Poodle Doodles

 

Here are some poodle doodles I've done recently.  I've been sketching poodles cause I'm working on a children's book that has poodles in it, so I want to get better at drawing them.

Its harder than you might think to find good pictures of poodles with classic haircuts.  These are based on the ones in a German story illustrated by Lothar Meggendorfer called Der Pudel.  If you're interested you can read it for free and in color here:

https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Der_Pudel

Its also included in a collection of short stories with the same illustrator which is available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/8027317959?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

It is a fascinating collection of stories although the pictures are low resolution to the point of being very pixelated and it is all in black and white.  I enjoyed looking at them very much even though I do not speak German so of course it is all unintelligible.

Anyway I'll try and keep you posted as I make further progress on my children's book.

Spoonflower Shenanigans

I no longer have fabric and wallpaper for sale on my Spoonflower account because they changed the rates so I wouldn't get paid very much at all and it isn't worth it.  Cutting out the artist is disrespectful to both the artist and the consumer because supporting an artist is probably a small but meaningful part of what motivates someone to buy products designed by artists in the first place.

Thank you to everybody who's bought my designs in the past, that's huge, I appreciate your support over the years and it means a lot to me!

Since yardage and merch haven't panned out, the only products I have left are coloring books on Amazon:

amazon.com/author/jpmorrow

And if you've bought any of those thank you as well!

And I've got plenty more ideas for artistic projects for the future if I have time...

New Picture And Update

 Here is a bird I drew with colored pencils.  Here's the wonderful stock photo I based it on:

https://pixabay.com/photos/bird-juvenile-pied-wagtail-wagtail-5499473/

I also have an update!  My next coloring book, Celtic Knotwork Coloring Book 2 will hopefully be coming out next Saturday the 27th!  So yay!

Here is a link to my amazon author page so you can find it:

amazon.com/author/jpmorrow

New Coloring Book In July!

Another knot!  This is the final coloring page for my next coloring book, which will feature 32 coloring pages, and its also going to do double duty as the '2' in Celtic Knotwork Coloring Book 2 on the cover.

I still have to design the rest of the cover, make sure the pictures are pristine and do layouty stuff before I can publish it so I'm planning on it being available in July of this year.  Yay!  :D

This will be seven years after the last one so I'm sorry for taking so long and thank you all for your patience.

In the meantime here is a link to the original coloring book for whoevers interested:

https://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Knotwork-Coloring-Book-Original/dp/1534761195/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8http://

Of course I will continue to work on Celtic knotwork as well as other projects so stay tuned for further developments!

Knot

 

Wow, only one more to go and I'll have enough designs for my coloring book!  Of course I still gotta design the cover and all that other layouty stuff.

Celtic Spirally Circle

 

Here's another one, only two more to go before I can publish my next coloring book! 😃

Of course I still need to work on the cover and layouty stuff, so it'll be a few months.  I'm planning on publishing it sometime this year though.

Also here's a link to my first coloring book for anyone who may be interested:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31858959-celtic-knotwork-coloring-book?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=1BvTvY5iHG&rank=6

2022 And 2023 -- A Consideration

Stock Credits X and X.

 Art tends to be slow.  I don't fully understand why artistic endeavors tend to be slower than regular work but in a general way I think it tends to be the case.  One of the main reasons however is that for any given project we don't know how to do it until its done.  Of course we have some experience doing art already but it is never enough because a new art project always involves feeling ones way and finding a way to represent a vague idea that exists in the artists own head.  If we were merely trying to create content we could crank it out all day long on an assembly line, but since we have ideas of how we want it to turn out it usually takes a little longer and that's ok.  In fact its nice because the process of creating art is often enjoyable in and of itself and we'd miss it if it was over too quickly.

But why am I bringing up philosophical stuff that we probably know already?  Well its another year and I always like to start off the year with looking back at the old year and coming up with prognostications for how much I'm going to get done next year.  And its a lot easier to come up with predictions than it is to actually accomplish anything.  So first a look back at 2022.

2022.  In January I said I was going to share at least one short story on here and I still haven't finished any writing and I'm sorry.  Other than that I don't think I shot my mouth off too much.  I did get a fair amount done which is good.  I started sharing my art on Instagram and Truth Social so those are more ways for folks to find my artwork, which can't hurt.

2023.  I've been making progress on my coloring book which is great and I only have half a dozen more designs or so to go, not counting cover and layout and stuff before I finish it, so I hope to have it published sometime in 2023 or 2024.  I'm going to keep creating art and sharing it on social media as well.  I haven't given up on writing, its just a slippery medium and I can't make any promises.

