Today I worked late. I’m cleaning out my desk, so to speak. Tomorrow is my final day at my part-time temporary substitute position. Rather than work over the weekend, I worked late tonight (Thursday), and I’ll wrap it all up tomorrow. Starting Saturday, I’ll be a full-time artist/illustrator for the next three months, at which time, I’ll be a part-time, temporary substitute again.
That’s it for today.
I used a reference to draw this picture of a fabulous Mexican circus. Clip Studio Paint EX helped me draw the yellow and red bands quickly with the Lasso Fill tool.
The more I use Clip Studio Paint, the more I appreciate the tools designed for drawing comics. Even after drawing three books with CSP, I’m aware of only 10% of CSP’s features. I enjoy fiddling with other painting programs, but when I have a deadline, I reach for CSP.
Today was family day, with the Californians in town. I cooked up a whole food, plant based feast of ragu and spaghetti, spicy buffalo wings, steamed veggies, cheesy sauce, oatmeal cookies. All simple pleasures for a simply lovely day. Tonight we’ll be visiting them at the the Airbnb they’re staying staying in.
It felt great to give my family copies of my two books. It was an awesome day.
I worked late to day at my contract job, which left me short of time to work on my book. Rather than post the rough background painting I worked on for a few minutes, I want to post this picture of Tabby Cat doing a bicycle kick. I wanted to work this picture in the book, but I realize, no matter how much I like it, that it doesn’t advance the story. Besides, I’ve reached the point where I have edit out every page that’s not needed. The other problem with this picture is that she looks too mature — I would have to repaint the entire picture to change her proportions to those of a cute kid. And yet, even if I did that, there’s still no room in the story for this picture. So, this picture’s moment of fame it’s appearance in this blog.
Besides doing the laundry and vacuuming, I watched a shit ton of Youtube videos about cataracts and lens replacement. With my set of physiological needs (myopia and severe astigmatism), I’m thinking that I’ll be getting monofocus lenses, which means that I’ll still be wearing glasses.
One of the virtues of monofocus lenses is their price. The cost of treating both eyes is about $5,000 cheaper than with tri-focal lenses. I’ll need glasses for intermediate and close vision but I’m okay with that.
I’ll be glad when I get this surgery worked out. Then I can think about something other than my eyes.
I visited my optometrist yesterday and got the news I’ve been expecting for some time: my cataracts are at the point that my vision cannot be corrected. She recommended cataract surgery. The idea of having eye surgery has always made me feel queasy. Youtube to the rescue!
I’ve watched dozens of videos about what happens in cataract surgery, what can go wrong, how long it take to heal, which kind of lens is best, how much it will cost, how long the surgery takes (15 minutes), what my insurance will cover, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Then I made a firm decision: cost should not even be considered. Over the last 60 years my eyeglasses have cost me hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars every few years, and my vision still deteriorates. The upside of lens replacement is that it’s a one time deal and I’ll be able to see better than I can see with glasses. I’ll be able to read, drive, draw cute animals, appreciate colors better, and admire the distant mountains of Southern Oregon without glasses. Awesome!
It looks like my contract work will be expanding in the fall, with more work than ever. That’s a good thing, as it means I’ll have a solid income, but it all comes with a punch in the gut warning — all of the contract employees may not be given work, depending on what the high-level managers decide fits in the budget. This back and forth rush for being employed to being laid off has been going on for the last ten years, and I’ve got a plan B that will keep a roof over my head. Call me crazy, but I believe that I will someday replace all of the contract work with the income I make from drawing cute animals.
The future looks bright to a cockeyed optimist.
Yes. I worked on my outside job today. I spent many hours discovering that I couldn’t get OBS to run on macOS Monterey. I ended up plugging all of the recording gear back into my Windows computer.
After I got everything running, I rehearsed what I wanted to say several times, and I especially tried to maintain eye contact with the camera. In the end the recording was okay for a first try, but it didn’t flow well. Despite all the flaws I saw, I decided not to re-record or do any editing. I realized that it would take much more practice at recording before I could see an improvement in my delivery. Simply doing another recording, with my current skills, would probably create more new errors and blunders than my original recording.
Happy New Year to all!
My 16-week contract has expired and all of the clients have gone home. I have a few more days to work. I’ll be doing evaluations, removing the my projects from the web, and turning out the lights…until it all starts up again in 6 weeks. Yes, I re-upped.
Over the next 6 weeks I’ll be working on my children’s picture book in every free hour. Now I’ve feeling burnt out. My p-t job requires deep focus and lots of dealing with people who aren’t well-prepared for what it takes to complete the course. I do admire those who “get it” at some point. It’s a good feeling to see someone take a few concepts and run with them.
