Eye Trouble is apparently a sketchblog of some sort.

So, I was a grubbing about in a box of old art, looking for stuff to maybe sell (you know, instead of using my time the wiser way, which would mean actually working on new drawings and boxes and whatever), and, anyway, I happened upon a couple of pieces that I’d completely forgotten about, which I thought I’d post here to kind of remind myself how I used to draw lines, which is a way I wish I still drew ‘em, which is to say a little more messy and random and completely contrary to the idea of “rendering”, whatever that is. Although, of course, the caribou drawing is pretty imperfect, on account of how the negative space is completely negative, instead of having Smurfs or Nixon heads or Mercury astronauts floating about in it, like it oughta have. But, that’s the thing with being a slow learner, I’ll learn how to integrate spaces eventually. Like, possibly in twenty more years of doodling. And, well, the pseudo-funk-style retro head drawing, who knows what I was doing, since I barely remember doing it. Probably it was just a lot of fun to fill the background with weird tangles of aimless cross-hatching. Even though, yeah, I know “fun” is not supposed to be one of the top ten reasons why anything art-like exists. Anyhow, back to work. Or, at least, back to work after we take my Dad to a local fish place for Father’s Day (I lived away from my family for a long, long time, and I’ve lately been discovering that my folks are actually pretty cool.) Maybe next time I’ll finally have new stuff to staple to the phone pole on my corner of the internet.

I know, I know, I’m supposed to talk about the drawings instead of droning on about completely other stuff. The thing is, right now, I’m sort of busy trying to see if I even remember how to operate a pencil or a pen, since it’s been about 100 years since I last attempted any kind of remotely art-like endeavor. The reasons I ever stopped doing it are all boring reasons, and the reasons I’m restarting the engine now are also not super interesting. Just a little curious, mostly, to see if there’s anything left in my head besides how to do other people’s jobs. Now, instead, I’m just trying to do the one job I should’ve been doing all along…but, anyway, I always knew I had a million miles to go before I was anywhere close to where I wanted to be with all this junk, so even if it’s a little dispiriting to look at old sketchbooks, it’s also giving me a little bit of a kick in the ass, which is always nice. Even if the way to actually talk about stuff, like why I drew a thing this way instead of that way or whatever, that skill, if I ever had it much, is still pretty much dormant. Guess I’ll work on it, though, in-between the 9000 other things I equally need to work on.

Dang, but these are some super-fossilized old drawings, from back when my sketchbooks were full of endless, pointless cross-hatching (it’s almost as if I thought ink and the money to buy ink grew on some sort of tree or something, which I now know is 100% not the case). Also, I was looking at a lot of molas and books about molas, and sort of half-assed collecting ‘em, too, until nowadays I’ve got one on nearly every wall, which is a way better thing to have hanging around than any number of plasma screens. Ruined me for doing perspective, though. I mean, I used to do it, way back in the jurassic, even had to do it on jobs, now and then, especially on jobs that involved drawing all kinds of weird experimental gadgets, but I suppose now my error-prone eyes are only good for cave painting and maybe ecstatic prophecy art, if I was into that sort of thing, which, for better or worse, I’m not. Anyway, it’s funny some kid on an island off Panama’s got a better hand at this stuff than I’ll ever have. But, you know, not at all funny in a bad way.

I just vaguely remembered: one of my crusty backwater professors used to always get on my ass about doing “regional funk” instead of Deeply Serious Theoretical Art. Which, I’m massively glad to be far, far away from all of that kind of talk, ’cause regional funk’s way more what I care about in my heart and soul and bones and wherever else it is that people harbor feelings and opinions.