October Feelings
Ferdi’s Drawings Newsletter — Issue 014, October 2021
Depending on how you count it, this October I made either 10, 8, 12, or 19 drawings. Whatever I don’t even really know how to count anymore. Here they are.
The Drawings
Holy Wings Variations
A bunch of variations to a previous drawing I did titled Holy Wings. Did these because I found that when I used the original ‘final’ version as a wallpaper on my phone, Android 10 couldn’t seem to decide whether this was a bright or a dark picture, and so some of the UI texts were rendered as white instead of black (or vice-versa), rendering them unreadable. Anyways yeah, new phone wallpapers for me.
Automatic Drawing
Instagram | Twitter | Ello | Diaspora | Mastodon
The first drawing I did after publishing my last Drawings Roundup. It’s a rather random abstract. Started as an exercise working with line tools, doing straight lines by hands, circles, curves and so on.
Red on Green
Instagram | Twitter | Ello | Diaspora | Mastodon
Second abstract of late September. Playing around with red and blue circles and curves.
Cumbre Vieja (Old Peak)
Ello | Instagram | Twitter | Diaspora | Mastodon
The Cumbre Vieja volcano (‘Cumbre Vieja’ being Spanish for ‘Old Peak’), erupted late September this year, and per October 29th it is still spewing lava. Located at La Palma island, part of the Canary Islands, Spain, I got news from an acquaintance at Ello that he was there on the island. After several weeks of heart-wrenching yet humanity-faith-hopeful reports one day I got inspired to attempt to make this drawing of this Old Peak, before it erupted, as I had imagined it inside my head. Not the prettiest, by far, but here it is.
Greta Bla-Bla-Bla
Ello | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Mastodon
Unfinished concept. Greta Thunberg was on the news a lot on late September to mid-October. I think she still shows up by end of October, as COP26 will be on Nov. 9th, and maybe even beyond.
October (or October Rage)
Instagram | Instagram | Ello | Twitter
To be honest was drawn because I was getting kind of frustrated that I couldn’t get myself to get started on this year’s Inktober. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but I wanted to put it on record for myself, of sorts. And then the frustration got a tiny, tiny bit more intense. But after putting some reds, blacks & grays in this it got better, yeah.
Study, seated, drawn from back
Instagram | Ello | Twitter | Facebook | Mastodon
I had wanted to draw a “Facebook Back” drawing, commenting on the 6 to 8-hour outage of Facebook and Facebook Corp.-owned services specifically Instagram and WhatsApp in the middle of this October, just as the Facebook Papers leak was getting into high gear with the New York Times reveal and the 60 Minutes interview with Francis Haugen.
But I kinda got obsessed with drawing the back though, heh. And then I got too bored of the whole thing to bother finishing it. I had planned on drawing just a back, and putting the Facebook logo on the back (“Facebook Back”, get it?). And also variations featuring the Instagram and WhatsApp logos. Maybe we’ll finish it up in the future, never say never right? Heheh.
Figure Study (Female)
Ello | Ello | Instagram | Twitter | Diaspora | Mastodon | Facebook
Trying a new painting mode, less line-art/cartoon-y/comic-y. I kinda like how it came out? Anyways, I tried it again with the Mars drawing next…
Red Rock aka. Not Mars
Instagram | Ello | Twitter | Diaspora | Mastodon | Facebook
Spontaneously drawn after a listen to a new single published by the indie YouTube band Pomplamoose, entitled, “If You Go To Mars”. I named this drawing “Not Mars” because really this is not an accurate representation of the planet Mars. It’s not a pockmarked red moon. But whatever, it’s red, and it’s a spherical space object, and I like how it looks.
Breath
Instagram | Twitter | Ello | Diaspora | Mastodon
I couldn’t decide for a while, whether to call this one ‘Breath’ or ‘Breathe’… Anyways I’m breathing and I’m relaxed. Whoo-saah.
Bonus sketch: “Cat. Resting. In Peace.”
One of our cats died this October. I thought I was over her, but still I couldn’t bring myself to do this drawing. Too many emotions. Here’s a sketch. Maybe I’ll flesh it out someday into an actual drawing. Not this month though.
Also a note on the whole thing over at Ello: here.
Miscellaneous tidbits
Meta & administrativa
Yeah next time I’m going to start preparing the next newsletter right from the first drawing; putting the drawing into the newsletter draft right after I posted it on socmed. Adding the note right there. And putting in the Web-links. That way I won’t be rushing to finish by the end of next month.
Also yeah for November I’m gonna be posting on the last Saturday of the month. I missed October’s deadline today, but that’s fine.
Web-links & Web-happenings of note
- The Guardian: Opinion: Facebook cannot moderate itself — its problems have only just begun (Oct. 26) — Francis Haugen testifies before the UK Parliament on October 25th.
- RestOfWorld.org: The Facebook Papers reveal staggering failures in the Global South — “The publication of the so-called ‘Facebook Papers’ confirms what activists, journalists, and civil society organizations in the Global South have been alleging for years: that Facebook chronically underinvests in non-Western countries, leaving millions of users exposed to disinformation, hate speech, and violent content.”
- CNet: Facebook changed its name to Meta. But does that mean you should trust it? (8-minute video 📹) (Spoiler: of course you shouldn’t trust Facebook. Nor Meta.)
- Gizmodo: Relentless ‘Facebook Papers’ Leaks Will Continue Until Morale Improves — “The ‘Facebook Papers’ is a historic leak in Silicon Valley history. Here, we’re keeping a live tally of the documents whistleblower Frances Haugen released.” (Last updated Oct. 28, 2021)
- The Verge: Eight things we learned from the Facebook papers (Oct. 25)
- Ethan Zuckerman at The Atlantic: Hey Facebook, I made a Metaverse 27 years ago. (paywall) 💵“It was terrible then, and it’s terrible now.” A bonus non-Paywall link to another completely different article at ethanzuckerman.com from 2006: Virtual Darfur, and why I don’t get invited to technology conferences anymore.
- Beeple is putting up another artwork for auction at Christies; but this time it’s hybrid digital+physical (ArtNet, Oct. 28th) — Opening price at US$15 million. This was announced late October, though the auction will go live on November 9th. Title of the piece is, “Human One”. But a unique thing about this auction is that it has a very physical representation and relatively large at that, in the form of a human-sized rectangle with four monitors on each facing side. A “digital sculpture”, if you will. Anyways read the link for more details. So no, it’s not “just a damn jay-pegg (snerkk…)”. No. It’s more than that.
- Capybaras are reclaiming habitat that once was theirs in Argentina (Smithsonian Magazine, Oct. 28th)
- The Nazi-at-the-Bar Problem (from my Ello, Sept. 13th)
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
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Thank you for reading. 🙏
