ROW80 Round 4 - 1st Update

Since the start of ROW80, I haven't got as much done as I was hoping, even though it feels like I've been going flat out. I've created another background for my children's book and drawn a few more characters, but I still have heaps more to draw, before arranging backgrounds/characters/props on the pages and then adding text. I was hoping to get it sent to the printer by this coming Wednesday, but that's not going to happen. I've started user testing on the fantasy eBook prototype I built for my thesis (and had positive responses so far :D) but I still need to find another 2-3 users within the next week. I'll be doing a few all-nighters to try to catch up on my children's book and my thesis write-up, and the fact that I seem to have caught my old man's cold won't do much to help in that regard :(

All the drawing I've done for uni projects lately has awakened the artistic bug. So when I couldn't concentrate on work yesterday because Dad was continuously coughing and wheezing and snorting like an asthmatic pig a few metres away from me, I happily stepped into the loving embrace of eBay, where troubles are forgotten, bargains are found, and money is all too easily spent on things you want but don't really need (except I do need those new books and art supplies and clothes. Shut up. Don't judge me.).

I already own pretty much every coloured pencil collection known to humanity (I should have shares in Derwent, Faber-Castell and Prismacolor), so there wasn't much for me to waste money on in that department. I'm not really into pastels as I find they're too messy (I already own some pastel pencils and some oil pastels anyway), and I still have the sets of mini tubes (mostly still untouched) of oil, goauche and acrylic paints I scored years ago at the newsagent on clearance, so there was no point buying any of those (although I do need a new tube of green acrylic after I stood on the other one and squashed it all over the carpet, but that's another story). However, after randomly stumbling across an art review blog (any other artistic ROW80ers out there might want to check it out, he has very thorough reviews of a massive range of art products), I discovered a cute little watercolour box set with a waterbrush included (it'll fit in my pocket and the waterbrush means no messy bottles of water to carry around, so I can take it to uni for some quick paintings or sketches in my breaks). Since I don't have any watercolour paints (besides watersoluble pencils, which aren't really the same), I decided I must have one. I also found some good quality watercolour sketching journals with purple covers, so of course they went into my cart as well. Now I just have to wait for my new 'toys' to arrive :D

In related news: late last night, while trying to work on assignments, I came to the conclusion that I just really could not be bothered doing anything uni related. Thus I decided, what better time to start that art journal I've been putting off for so long? Though I won't have as much time to work on it til after I hand in my thesis, I'm hoping to start building a collection of drawings and paintings to try to improve my somewhat rusty skills (I was actually quite good at still life illustrations when I was younger but I haven't really done any for a good ten years). I think it will also be interesting to look back over my journals in a few years time and see the progression of my work. The first three entries of my journal are below:

Though I couldn't 'attend' Wednesday's ROW80 Twitter party, Judgemental Dog made sure to make an appearance, at least in spirit:

Check out other ROW80ers' progress here.