Aaargh!

A quick quick QUICK little sketch.
Not quick as in "just took two
hours and only 20 layers". I mean
FAST. But it was fun. Used the last
days to get my hands on a flash cart
for my Nintendo DS and now I can do
all kinds of random silly stuff with it.
For instance, READING TEXT FILES!
Whoa! I always wanted to look through
readme.txt files while being "at the bathroom".

Currywurst mit Pommes

Do you like my nonsencial german
titles? I hope you do! I try to bring a little
randomness into your day, so you better
be thankful about it, foo´!

Above: Final FINAL version of my
fuel cell illustration. Added another layer
and the result is immense. I like it so much more
than the other ones. I am not looking forward to run
around aimlessly for one hour at our shopping mall
again, since this is the time it takes them to print
those, but well...might buy some random household
products in the meantime. Maybe even shoelaces!
My life is a real rollercoaster ride.

The other illo remains as it is, Merle
said it reminds her of Die Schlumper, a
pretty well-known group of disabled artists
(or "special" artists, or "challenged" ones, I don´t like
this political over-correct talk), and this is a compliment,
since they do great stuff:

Die Schlumper (has an English section too)

And not just "good for someone who is
disabled" but REALLY good. Some of this stuff
makes me a bit envious. Most of it has some
raw expression to it, without being random - it´s
very tight work.

(If you click on "Online Ausstellung" instead of
the similar link on the English section, you get to
the single artists instead of just a crummy slideshow.)

....

I also can´t get enough of this
Genesis song.

This crap is driving me nuts

The problem with our calendar is that
there are more students participating than there
are months in a year. We also have more departements
than 12, so not all can be represented. Well, the first
"problem" is actually something called "competition"; still,
when I saw other submissions to the "hospital management"
topic I thought that I´ll concentrate on the fuel cell one
more, since nobody made one for that (I think).

The one you see above was something I slapped
together in a couple of hours yesterday, just so
that I don´t have to reach in just one illustration.
But now I think that while it is very simplified, it
is pretty much spot-on (the topic is optimizing the workflow
between caretaking, medicine and therapy in hospitals, for
your information). When I do simplified work I always
think "Is that really enough?", but I am really happy
with that one.

This is the second one I printed today.
I was awake the whole night against my will and
felt that I would drop dead if I went to the printing
appointment at 11am. So I went to bed again and printed
it at our local copyshop instead, which costed 7 euro a piece.
That´s the price for getting some sleep.

Thanks for all your honest votings on the colour
scheme; I printed it BEFORE reading any of your
comments, and chose the colder one just because
I HAD to pick one of them (reaching in two variations
as submissions looks so weakwilled). The different coloured
wires make the idea a bit clearer, while it looks better when
they all have the same hue.

Notice that I removed some elements as an attempt
to make the image a bit clearer; looking at it now just
makes it look less interesting. AAAH! I CAN`T DECIDE!

Luckily, the final FINAL deadline is thursday, so I
still have time to make up my mind about it,
or even make ANOTHER fuel cell variation, maybe a
simple one like the hospital illo.

As the title indicates, this is driving me nuts.
I also felt pretty bad in the last weeks, on some
days I felt like I had some problem with my heart -
but after some very nice and relaxing hours of
smootching with Merle I realized it all came from
stressing myself and worrying WAY too much.
I already feel much better now.

Hard working

Okay.
Monday is printing deadline, meaning that
if I want to print for free at the school I must have
my stuff done by then. Wednesday is the REAL deadline.
Then it´s time for the jury to pick the best submissions.

These are the two versions of my redone
fuel cell illustration, and it has not much to
do with the sketches I did yesterday. If you want
you can tell me which version you like more, I´ll
decide tomorrow.

PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!

Work in progress

No, my room isn´t completely shrouded in darkness.
I punched up the contrast so that you can see the drawings.
Not to be seen: My Gameboy Micro for short workbreaks
with Super Mario Bros 3. Notice how incredibly shitty
the first two sketches look.

I thought I´d share what I´ve been doing for the
last 20 minutes. I am at my fuel cell illustration again,
and this time I went for a different method:
Scribbling a very rough idea, and continue doing
the same idea over and over while adding more and more
detail each time. It´s a good way of getting the whole
thing into gear. It´s pretty surprising how quick
ideas get more substance and definition.

