Derik Badman's Journal

Decided on some new plans yesterday for ways to manage my day, try not to work too much, and get some non-work things done. For one, I'm going to start tracking the actual number of hours of working, so I don't go crazy over what I'm actually being paid to do. Also going to more clearly schedule time in the morning for sitting and writing or working on projects so that I do those everyday before I start work. We'll see how that goes, but I think I tend to work better when I have a schedule and repetition. Otherwise, I just end up doing my job work which oddly I don't really need as much structure for. I guess my mind has made its priorities.

In illustration, the use of your materials follows logically from your conception of the picture. In fine art, your conception of a picture follows intuitively from the use of your materials. (Franklin Einspruch, reviewing an N.C. Wyeth exhibition)

Read this just now, and as many things do, it made me think about comics of different sorts. How many comics artists work from the materials? Many get very skilled with their materials, but not many create the work because of the materials. Many times, the materials end up being the most prominent part of a work (think any work Sienkiewicz did with Miller), but they are following from a script. I feel like many of the 4 panel works I made were created from the use of materials. I was interested in found text or photographs or what I could do with making images in Javacsript, and then the comics were made out of those investigations. But eventually, I felt like I ran out of ideas of new ways to use those materials, so I stopped making them.