Starting a new blog, but not right now

I'm going to start a new sketchbook blog with only images of pages from sketchbooks. But I don't feel like it right now, so here you go world:

I'm trying to tackle what makes you look crazy? Big eyes, huge grin. Trying to illustrate "Joy."

Facial expressions that I was working through for joy as well. "Sometimes my hat wears a hat for composition's sake."

Thought process: "Should everyone be wearing socks? Should there only be one new sock? A pile of new socks? Old woman wearing socks? Young man?" The story board at the top reads: 1. I just got new socks 2. Which is good, because my old socks showed my toes 3. If I could I would sleep on a pile of new socks 4. I'd even wear new socks like gloves 5. I would not wear old socks like gloves, because then my hands would smell like feet. 

What pose should the character be in? Ecstatic about his socks? Pulling them on?

Sometimes when I get stuck I try and come up with new ways of drawing letters. These often translate into ways of drawing other things, like people.

These are the initial joy sketches. 1: Two people having sex, both with creepy grins. 2: Man with ice cream cone 3. Kids playing tag 4. New socks 5. Holding a baby 6. Playing with a puppy 7. Kiss on the cheek 8. Hug 9. Skipping 10. Singing 11. Meeting someone new 12. Showing off (there's a man flexing his little muscles) 13. Drying off after a swim 14. Whispering.

Micah informed me that everything I drew was cliche except for the new socks. "You're better than this shit." Haha.

Yeah, it happens sometimes.

Sometimes the sketches are fun to do in a narrow color palette, like red, yellow and black. These sketches are concepts for my self portrait for illustration, which was a cut stencil. I added "Thug Life Fitz" because I was sick of drawing the same face.

Here you can see me working through what the self portrait/blob should look like. Shirt/no shirt? Hat/no hat? Glasses? The top left shows the final composition for the piece.

And these were the initial ideas for the self portrait. 

These are some quick thumbnails of ideas for drawing apples, which was my first assignment for illustration. 70 illustrations of apples. Once I hit 50 apples my brains was completely tapped. You can see I was crossing them off as I went along.

As you can see, these are not at all finished drawings. My sketchbook has really become a sketchbook. One thing I credit RISD with is making me really go through a concept phase before trying to delve into a finished project. Little thumbnail images are a much better place to make huge mistake than on an expensive canvas or illustration board. It is making me think a lot more about composition, context, yadda yadda. Lesson learned. Sketch.