Thanks for reading.  I hope you all have a good year and stay safe out there.

What I'm Planning On Working On, 2022 Edition

So what are my long term plans?

Of course I hope to continue to share new artwork.

Progress is also progressing on the next Celtic knotwork coloring book which I hope to publish in a few years.

I am also continuing to work on writing and illustrating a fantasy story about a gravedigger which will take a few more years beyond that of the coloring book.

In the years beyond that there will be yet more fantasy stories and other projects.

I'm also working on a serial story about a human ranger which I hope to share one chapter at a time on this website.  This is great because if I can get this to work I will be able to share stories and writing on here the way I share artwork!  I might start posting chapters this year.

Someday I might get another fancier website and maybe some more social media stuff too.  I'm sorta looking into that stuff but I probably won't get around to anything before 2023.

So what can you expect this year?

More artwork of course, and hopefully some fantasy stories as well.

November Update

Normally I do Inktober which is a drawing challenge in October and NaNoWriMo which is a writing challenge in November.  But this year I’m switching things up.  I already did a writing challenge last month so I’m doing my drawing challenge this November.

This month my goal is to do 15 fantasy sketches to illustrate some of the short stories I worked on last time.  I will try and share at least a couple with you along with a story or two.  Unfinished short stories and unfinished artwork are two things I’m very shy about sharing, but I think I better because when you see the stories along with the illustrations that go with them that will give you all a better glimpse of the kind of fantasy world I’m trying to create and the kind of stories I want to tell.

Some sort of life update

 

So I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year because they got all BLM and I don’t want to support the destruction of statues.

But of course I still wanted to do some sort of writing challenge, so I decided to do do a short story challenge a month early in October.  So that’s what I’m doing.  I call it the 100 Short Stories Challenge, and my goal is to work on 100 short stories and that’s what I’ve been doing.  These are short stories that I’d already started and had lying around on my computer and my secondary goal is to write an additional 25,000 words.

So that’s why I’ve been kind of absent and haven’t finished or posted much artwork lately.

Also I think coming up with and working on some kind of short story challenge is a great idea, whatever time of year you do it, because it can be a great way to help finish those loose short stories that you have lying around or to start new and better ones.

November Update

Inktober:

Last month was Inktober and I only got four out of thirty-one drawings done, which you can find in my last article:

Inktober 2019!

Which isn't great but at least they're all reasonable quality, and I think I'll do a bunch of sketching and doodling and do a lot better next year.


NaNoWriMo:

This month I'm writing a story about a Gravedigger, and how he lives in the graveyard and every time undead rise up out of their graves he has to kill them with his magic shovel and put them to rest again.  He gradually amasses a band of street urchins, living statues and ghosts, who then set out to save the city from the street gangs and Imperials vying for power in the slums and the reptilian creatures that infest the sewers in a post apocalyptic empire.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words so I won't have time for much else this month, but I'll tell you all about it in December.


December:

Well December of course is Christmas, and you might think that would be enough of a challenge for one month.  In addition, I will also have the rough draft to a 50,000 word novel, to contend with.  However, I'm also going to spend some time working on a children's book.  My sister and I came up with a really grand idea for one a couple of months ago and I think it will be great hilarious.  It features a brontosaurus and his mishaps involving a whole lot of poodles.  I think it will be a lot of fun to work on, and of course to read and I expect to get it done in about a year, which is way less time than any of my other projects are projected to take at this point.

October Update

I've decided to start giving monthly updates on my progress on literary and artistic ventures, and anything else I want to talk about.


Writing:

My goal is to write 3000 words this month, worth of miscellanious notes and outlines for my stories.  I'm finding that 3000 words, (that's just 100 words per day,) is an easily attainable word count goal that I can probably maintain from month to month, while juggling life's commitments, and still have time for drawing, and other art projects.

Drawing:

I've been doing a lot of writing lately but not so much drawing, so I found out that I'm completely unprepared for Inktober.  I'm still tackling it regardless and I'll put up a post of whatever artwork I've got done next month.

And of course I'm going to do NaNoWriMo next month.  Its a story about a gravedigger, I'll tell you more about it in November.


Misc:

That's about it.  Haven't had time for much painting or anything this month.

What I've Been Working On

 So I found this at the side of the road last year sometime...

...And I recently started sanding it.

You see, I'm thinking of enhancing it a little, with a little woodcarving, maybe woodburn some patterns into it.  This is just a fun project I'm working on, I don't know what its for or what I'll do with it when its done.

Anyway, I still don't have nearly as much time to work on art projects as I'd like and I've got some pretty severe writers block with the story I'm working on but I won't let that stop me.

All the best,

JP