Lotus Flowers and Meditative Thoughts

Ferdi Z.’s Drawings newsletter — Issue 007, May 2021

Three drawings this week. I’m okay with one and I really like the other two. More details below. I’m glad & grateful I kept drawing into this week. And I hope to continue drawing. And getting better & more efficient & effective in making & putting out my drawings.

Also just to note, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, I’m listing these drawings in these newsletter not in the chronological order that I published them. In this example I made the Lotus Moon drawing 2nd, the No Handouts drawing 1st, and the Thinking Hard drawing I drew last.

This week’s drawings

Lotus Flower and Red Moon

Instagram | Instagram | Ello | Ello | Twitter | Twitter | Diaspora

I did not initially plan on doing a special drawing for Vesak Day. But when I heard of the full lunar eclipse happening on the same night it got me intrigued. My initial idea was kinda wild though. I had this initial idea with a brain, some hearts, and a glowing orb or something but I just didn’t like the way it came out in the first draft. This combo of flower and moon was the path of least resistance, concept-wise.

On my second redraw attempt I found myself falling back to a simple drawing of just a lotus flower half in bloom. And right after I posted that version on Instagram I got the idea to draw a ‘supermoon’ behind the flower. I like how the moon-background variant came out, despite how it ruined my Instagram engagement to publish two drawings in a row, one of them being a multi-picture carousel post. Whatever Instagram, I post what I want and you’re not the boss of me!

No Handouts

Instagram | Ello | Twitter | Diaspora

“No Handouts”. Alternatively maybe, “No tipping”? Or, “No bribing”? “No Soliciting?” Just what are “Handouts” exactly, anyways?

That was the idea behind this. Kinda political yeah. Controversial maybe, in this time where most everyone’s hurting, one way or another.

Continuing on my ‘hand drawing’ bit from last week. I had redrawn this drawing twice already. Keep hoping it would turn out better. The previous version was worse than this one, trust me. I actually finished this drawing last Saturday and decided to save it for Monday because I already had four drawings (including this one) last week, I thought I’d save myself a bit of effort for this week.

Drawing the hand at this ‘handout’ angle was a trick. The other one is how the hand-drawn look of my drawing kind of conflicted with the ‘vector-like’ style of the signage. I guess I made the two styles meet half way? Maybe.

Got only three likes for this one on Instagram though. Two of them from myself. Lol.

Think Hard

Instagram | Ello | Twitter | Diaspora | Mastodon

While I was trying to salvage the Lotus Flower drawing, a thought came to my mind and the initial (digital) ‘pencil’ sketch was made in about one or two minutes. Almost effortless, feels like…

I enjoyed drawing out this one. Took my time. Relaxed. I really like how this one came out. Yay!

Links and Miscellaneous Thoughts

Two editions ago (on edition 5 of this newsletter) I discovered that Revue is able to conveniently send a copy of each newsletter, as an unpublished draft, to my Medium account. I’ve mirrored the past three editions (including this one) to my Medium profile. Going forward I plan to create a dedicated “Publication” to store copies of this newsletter.

Though I do note that Analytics show that no one is reading my Medium posts. But then again neither does anyone read this Newsletter, nor my WordPress blog for that matter. (Want to prove me wrong? Email me or ping me on my socials and tell me, “Hey! I read your drawings newsletter!”)

Also this Wednesday Instagram made public a new setting to hide all Likes & Comments count from within the mobile app. I immediately turned that on for my Instagram as soon as it went live on my account.

Links & Articles

• Chinese hackers are attacking Uyghurs by posing as UN Human Rights Council — MIT Technology Review, May 27
• Smithsonian Institute’s Hirshhorn Museum hosts panel of experts to hash out the brave new world of Non-Fungible Tokens — Smithsonian Magazine, May 26
• Myanmar ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi appears in court in person for first time since coup — CNN World, May 25
• Princess Latifa of the Emirates: Dubai photo appears to show missing woman — BBC News, May 24
• Why the success of ‘The Equalizer’ (2021 TV series) is bigger than the show itself — Washington Post, May 21
• Rare “super flower blood moon” lunar eclipse captured in stunning photos from around the world — CBS, May 28
• Facebook & Instagram will let you “hide” Likes: here’s how the feature works — Vox Recode, May 26
• Amazon Buys MGM, Studio Behind James Bond, for $8.45 Billion — Variety, May 26
• Stop setting goals; do this instead… — a Chris Do tips carousel post on Instagram, May 30

My socials etc.:

• Twitter: @f_fz
• Instagram: @ferdiz_draw
• Ello: ello.co/FerdiZ
• Mastodon.cloud: @FerdiZ@mastodon.cloud
• Diaspora: joindiaspora.com/u/ffz
• Medium: ferdifz.medium.com
• The archives of this newsletter at Revue: getrevue.co/profile/ferdiz_draw
• Personal WordPress.com blog: minddumpster.wordpress.com