It´s a way of brainstorming, and thinking about
it, each time I make up a image in my mind, it
turns out to be pretty fuzzy. Drawing it over and
over again adds a lot of new ideas to it.

Never change a winning horse

Made this one right before bedtime again,
and was so excited by it that I went straight to the
scanner and all that. Come on, isn´t that cute?

Also, I´m sorry that he does the same "victory"
pose as my hippie lady, but I am excercising my
new way of drawing heads, so that slipped under my radar.
Maybe he´s the son of the hippie lady?

I just thought that they could be on the same
picture, one of them mirrored, so that they
do the victory sign at each other.
Too bad that both drawings look very
weird when mirrored. Must have something
to do with the overall drawing orientation...

Bedtime. Geez, the birds are singing
already again.

Hippie!

Hippie!
Blablabla.
That´s my post for today.

Rat-tail!

Is it really called rat-tail? Rattail?
Rats tail? Was a pretty common strip of hair
growing on the back of the head back in the
mid-80ies, when I was a kid.
I had one too, but near the right eye, and
it was toned blonde.

Nowadays you would be beaten up for wearing
your hair like that. But that was the 80ies, we liked to
be a bit, uhm, "experimental".

Our house, in the middle of dA $treetZ

Houses. That´s pretty much it.
Drew them yesterday right before going to bed
(I actually drew them IN BED), but after starting to colour
them I quickly lost interest. It´s all nice and tidly drawn,
but not too exciting.

Little things can make all the difference

Recently, I´ve been very fed up with my
inconsistent routine of drawing. There are way too many
days that just go by without anything properly
done. And most days, when I start doing some feeble
lines, I get distracted or demoralized way too easy.

As I can see from pretty old diary entries, this problem
has been with me since I started to take art seriously.
It´s the common "fear of the white sheet"-problem -
getting started takes up WAY too much force
and energy most days.

So I decided to finally change this forever.
I swore to myself that whatever might come,
I will draw at least two hours a days; one hour
at the beginning of the day (that doesn´t mean the
morning hours, obviously...) and one right before bedtime.



I choo-choo-choose this silly tagline



I am not talking about two hours of illustration work.
I tried to set myself certain work times or work lenghts, but
this didn´t work at all (I am not good at being my own mean
grumpy boss). Those hours are purely for sketching: without
any expectations of quality or quantity. It´s all about
drawing for a complete and uninterupted hour.

Cheep cheep!



This is an almost athletical training - first and
foremost it´s an attempt to break my chronic lethargy
in drawing. By developing this routine I hope to really
get used to the ACT of drawing. During this hour,
what I draw, how I draw it and how much I draw
is completely unimportant. It´s a ritual to get into
the day, and to end the day.

Mr. Jurk Racing Team

So far, it worked very well. After an hour,
I always find myself in a very good mood - it´s
emotionally uplifting and just huge fun. And each time
it is easier and easier to start; after two times it stopped
feeling like something forced and I even looked forward
to the next session.

Maybe you need a tissue, my dear.


Drawing much and often has always been an
idealistic vision for myself; yet, I found it incredibly
hard to really keep doing it the way I wanted.
Now, I feel that my brain reacts to this routine
very fast - after drawing at night, I continue thinking
about drawing (just like most other things you do
right before bedtime stay in your mind).

I did this on some rare occasions in the past,
and noticed an extreme boost in quality in my drawings,
both within the single sessions and from day to day.

As Bobby Chiu says in one of his YouTube videos,
"art is only 10% talent and 90% practice". He also says
wise things as "If you take care of your art,
your art suddenly starts taking care of you."
And it´s true. I can´t just sit around and wait for
the passion for drawing come back to me again -
as love in general, it demands work and attention.
Passion is not passive.

Too legit! Too legit to quit!

This could be your new desktop wallpaper!
Or maybe not! Who knows!

(Too legit.)

IF: Total, Take Two

Dang it, how is he going to
calculate the total now?

IF: Total

This guy is totally out of luck.

Sorry, can´t up with anything new
for this weeks IF, since I have a LOT
work to do in the next few days.
(And I wanted to share this with a bigger
audience, so there!)

Xxxtreme deadline scratching!!!

Yeah, not really deadline, but tomorrow
is the last time for new concepts, and I hate showing
rough sketches. They just look ugly compared to nicely
edited and coloured pieces. Pure vanity, but I am one
ambitious guy. Stupidly enough I don´t really work until
one or two days before assignment deadlines. It worked well
so far, and I think I "just need the pressure".

