This blog has been neglected for a while (as have emails to people), and it's probably not going to improve soon. In general, when I'm offline for long periods it means I'm drawing, drawing, drawing, and that's the case at present, though I'm busy with lots else as well.

J has come back from her bike camp this week extremely badly sunburnt, particularly on her face (2nd, going on 3rd degree, in places). Needless to say we're feeling somewhat let down by her new school, (though in fairness our skin is an unusual case and even normal sunscreening measures aren't enough). In addition the school has repeatedly promised to arrange J's music tuition (and has arranged every other student's), but so has far only made excuses. It's a good school, but we're feeling unimpressed right now.

As they were going to camp, one of mothers commented on how gorgeous J was, and asked me if we'd considered getting her into acting. I made some throwaway remark about how acting was pretty superficial, but then I looked at this woman again and realized she looked kind of familiar... like I'd seen her on TV... hmm.

While J was away, L and I unpacked some of my old marionettes, and she seems pretty interested in them. Puppetry is an ongoing interest of mine but, like music, I can't really get involved with it again without wanting to commit a lot of time.

Drawing

Due to dayjob commitments I've had to knock back a major paid (and credited) drawing project. I've been feeling pretty unhappy about this, but I do take my daytime work seriously, and now isn't a time I can responsibly take enough time off to draw this job.

Something else bugging me is changed parameters on artwork submissions. There was one competition I entered where the deadline was extended by a month, and the focus shifted from mainly black and white, to mostly colour. I'd already completed (and entered) my piece - in black and white. I was unimpressed with the first five finalists' pictures that I saw (unsurprising, I suppose :)), but the overall field is much stronger, with a couple of really evocative images. Needless to say, only colour pictures made the finals.

Another disappointment, though not unexpected, was getting knocked back from a new comics anthology. My story was the first of two parts and I'd also made clear that I had plans to finish the art from same piece differently to be submitted elsewhere, so I'm happy enough that they chose not to use it. However, the specific parameters - 600dpi greyscale - only appeared on the site after I'd already submitted my pages in 300dpi. There was no acknowledgement of submissions and rejections were done with a bulk/form email. There was also a postponement of submission/rejection process and, given that at least one artist had been asking for an extension and that the editors were adamant this wouldn't happen, I'll be interested to see who's in the final book :). On the plus side, from what I've seen they've gathered some amazing artists, truly among Australia's best.

On my usual whinging about the unprofessionalism of Australian comic anthologies - particularly the way they solicit work, then decide not to publish (I've also had another one of those in the past month) - I'm going to attempt to do something positive in response to one case...