2024 Reading Challenge September 2024 books Another terrible month for reading. I remarked on my August post that my free time has been taken up with comic work and looking back over the year, that definitely rings true. The first half of the year, my comic work was scatty and inconsistent whereas my reading was very
2024 Reading Challenge August 2024 books I'm getting worse with these updates. My general mood for blogging has waned a bit these last couple of months. The colder, duller weather usually kicks me into a more creative gear so perhaps more posts will come between now and New Year. My reading has been suffering
23 minutes of Charles Schulz This video was shared by Simon Russell on the Awesome Comics Podcast Slack group the other day and I thought I'd just drop it here. I always love watching artists work and enjoy hearing Schulz's thoughts as he's working.
Photo Journal What a bank holiday... We've been looking forward to this weekend for about 6 months. When Blink-182 announced they were headlining Leeds Festival, there was no way I was going to miss it, I'd yet to see them live despite them being my favourite band and since our eldest has
2024 Reading Challenge July 2024 books Just realised I've not yet posted last month's update. Had a lot going on so far this month so there might not even be any finished books in August! Ellerbisms, Marc Ellerby I first came across this book about 5 years ago when my buddy Xander
Digital Minimalism Digital Minimalism (part 3) Another month on since I last wrote about this topic and I think I might have found my overall balance with my digital habits. Last month I removed Instagram completely from my phone and shortly after realised the desktop app is very limited in its functionality so I've
Photo Journal Coffee break (in pictures) Today the Sun is shining properly for the first time in weeks so when it came time for my morning coffee, I took the opportunity to sit in the garden. As soon as I sat down, I heard the squeaking meows of our cat. I looked up and she'
Music Air, 26th June 2024 Towards the back-end of last week, I was somewhat sideswiped by Woody's death on Thursday so I figured I'd wait a full week to put together the following post. The night before Woody passed, we ("we" being myself, Lu, my brother, Jamie, and friend,
Personal Woody, 2009-2024 It was a cold dark evening in early 2010. Lu and I had only been in our first house for a couple of months when we were heading over to Mirfield to look at some kittens. We got there and the living room had a bunch of little furballs prancing
Reading June 2024 books Not sure if it's the heat which (finally) arrived or what but it's been a slow month for finishing books in June, particularly the latter half. I've started a few books this month so I have been reading but they'll creep over
Digital Minimalism Digital Minimalism (part 2) It's been a couple of weeks since I kicked off my Digital Minimalism changes so I thought I'd post a quick update to check-in with where I'm at. Straight out of the gate, I've noticed a reduction (though not a complete eradication,
Music Trail songs Just a quick Friday morning post to share a couple of albums I've been listening to this week. I discovered Cory Wong fairly recently on YouTube with some of his live music and a few days ago I started going back through his discography on Spotify and these
Getting on top of things Over the last year or so, I've been relying less and less on social media as a place where I find stuff to read. I've whittled my sources down to a few places: * RSS with blogs I find interesting * Pocket to "read later" * Substack
Personal 2024 goals - 6 months in... Back in January I wrote down a few goals to hit this year and as we're almost in the middle of June, that's near enough halfway through the year. Goal recap I know I linked to the original post above but if you happened to skip
Personal Digital Minimalism On the day I wrote down my thoughts about maybe ditching social media, I decided to buy a book I'd had on my wishlist for a long time, Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. The book arrived the following day and within 24 hours of its arrival, I was
Stealing for fun Among the books I read last month was Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. I've been a fan of his writing for a long time so I've been aware of his Newspaper Blackout pieces and I just fancied having a go myself, just for a
Time to ditch Instagram (or social media altogether)? I joined Instagram fairly early on, if I recall. It was back in the hey-day of social media where new apps were novel and exciting to try out. There was never a great deal of trepidation or suspicion with creating an account. You just signed up, followed a few buddies
Games The last thing I need is another project I've had this Game Boy Advance since the first Christmas after it came out, I must have been 15 or 16 at the time. I've not played it regularly since about 2004/2005, it got relegated to a drawer since the release of the Nintendo DS,
Reading May 2024 books With the weather picking up a bit, we've had weekends away and stuff to do in the garden so I've not had that much time to read really. I'm still ahead of target for this year, I'll likely hit 30 books before
Reading April 2024 books J.M.W. Turner: The World of Light and Colour, Michael Bockemühl I used to love my Art History classes at college but we never looked at any of Turner's work. My only exposure to Turner is through various documentaries I've watched over the years and
Art I have a sketchbook problem... One of the downsides of learning how to do some basic bookbinding is you can make a sketchbook much quicker than it takes to fill one so you very quickly become a bit overrun with sketchbooks. Most have soft covers but there are some with hard covers, some are big,
Essays on Creativity "I'm not talented enough to do art..." I hear this... All. The. Time. I'm not going to claim talent doesn't exist. Of course, people are born with certain gifts but does that mean you're excluded and they get to have all the fun? Absolutely not! What's true with most
Reading March 2024 books Kodi, Jared Cullum I first came across Jared Cullum randomly on YouTube a couple of years ago with his video on his process for making comics with watercolour was recommended by the algorithm. It just so happened to be coming up to Christmas at the time so I put Kodi
Essays on Creativity Re-gain the child-like fun Give a kid some paper and pencils and just watch them work. They draw anything and everything that comes to mind. They don't care if it's logical or not. A dinosaur driving a sports car in space? Damn right! They're not bogged down by
Reading February 2024 books It's been a slow month in terms of number of books finished this month but the quality has been high so it's been a good month for reading. Dune, Frank Herbert My friend bought me this book some time last year after hearing I'd