Pressure? More like swords hanging above my head.
I nearly went insane today, I finally got started at 8pm (!!!) and
nothing but creative diarrhea for hours and hours. Finally
made a drawing which I thought of being pretty mediocre, but
after colouring it, it doesn´t seem too bad.

Typical rundown of "productive" days:

1. I waste a good part of the day.
2. I start making some shitty lines.
3. I can´t come up with anything.
4. Aaah! I suck at art.
5. Geez, I am already playing Nintendo again.
6. Oh, it´s past midnight.
7. I am simply not showing up tomorrow.
8. I am simply quitting uni and live on the streets.
9. This drawing is awful but better than nothing.
10. Starting over.
11. Starting over again.
12. Finally made something okay-ish.
13. After hours and hours of editing and colouring,
I like it more than anything that I´ve ever done before.
14. I am SO good at art.
15. I am making a million with this stuff.
(Rinse and repeat on next occasion.)

Seriously, I am almost dying every time,
but after I finally made something passable,
I feel like winning a war.
A war AGAINST MYSELF (and laziness).

It´s about fuel cells - left arm is O2, right arm is H2 and they
react with each other and make eletricity, and dripping from
his legs is H20 (a.k.a. water, duh) that is a byproduct of this
reaction. IT EVEN MAKES SENSE!
Not so much the heart which is
on the wrong side. Ah well.

Picture plus text = new blog post

I wish I could do something like this every day.
I felt like a lazy pig the last several days, mostly because
I didn´t come up with any new concepts for my calendar
stuff (and I didn´t even try that hard). Whenever I am
procrastinating it pokes at my subtle fears of what
would be if this whole illustrating thing is not
going to work. I am not the type of person
that can slack for some days without any worries -
I feel bad all the time when I am not working
on my stuff.

Now, FORCING it makes it worse in most
cases. Then I tend to REALLY procrastinate - many days
just pass by and whoops! It´s already midnight! And
by this magical mark, the day is mostly lost. (I usually
stay awake till maybe 3-5 am, because, why not? Also, I like
to work late.)

So instead, I really tried to relax today,
not to be lazy, but to relax like in meditation.
I never tried Yoga or something, but I like the concept
of it. And there we go, it worked like a charm.
Suddenly, all dials are set in the right position.

And I mean, there are always a lot of things coming
in consideration when drawing. WHAT should I draw?
In what style? Which pens? Which size? What do I want
to achieve in the long run? Am I heading into the right
direction?

Today, I just left that out, and yeah, I am
pretty proud of this last two images you see here.
And as long as I keep progressing like this, being
so emotionally dependent on my work is a good thing.

Blitz und Donner!

Urgh. That hurts.

IF: Wired / Hawai Kawaii

Click to enlarge - as usual

I really tried hard today and sat down
for a complete 90-minute session of just
drawing on my futon (on my westernized sissy futon,
but still!), and it REALLY made a difference - I needed maybe
30 minute to really get the gears warm, and made two pretty
nice drawings (the second one will come later today, I hope).
So I decided to make this another IF submission, because
it has some sort of wires in it.

Underwear

IF: Wired

Finally a IF submission again.
Next week is fully dedicated for doing the
last concepts for the much-mentioned calendar
project, but I drew this yesterday and it fits the
topic perfectly. Tried some colour on this one, but
I am still a bit wrecked from Merles birthday fiesta, and
besides, I think that this drawing doesn´t need any
colour. I also don´t feel like clicking around with
my Wacom today, so there!

Merles birthday piece

A dog in tights

Golden Heart

So, this is my post #100.
I finished the birthday piece for Merle, but
can´t show it until Friday. Enjoy my other ones instead.
No sense in changing to Wordpress right now, since handling it
is more than slightly confusing.

What can I add?
I feel pretty good right now.
Working with my new tablet and Mac is a
breeze. The newly introduced studying fees
(that caused quite a debate in Germany) which put
an additional burden of 500 euros per semester on
my shoulders will bring my uni time to a very soon
end - maybe another year, or one and a half,
but after that I won´t be willing to drain my
savings any more. I´ll need them badly to get over
the first year or so becoming a Pro.

Actually, I am looking forward to
being ripped out of the save shell that is
university life. So the sooner I start getting
my butt up and work consistently day after
day, the more it will pay off in the end.

