up that would scare the past off ya! ...But I think that I will save that for next year.

       The only thing that's really scaring me now is the sound of my voice!  My throat hasn't been so good this week and I actually end up spending a day at home, away from school, because of it.  I went to a local community college on a field trip this Monday and I have to admit it was pretty pathetic how much I had to strain my voice in order to ask questions.  This really wasn't any sort of a guided tour, more of a free-range sort of thing, which I found to be very neat by the way, (WHILST OTHERS ABUSED THIS! you tell me, since when has it been that the pizza restaurant across the street has become part of the university?! hmm?) ''XP  and even though me and my friend I was touring with didn't get to visit all of the places we wanted to, we still learned a lot of information on the courses available to us through our local option.

       I am thinking about doing some wintery scenes soon.  There is a local Christmas event coming up that I would really like to take part in, and I am not going to say much about it just yet, only that I am seriously taking it into consideration, and that you can expect to see some major-minor tidying up of my blog over the next two weeks before this thing gets underway.  However, I will tell you this;

Upcoming posts are going to be about something really neat!

Liven Things Up

I guess I spoke too soon!  This week has drawn many people to my blog; most of them have come from Canada, but others have viewed my posts from places as far away as Malaysia! (and I really want to thank you for traveling such a long distance just to see me! hehe)  But in all seriousness, I'm touched. I really am.

You may have already noticed this if you are a frequent visitor to my blog, which I doubt that many of you are, and are interested in viewing any of my older posts, I have now added new pictures to some of the ones that would otherwise be too "blan" without them. Here's a couple of posts with changes made:

1. 3DS: Now that's Progress?
2. 3DS: Progress (Part 2)
3. Story of my 3DS: (Part 3) A Trip to Town!

I also want to issue a notice to you that all lengthy post shall come to an end.  I am challenging myself to make my jottings more 'short and sweet' after I finish the serious of posts I am working on about my slip ups in school life, my struggles with procrastination, and the 3DS.  Those stories are almost becoming a thing of the past, so I may have some difficulty in remembering some of the facts. (HEY, I rhymed~!)  But I guess that is maybe a good thing for me because it means that I will have to force myself to stick to what's really important about what happened, rather than ramble on an extra 250 words and have you all bored to death!

Remembrance Day may have come and gone, but I still care enough to make a post about it.  I had a pretty important possition this year at my school's yearly assembly for the holiday; laying the wreath and representing my class was really empowering, and everyone present said that I did a very good job at it.  I feel that doing this has somehow made my deceased grandfather proud, and I am very honored.

Above is a finished picture I had originally sketched on Remembrance Day.  I was feeling very inspired that day and wanted to capture those deep emotions I felt by focusing them into a single image.  I think I did well.  R.I.P grand dad...
When I first had did the sketch for this flower, I never would have imagined it to turn out like this! Wow!  My sister had a couple of university friends over this weekend and they asked if they could see some of the artwork I do, since my sister often mentions it to them that I really love to draw.  They were really impressed with all of the sketches I had shown them, but their favourite one out of all of them was this.  It wasn't finished at the time that I had showed them it, having only the inking stage complete, and they really wanted to see what it would look like once it was done.  Sadly, the left before I had a chance to colour it.

Reference images used: 

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=poppies#/d3jkprs
http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=flanders+fields#/d2saffj

I never noticed the sheer beauty of it until I had scanned the image into the computer, and then at that moment I realized what a masterpiece it was; to me, it represents so much~
My Grandfather traveled overseas to serve our country in WWII and I'm sure that he is cracking a smile and shedding a tear in his grave rate now because of this.

Summer Falls

     I can't believe the change in the colours of the leaves this week here in Atlantic Canada! (Yes, and I do mean colours and not colors; and for all of my American viewers out there, the proper Canadian spelling for the word is actually that.)  It really is an eventful thing when the leaves begin to change, isn't it?  I think that I would really miss it if I were living someplace else in the world where the changing of the seasons did not include the bright yellows, the vibrant oranges and the deep reds that cover the landscape every fall.

    On top of the lovely scenery that we had this weekend, we were also blessed with fine weather.  Temperature in the twenties for Thanksgiving?! What kind of trick of the senses is this?  In any case, this presented me with the perfect opportunity to get some good sketching done; and so I did:

     For this one I hauled a folding lawn chair across our back yard and plopped it down so that it was facing the field and the forest behind my house.  I was actually a little saddened at first with the way how this one turned-out after I looked at how it appeared on the computer screen after I had scanned it, but now that I see it miniaturized in my post, I don't feel as bad about it and am actually quite content.
     When I sketch, often times the pencil marks are so light that a great deal of them don't get picked up by the scanner.  This is an example where that kind of thing happens to the image, but a simple change in the images resolution may just do the trick.

     A funny thing happened while I was making this picture, my dog, who is sometimes at my side when I am doing these kind of drawings, suddenly got the notion that it would be a good Idea to sniff-out the largest pile of animal droppings in the field... and ROLL IN IT!!!!! Yipes!  Yeah, I know, hilarious... but it wasn't for me at the time.  It still cracks me up a little when I picture myself sitting peacefully in my lawn chair, thinking about how nice of a day it was, when all of a sudden... zoom!  She didn't even gave me enough time to grab her before she began diving her way into it. (I swear it was large enough for her to do the back stroke through it!)
    Chloe is a small dog, so it didn't take much for her to make it seen as though she were in a state of complete and total mess, and she wasn't aloud back inside of the house for a while, or at least until she was cleaned.  My father and I gave her a bath, which is a routine thing for us now on the occasions that we let the dog run around the yard without the use of her tether.  But, man! Was she ever smelly!

     I had a good thanksgiving though, did you?  I managed to keep myself busy with all of the family-visiting, trips to town and whatnot, but I wish I could say the same about my comic.  I am a little stalled at the moment, that is not to say that nothing is getting done to it (I have worked out much of the plots beyond the pre-story legend that I am publishing to the internet now), but I usually have a page readily available to work on in the evenings after I come home from school.  This week so far, no such page exists and I feel as though a massive void of discomfort has been added to my day.  I should now make an initiative to empty that void of all its stresses and fill it full of the thing I feel most good about doing rate now, my comic.
_
*Just a little side-note, here.  Although most Americans celebrate Thanksgiving on the forth Thursday in November, us Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on a different date, the second Monday in October!  Neat hun?  I think that it has something to do with fact that Canada is further away from the equator than the United States, and thus the harvest are more earlier in the year.
When I think of November, I don't picture pumpkins and scarecrows.  For me, and many other Canadians, November means freshly fallen snow and the first taste of winter.

I sometimes find it interesting how the slight distance in our surroundings can change the way that we perceive common things in the world...