Drawcember: Week 4
Happy Holidays, everyone! It’s that weird week between Christmas and the New Year where we lose all sense of time and forget what day of the week it is… The only thing tying all my days together is doing my daily drawing challenge and trying to maintain some kind of regular workout schedule.
On the latter topic, my best friend invited me to a couple of kick boxing sessions this past week, so that’s been a fun change of pace… even better, the instructor met us in the gym downstairs so I didn’t even have to leave the building!
I don’t typically do “New Year’s Resolutions,” more like a rolling “to do” list (typical Virgo), but I think kick boxing is a great addition to my 2025 list. So far, off the very top of my head, the list includes: kick boxing, keep doing (and monetizing) art, get a tattoo, travel more (at least two trips), and some vague financial goals.
Since it’s a rolling list, there are some items that rolled over from last year (like get a tattoo lol). I published a calendar this year (order yours here!) and took a trip to Chicago, but I didn’t start my own podcast or paint that feature wall in my living room, so those two are still on the list for next year.
Not Her (Yet)
Last week my mother asked if I’d read any books by Rebecca Solnit and I thought I remembered reading an article of hers years ago. I would have mentioned it on my blog (the old one at mspink.com). Unfortunately, it’s not easy to search the archives, so I asked ChatGPT to scan my old site for references to Rebecca Solnit.
It couldn’t find any, but then I decided to test it with a reference I knew I had made, to an article about getting old and not understanding new pop culture. I knew I had mentioned it, but couldn’t remember when or who wrote it. I knew enough to give ChatGPT some clues because the article mentioned a song by Kreayshawn.
That was enough to pinpoint the year, but unfortunately, at that point, it just made up a fake article called “I’m Old” by Sarah Miller for the Hairpin (great guess! I do love Sarah Miller, but totally wrong). Since Kreayshawn got famous in 2011, I was able to find the post myself and provide a direct link to the page where I mentioned it.
But then ChatGPT tried to gaslight me when I pointed out it was actually an article called Dealing With Your Own Cultural Irrelevance (at Age 28) by Edith Zimmerman, suggesting maybe I mixed up Sarah Miller with George Miller, who I had mentioned in my review of Mad Max: Fury Road (good burn, ChatGPT!).
Clearly, the AI isn’t quite at the level of Samantha from Her (yet).
The trip down memory lane made me nostalgic for when I used to publish year-end lists of all the books and articles I’d read, movies and TV shows I’d seen, etc. but it was a LOT of work (and a lot of words). Maybe I’ll start posting book lists again in the future, but on a quarterly or monthly basis.
Anyway! On to my drawings from the past week! I only missed one day, and it was Christmas Eve, which Rodger and I spent day drinking and playing a free, homemade version of Ransom Notes at the bar, using a set of “F-word” fridge magnet poetry my mother gave me a few years ago.
In the round below, the question was “What will you say to AI in five years?”
AI, you (will) complete me…
It’s a great game, highly recommended! Some of the questions that come with the game are interesting, but we had more fun making up our own questions. Onward, to the Drawcember week four drawings!
Day 21. Angel of the Morning
The thing about not having a “goddess” theme is that I don’t have a lot to say about some of these drawings… It’s a naked chick with wings! Yep, moving on….
Day 22. Genie
I’ve been trying to use only colored pencils this month, but I started using a combination of pencils and colored pens this week. I really don’t like how hard, even impossible, it is to get a smooth texture using pencils, especially on darker skin tones.
Then again, the paper I’m using is pretty cheap and thin, and way more grainy than I like. It’s all about using the right tools for the job. I only have a few pages left and I’m weird about completing (some) things, so I’m going to finish this sketchbook before cracking open a new one in the new year (#Virgoproblems lol).
Day 23. Golden Eye
This one was based on a beautiful graphic novel I read this past week called Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick, whose work I’ve loved on a number of other comic book titles, like the bizarre and breathtaking Pretty Deadly.
Spoiler alert, it’s a Wonder Woman origin story but it’s 99% about the Amazons, only mentioning the birth of Diana (Wonder Woman) at the very end. But for me it was a perfect mix of historically accurate Greek mythology, irreverent storytelling and heartbreakingly beautiful artwork.
Day 25. Candy Cane
This was my Christmas Day drawing, appropriately enough, and I tried my hand at poinsettias, which are surprisingly fun to draw. What makes them great for an artist who doesn’t know a lot about plants is that they don’t follow the usual rules or whatever Fibonacci sequence pattern dictates where the petals end and leaves begin, so the artist can just make as many red as they want.
Day 26. Buns in the Sun
This one is beyond self-explanatory…
Day 27. Full Moon (also applicable to the drawing above)
And that wraps up Drawcember week four! You can see the previous weeks here:
Drawcember week one
Drawcember week two
Drawcember week three
As always, you can find more art in my RedBubble shop, including Badass Goddess prints, coasters, clothing, notebooks, phone cases and more, and you can order my Badass Goddesses book to read the stories of 50 fierce female deities in paperback, hard cover or digital format.
See you all next year!
