Priorities Management and Drawings Dreams

Ferdi’s Drawings Newsletter — Issue 015, November 2021

Published in

Ferdi’s Drawings

6 min readDec 1, 2021

I only made five drawings this month but that’s fine. Also fair warning: the third and sixth drawing is a bit um, graphic. Morbid. Heads up.

The Drawings

One Point Five Degrees Celsius

Drawn after a mural displayed during the November 2021 COP-26 conference at Glasgow, Scotland. Had wanted to draw something more um, evolved than from the painting it was derived from. But wound up only with these hands. Whatever, good enough.

Veteran’s Hat (Topi Legiun Veteran)

Ello | Instagram | Instagram | Twitter

The 10th of November is marked annually as Indonesia’s “Day of Heroes”. At national ceremonies, Indonesian war veterans wear these distinct ceremonial hats. They’re reminiscent of hats worn by Indonesian independence-war soldiers in 1945-ish? I guess..? Casual browsing doesn’t seem to find me any clues about these hats so far. But I remember these hats, I certainly do.

Sticking a Fork in my Eye

Ello | Twitter | Diaspora | Mastodon | Tumblr

Drawn at around 1:30am in about 13 minutes. Was feeling some eye-strain among other things nagging my mind. Picture not shared to Instagram to anticipate the overzealous disturbing-content censorship that Instagram has in place (understandably due to overwhelming public pressure).

Ceiling With Night Light and Laptop Screen Glow (draft 1)

At Friday night, 19th November, around 1:30am after midnight, I took a cellphone photo of my ceiling while lying in bed. But it wasn’t until the 24th that I actually took the photo to Sketchbook to sketch it out using my Wacom pen-tablet & my laptop. Was mesmerized by the colors, and the colors were what I focused on in the 15 minutes or so I was doodling this. Maybe I’ll work on it some more some time. (Heh.)

“The Overthinker” (after Rodin), sketch 1

Had a thought a few weeks ago about modifying Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” sculpture concept and turning it into this “The Overthinker”. Was also seeing on Twitter lately a lot of works by Andy Warhol with the title “After X” such as when Warhol redoes Edvard Munch in screen print it would be titled “The Scream (after Munch)”, and also there was “The Monalisa (after da Vinci)”, and so on. Although since I’ve modified the underlying intent with my version I suppose the correct term should not be “after Rodin” but rather “with apologies to Rodin”.

“Drilling Into My Head”, Sketch 1

Ello | Diaspora | Twitter

This is obviously still a development sketch. The bodily/object-to-object proportions still need lots of work. Perspectives, line relations too. But I do want to draw this out. I think it is a fun idea, a fun play on words. Some may be kinda freaked-out by it but eh, can’t make omeletes without breaking an egg (or two).

And yes here’s another one which I won’t be sharing to Instagram. In fact I only shared it to Ello and Diaspora, nowhere else so far. Ohwait I also shared it to Twitter.

Miscellaneous tidbits

Meta & administrativa

So yeah, I only published six drawings this month. Very few compared to last month’s twelve or so, and short of my ten-per-month target. But I’m fine with that because instead of focusing & spending so much of my time & energy into meeting my monthly drawing quotas, I consequently did some real-life things with immediate real-life consequences.

It’s not making excuses on my part but I do firmly believe my energy & effort was better utilized by, for example, helping my Mom get her 2nd Covid-19 vaccine dosage this month. Among her other monthly & regular medical check-ups. Also tackling a neighborhood issue regarding a housing wall that affects my kampung and the neighboring kampung, a wall that affects long-standing water-flow issues, rainfall-flooding, and a fair bit of emotional back & forth. And so on and so forth. Anyways real-life trumps socmed life, and we need to stop trying so hard seeking approval from people we don’t even really know. Family matters. The people you live with, and are neighbors with in real-life, matters. Don’t let online social-proof games fool you into losing track of what’s really important in your own life.

I’ve also got some ideas for improving my drawings workflow but I think I’ll keep them to myself. I don’t need to make any more public promises that I cannot keep. Maybe I’ll make more drawings but won’t be publishing them all to the Web. Maybe I’ll push towards making more drawings theme ideas, maybe make a daily quota for drawing ideas per day or per week, and not all the ideas go into the sketch or execution stage. Whatever the case my priority is Real-Life, and online must take a back seat to that.

Web-links & Web-happenings of note

Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the physical book — the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which started as a lowly pre-Web 2.0 website in 2006 and has evolved into a Tumblr blog, Instagram/Twitter account, YouTube channel etc., has inked a deal with publisher Simon & Schuster to print & distribute a physical print-edition of said Dictionary worldwide. Available for purchase online & at physical stores at Books-a-Million, Bookshop.org, Indiebound, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. [📹YouTube announcement video] [Simon & Schuster official webpage listing] [dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com]
Global Voices: Undertones: Nicaragua’s “sham” elections have cold shower effect on media (7 Nov. 2021) — As non-government aligned news organizations face violent physical repression & harrasment, activists argue that there are no press freedoms in Nicaragua; meanwhile pro-government elements within Nicaragua and abroad argue that, “Any criticism is a smear campaign”
New York Times: Hayao Miyazaki Prepares to “Cast One More Spell” (12 Nov. 2021)— Hayao Miyazaki has come out of retirement (again) to attempt one more feature-length anime. It’s at pre-production per this month and likely won’t debut on film screens for several more years. It shall be based on a 1937 Japanese novel by Genzaburo Yoshino titled, “How Do You Live?”
BBC: Rare Antarctic penguin accidentally travels 3,000km to New Zealand (12 Nov. 2021)

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. 🙏