Day 86 and a half:

The loss of power

I refuse to count today as a full day. 

I wake up at 6.30am after 3 hours of sleep to continue in the sketchathon and painted further till 12pm.  Lunch and a quick three coffees later I hop back into the hunched screen monkey pose, only to discover that the power is gone. I eke out a tense 20 minutes on the cheap replacement battery, hoping.  Surely it would come back? Likely it was just a momentary glitch as always. 

Half an hour passes, and the anxiety starts to set in; visions of an entire afternoon spent without the pixel arranger in operation.  

45 minutes, a bead of sweat dribbles down my  temple. 

1 hour, Horror. Panic is setting in; but just as I am resigned to doing something practical and non art related, I suddenly remember, I can draw!  

I scrabble around in cupboards flinging boxes aside. The dog watches me quizzically and joins in the hunt. He's not helping.

Finally I find it. I blow the dust off the bag that contain my sketchbooks, pencils, pens and other traditional stuff. Busting out ye old parchment and etching sticks I get down to some studies.

After producing the two monstrosities on the right, I started to get really really scared. Had I lost all my drawing skills by doing so much digital stuff? I called the electric company. 
"Get someone out here right away please and check things out." 

"You understand that will be a $145 charge if the fault is at your end? "  

"Fine fine, I don't care, my future as an artist is at stake here" 

With nothing to be done I sit back down whip out a history of Art book that weighs more than I did as a five year old and flick through to the Hellenistic period. I pick the Altar at  Pergamum and for two hours or so sit down and do a study of a sculptural detail.

Thank the Gods! This is slightly better. The anxiety lessens somewhat. 

The power comes back on.

I Immediately boot up the old ordinateur to do a digital study and get my pixel fix. A study from photo ref of Big Dog frolicking on the beach.  Isn't technology grand?

One thing this has taught me is to remember that even as a predominantly digital artist, drawing the old fashioned way in a sketchbook is really important. Drawing by wielding an implement directly on the final surface is fundamental to be able to do any kind of illustrative art work, including digital. It exercises those hand eye coordination skills in a way you cannot on a graphics tablet, and the results are noticeably different. You also end up with a unique object at the end of it and not a digitised bit form that can be reproduced with the click of a button.  
It's also tons of fun.