Hello, everyone! I think it’s about time for some art. Again!

I am settling into the semester, hammering out a few pages of thesis here and there. Also I’ve started my piano lessons and TURNS OUT playing the piano requires lower-back strength in order to support sitting with decent posture during practices. So I’ve also started exercising, which I undoubtedly should have been doing anyway. “I want to feel good” was always such a vague reason that it couldn’t motivate me, whereas “I want to play the piano without pain” is sufficiently precise to, hopefully, keep me on track.

Other than that, you know, the usual semester stuff. I’ve been brooding on a few blog-related things in my spare time, which may or may not result in posts at some point. We’ll see?

For now–Linus, clothing design, and crazy Coptic monks lie below the cut!

I knew there was another story after the end of the Linus novel, but I saw it as a short story, loosely connected to the events of the novel, and more to satisfy my curiosity about what Linus does than anything else. At the same time, the conclusion of the novel didn’t please me–it ended at the right spot, dramatically, but it left so much unresolved. Which is when it dawned on me that the loosely-connected short story might actually be a full-length sequel addressing some of the unresolved issues in the first novel.

Which is exciting!

So, you know, me and Linus dancing. It seemed appropriate.

Well, I mean, except where it’s not, because Linus is still a wreck and I am simply trusting the process to fix him.

You know, as I contemplate (I can’t help doing so) the possibility that I am going to be able to really get back into blogging and writing and art in a few months, I start to wonder what I’m going to do with some of the stuff I’ve already written. And… I really want to share it! Like Linus, I really want to share his story. I’m still not sure what the right path is to do that, but I’m determined to find it and take it.

The portraits aren’t what I’d like them to be, but the ink doodles aren’t nearly as funny without them, so. Portraits are something I want to work on along with the fifty bajillion other things I need to level up in, artwise (this is both exciting and frustrating, because I am pretty sure I CAN level up, but not… you guessed it, until I graduate).

The thing he keeps doing with his hands is probably because they are still kind of weird and weak after his injuries at the end of the first novel. Which, yes, may make playing the piano a lot an interesting challenge.

Once upon a time I drew this suit on a few characters, and I still like it so I drew it again.

Okay, this. This requires some explanation. See, in junior year I did my big Historical Research Methods project on the Desert Fathers, a bunch of Egyptian monks (called “abbas”) living out in the desert enclaves of Scetis and Nitria in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, or thereabouts. My primary text was the Apophthegmata Patrum, the “Sayings of the Desert Fathers,” a collection of stories and sayings by/about these monks. I won’t go into my project (the title was “Infractions in the Apophthegmata: Methods of Discipline, Attitudes to Sin, and the ‘Holy Lie’” for the curious), because the real story here is that the Desert Fathers were crazy awesome dudes. Abba Anthony, whom I drew here, went around fighting demons and living to 105 and generally being a crazy holy man.

The thing is, my love for the Desert Fathers clearly transcends the bounds of scholarship. Periodically, I contemplate the idea of putting together a book of retellings of some of my favorite Apophthegmata, in a form for children. I think they would make the kind of book I would have LOVED as a kid, although I’m not sure who would actually buy something like this for their offspring. In the course of daydreaming thus, I’ve doodled my favorite abbas a few times.

Abba Arsenius was a very important man in The World, and when he renounced all that he became very partial to silence and solitude. He comes across somewhat grumpy in several stories.

Abba Moses is possibly the craziest of the Desert Fathers, although that is a hard call to make. He used to be a criminal, but he repented of his wickedness and became a holy man instead. He goes around giving people a hard time about being judgmental, and generally being amazing.

Abba John the Short is probably my very favorite, because he features in the story I like best, that of the Forgetful Old Man. Abba John is sometimes disruptive and troublesome but, like most of the Desert Fathers, also very generous.

Abba Mark is one of the youngest abbas, and I drew him with a pig because one of my Historical Research Methods prof’s favorite sayings is about how Abba Mark was so obedient to his elder that he agreed that a pig was a little buffalo. I think you may have had to be there, or else be my professor.