When I was younger, some 15ish years ago, before you could call what I was doing with my art anything resembling a career, I was squatting in a foreclosed house in the north suburbs of Minneapolis, desperately trying to make a living making art. The technological avenues available to freelancers were few and far between, in regards to finding work, and digital art, while very much existing, was prohibitively expensive to get in to. My first Wacom tablet had a four inch by four inch work area, and was gifted to me by a fellow illustrator when they became aware that I had been doing all my digital coloring with the trackpad on my laptop. Things were grim, and the majority of the art I made then was physical; ink and pencil and paint on paper. Or cardboard. Or anything else I came across that I thought I could draw on.
Even being able to afford decent drawing paper was a struggle back then, so I wound up desperately hoarding materials I thought I might be able to draw on at some point. Boxes, the inside covers of notebooks, flyleaf pages from books, etc. I wasn't at all concerned about the archival quality of the materials I was using, because my rates were so low at that point in an effort to get work that I didn't feel it warranted concern, and also because most of my gigs involved me drawing a piece, scanning it, and emailing it to the client. The originals wound up staying with me in most cases. I have hundreds and hundreds of original pieces from this period in my filing cabinets because of this.
This behavior is one I've never really lost, to be honest. Even though the majority of the work I do these days is digital and done on my iPad, I still wind up swiping things that I could draw on in some future state when things like paper or my tablet are no longer plentiful. Case in point, these three pieces were done on the small cardboard dividers that separate the layers of cans of wet cat food I have to buy each week for my very fussy cat Mishka. But the color of the cardboard seemed nice, and they were flat. And so, once in a while in the mornings, I'll grab one off of the stack that has accumulated, and I'll do a quick doodle in ink and colored pencil.
Anyway, hope y'all have a wonderful Monday.
Those are really awesome! I never would have guessed that was the medium that you were using for these. I can't imagine how difficult it must be trying to get started in the art field. Especially back then before we could easily have global reach with just a click. Have you ever seen the ReMarkable tablet? I am not an artist at all, but if you do a lot of pencil stuff, those look like they could be really cool. I saw a guy using one for business notes, but I think people use them for art too.
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These are insanely detailed! I love these, some time and love were involved for sure. I'm sorry to hear about your past with the struggles, it is crazy how the love for a dream job or hobby (depending how you want to look at it) keeps us all going even through the hardest times.