So, for the future, I want to charge up
my will to work, study my style more and
with more drive and intensity, and
finding out what I want to gravitate towards.

Cowabunga!

POST 99!!!

Yeah, I am pretty much cheating
my way to post 100. I don´t know
what happens then.

Post 98! Or 97? Let´s see...

Ordered a Wacom Grapphire 4 last night.
80 bucks. Ah, the big spender! I´ll have to live
from baked beans for the next four weeks.
Too bad baked beans here are
imported HEINZ so a small can costs 1 euro.

McIntosh miniature robotic unit

This morning, I felt like doing something
really crazy and unusual: I drew a picture.

First post on my newly aquired Mac Mini!
Yeah, so my PC died on me (do you really say "on me"? It
wasn´t on top of my chest when it broke), though it MIGHT
be still intact with only a wire being unplugged, but, well,
I already told you in the last post.

We went to a pretty nifty and hyper-stylish shop
near the Hamburg university, a part of the city with
very neat old buildings with a lot of stucco on the outside.
The service was fast and friendly, especially towards
Mac nOObz like me.

So this little unit is sitting right next to my
screen, and besides all this "Aaaww it´s so adorable"
(which it really is!), I really liked one specific thing:
It is incredibly quiet. I can only hear a very subtle
noise if I go very close to it (maybe to pet it or
something - but no! No fingerprints please!) -
my old PC made noises like BRRUUUUU BRRUUUU
WASCHWASCHWASCH KABUMM or something.
Okay, it was more like a pretty constant,
annoying humming noise.

And granted, this could also have been cured with a
well built PC, and I am not turning into a "Micro$oft $uck"
elite fanboy. The operating system itself is a bit weird to
use (Where is my setup.exe -file?!), but the picture quality is
great and I even got GIMP running (which is hard on both
systems, since it´s a Linux conversion). I am learning.
I already had pretty much fun with some music software
called Garage Band.

It also came in a pretty small box with a
handle on top - even though I think it might
not be a very good idea to carry it around like
that, one snatch and it´s gone. Well, it´s
not South Compton where I live, but still.

Aaaaww, this thing is so adorable.
If only my entry-level Wacom would work
with it - no driver support on Mac OS, only
for more expensive models.
WAS IT THAT HARD???
Well, Merles birthday is coming close
as well as my illustration assignments, and I
don´t want to colour with a mouse, let alone buy
a new high-cost Wacom. Maybe I´ll have to google
another round.


Frederik Jurk Look Here People I Bought A Fricking Mac,
formely known as Frederik Jurk Illustration Blog.

Switching time

Okay, it´s enough of that shit.

Yesterday I wanted to work on my PC a little,

but too bad - it doesn´t boot. Checked the wires - still

doesn´t work. It simply doesn´t respond to the "Power on" button.

Looked inside to see if any wires are unplugged, but in between

the mess that is my hardware I had no idea what could be wrong.

Is the button itself damaged? I didn´t do anything special last time

I used it.

I am fed up with all this PC crap. GIMP crashes all the time,

my internet is slowed down to a crawl (God knows what kind of

Spyware or whatever is on it), I can´t even install RAM

properly. And nevermind that I didn´t backup my last pictures, most

stuff is stored on various CDRs, though. That´s the problem with

buying low end hardware - its only a matter of time till the whole

systems crashes. Cheaply made stuff breaks fast.

I am going to take some money from my savings and buy

a Mac Mini.

I never was a huge fan of Macs so far (mostly because

I didn´t like their one-button mouse), but the fact that operating system,

software and hardware are all made by one manufacturer is reason enough

for me. A Mac is a Mac, there is no hassle with dozends of driver disks,

system parts dying and dragging other parts with them, or incompatible hardware

causing problem after problem. I just need a

sturdy, reliable, quality hardware.

And with 600 euro it´s not exactly

a bargain, but those are machines that are supposed to last for many, many

years. And I don´t need to make huge internet research to compare brands.

It´s just one model, that´s it.

Also, please excuse that this post looks pretty

shitty, as I am using Merles laptop that doesn´t have

Firefox (or whatever the reason), so, meh.

So, hopefully I will be able to buy it Monday or Tuesday, and that´s

the time I should be able to make new posts. Maybe I´ll use my newly

registered Worpress account. Let´s see. Until then!