Getting Back At It at a Chill Pace

Ferdi Z.’s Drawings Newsletter — Issue 013, September 2021

Published in

Ferdi’s Drawings

6 min readSep 20, 2021

I started this round with three drawings done on my phone, in bed, in under 15 minutes. And I also made two portrait-oriented (not square-framed) drawings.

The Drawings

zipped mouth

Ello | Instagram | Diaspora | Twitter

I remember at the time I drew this I felt as if I was being told to shut the eff up by the whole World or something, or at least by overly militant or overly opiniated social-media thought leaders or vigilate groups, or so I had it inside my head.

It made me feel… bothered. So I drew this to vent.

random ninjato

Ello | Instagram | Diaspora | Twitter | Pixelfed

Drawn at around 2am. Woke up in the middle of the night and just decided I wanted to draw something, so I picked up my smartphone & opened up the drawing software. This after wanting to draw something all day & ‘failing’ to come up with any idea that I liked. Posted this to Ello then went back to sleep.

Yes yes there’s historically no such thing as a ‘ninjato’. A katana is a katana, bla bla bla whatever. Hey I didn’t research historicity & culture for this piece I did in ten minutes, okay; get off my case lol.

#17Agustus

Instagram | Twitter | Ello | Mastodon

Low-effort drawing done in bed on my phone on August 17th; this year, the 76th anniversary of Indonesia’s declaration of independence.

metronome

Instagram | Ello | Twitter | Diaspora | Mastodon

The way people got agitated on Twitter & social media and reacted to issues nearing the end of August motivated me to draw a metronome to symbolize timing. As in, timing is important in determining whether or not, and how, your messages impacts changes in the world. Be out of beat, and you might as well not have said anything. Or worse (such as making things worse etc.)

Drawn with a FriXion erasable ballpoint pen on a plain old paper notepad.

Holy Wings

Inspired by the Holywings bar scandal in Jakarta, early September 2021. Woke up, browsed the Web, ‘holy wings’ started trending on the socials and I had no idea what ‘holy wings’ were at the time. It got me imagining things though…

Anyways so what happened was a bar in downtown Jakarta (at Kemang district) named Holywings had violated Covid protocols by hosting a dense crowd indoors, more than the alloted 25% patron capacity, and was open way past the 9pm night curfew at that. Cellphone videos from the crowd went viral, city officials conducted a raid, and then the cocktail bar shuttered and fined and whatnot.

Serve What?

Inspired in response to a moodboard pic/memepic which more or less argues that “artists are not athletes” and “don’t compete” and artists “should create to connect to people who need you” and “to serve”. I don’t completely disagree with the sentiment, per se, but it got me thinking, what kind of art do people need me for? What am I supposed to serve? And so it got me thinking of drawing a spatula serving a question mark. “Serve what?”

And on a comment at Ello on this piece I received the quote: “Art must first serve the artist, for without that acknowledgement it will serve nobody.”

Fold the Phones!

Instagram | Ello | Twitter | Diaspora | Mastodon

I did not draw this to pick a fight or to argue with strangers or anyone. I just got it in my head to mash up some images & thoughts regarding the Met Gala, Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) “Tax the Rich” dress, WIRED calling to bring back cargo pants (for our large smartphones), and the Verge declaring folding smartphones “fashion icons”.

Speaking of, the Met is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the annual gala raises millions of dollars to maintain the museum and to support artists & the creation & furtherance of arts.

Miscellaneous tidbits

Meta & Administrativa

I had been (‘informally’) aiming for ten new drawings for this edition, after my previous roundup mid August. But I wound up with only seven new drawings. I’m totally okay with this though because these seven, I liked drawing all seven of them. Didn’t feel rushed, didn’t feel obligated, and I liked how they all came out just fine.

I draw as personal therapy. And I round-up my drawings to keep track of what I’ve been drawing, and thinking, about. Yeah, that’s the trick. The path going forward.

Links & Web articles of note:

Genki Sudo and World Order release new song “Censorship” (Sept. 11) — This was the group’s first new release since 2019’s “Exodus”, since their 10th-year anniversary in December 2019, and the first since their announcement in March 2020 of their “soft hiatus”. This release more or less ends their inactivity. Started in 2009, World Order is best known for their robotic dance choreography in public spaces, playing on the stereotype of ‘uptight, robotic male Japanese office workers’.
If everyone became vegetarian, would the planet actually be better off? (Popular Science, Sep. 8) — Not necessarily; as often is the case with politically charged issues, the answer is nuanced and cannot be answered by a simple black-and-white yes-no response. Be cautiously skeptical of anyone telling you otherwise.
A life well-drawn: eulogy of illustrator Jill Murphy - in pictures (The Guardian, Aug. 24)
This video will make you angry (CGP Grey, Mar. 10, 2015) — video-essay on how emotionally-charged, angry topics are what often makes viral socmed content go very, very viral, whether you like it or not.
Eat the rich! Why millennials and generation Z have turned their backs on capitalism (the Guardian opinion, Sep. 20) — To quote: The rich — whose wealth surged during the pandemic — remain uneaten. But it is clear that young people see no rational incentive to back a system that seems to offer little other than insecurity and crisis.

My socials etc.:

Twitter: @f_fz
Instagram: @ferdiz_draw
Ello: ello.co/FerdiZ
Mastodon: @FerdiZ@mastodon.cloud
Diaspora: joindiaspora.com/u/ffz
Medium: ferdifz.medium.com
Ferdi’s Drawings roundup at Medium: medium.com/ferdis-drawings
Ferdi’s Drawings roundup at Revue (‘defunct’): getrevue.co/profile/ ferdiz_draw/
Tumblr blog: ferdifz.tumblr.com
Personal WordPress.com blog: minddumpster.wordpress.com

If you’re reading this on the Web, please consider sending me feedback by commenting here on Medium. Alternatively you can also hit me up at my socials. Feedback & constructive criticism really helps and would really encourage me, and it would help me grow my editorial & current-affairs drawings & illustration skills to get feedback.

Thank you for reading. 🙏