october newsletter!
some drawings of birds and this months tunes :)
hello newsletter readers! and happy October! it is finally truly autumnal where i am and i am thriving. hopefully wherever you all are reading from, you are enjoying the weather as well ^__^
as much as i was hoping i’d have the motivation to do a whole October daily art challenge again, personal life and projects have made me have a lot less energy for art than i anticipated. there are a lot of challenges i wanted to try out this year - various birdtobers, invertober hosted by @fossil.forager, magtober hosted by @magsmunroe, badtober hosted by @flesh.png - and i might do some pieces here & there inspired by prompts from those lists. i have a hang-up with month-long challenges like these where if i can’t make something i’m happy with for every single day on the challenge, i don’t want to do it at all - i’m very envious of people who are comfortable posting at their own pace or only doing a couple prompts out of the month. i’m working on it though! for me, the process of learning to be more flexible with community art challenges goes hand in hand with learning to enjoy creating again without the pressure of social media. on that note - please enjoy my latest art things!
ode to the canada goose!
went out to the Happy Cat Cafe and the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids last month - i drew my favorite residents of both, Amy & Pumpkin the mini Highland Cow.
commission for a friend of a yellow warbler & tufted titmouse <3
i’ve really felt my people-drawing skills atrophying this year so in an effort to not lose that ability entirely, i did a few portrait sketches. the first 2 use references from The Faces of College Wrestlers, and the second is a bit of a reattempt at using the same reference photo that i used in my first digital tablet drawing back in 2020, which i have so bravely included.
doodles :-]! can you tell i’ve been really into checker patterns lately
playing around with a potential praying mantis sticker design - shocking that i’ve made it this long without making stickers of my favorite invertebrate group!!
these past few weeks as i continue my very casual Arabic language studies, i’ve been getting into the band Mashrou3 Leila / مشروع ليلى. they were a Lebanese band that unfortunately disbanded last year due to the intense harassment the group faced because of their very charged lyrics about race, religion, sexuality, gender, and political freedom in modern Arab/Lebanese culture. i recommend checking out their Tiny Desk Concert for a lil’ sample of their music. some specific songs i’ve been really enjoying are…
some other miscellaneous songs i like a lot right now…
Spookie Coochie - Doechii (‘tis the season)
Arnaq - Elisapie (Elisapie also has a cover album called “Inkutitut” of popular English songs translated into Inuktitut and it is fantastic)
Supernatural - Army of Lovers (this band is my new favorite bizarre 90’s Swedish pop group. please watch any of their music videos)
Change - Big Thief (would you live forever, never die???? while everything around passes??!!??)
Sleazy - Ke$ha (i will never get tired of this album that is a promise)
[REMINDER! you can still get 10% off any order from my Etsy with the code EMAILCLUB10 until November 1st!]
that’ll do it for this months newsletter! now i’ve got to get back to my latest yarn project and watching some other people play D&D :D. i’ll talk to you all again in November <3 i hope you all have an excellent Halloween full of spooks & etc!!
i hope you enjoyed reading this installment of my newsletter! if you have thoughts to share/questions to ask/fun facts to tell me about, please reach out to me by replying to this email, or messaging me on any of my social media linked on my website at augustcampbellart.com - thank you!