It has been a while! I’ve no art to share unfortunately; I haven’t really had any motivation to draw. I think most of that is that I’ve hit a wall in terms of what feels like progress, but parts of that has also been that I haven’t been getting much enjoyment out of it. I hope to go back to art at some point, but in the mean time I’m going to draw when I feel like it and share it if I want.

Fewer drawings this week, but I think one of them is of a really high quality. I’m going to try to maybe focus less on drawing MORE and more on drawing better. I like 90s cartoons a lot - may as well start there I reckon.

It has been a while! I’ve still been doing art, I’ve just forgotten to update the website and a lot of stuff has been happening. Been going back to basics because I’ve been frustrated with my art progress, hopefully that will improve things.

After being quiet about it for what feels like ages, I have a new paper out! Nature chemistry reviews were kind enough to invite me and my colleague Jenn to write a piece on colour-vision deficiency (CVD) in chemistry education. Please share and read!

I’ve made something creative and unique I think! Started sketching character art for a comic that I want to spend time on to make good. As it turns out, comic drawing is hard (who’d have thought), but I think I can rough sketch out an ok story over the next couple of weeks. I think digital might be the way to go with this stuff though - line art, shading, colouring etc all seem like a ton of work to do for a physical sketchbook.

It has been a couple of weeks! Sorry about that - I’ve recently moved to a better living situation and I’ve needed time to adjust and get settled in. I’ve drawn little because of this, but I do have some new things I’m working on so next week expect more in the way of updates.

I finally started pursuing some of my own creative ideas. They didn’t turn out exactly as I wanted (the last two images are for something I’m currently still working on), but I have made progress in being able to draw what I’m conceptualizing and I think that’s pretty good. Going to keep working on ideas that come to my brain over the next week.

Started the week with some concept art for a game I’m working on, but after went back to sketching more balatro jokers. I might be at a point where I’d like a digital art tablet so that I can use assets I make more readily in other projects, but I also don’t think I’m good enough yet nor can I justify the price. I think this week I’ll try drawing more concept art stuff, and maybe try replicating more video game art for fun.

Had a lot of fun drawing this week! The jokers in balatro have some cool art and I’ve been challenged in a few ways including perspective and shading. I think I might do another week of these and then try my hand at something original again.

More practice with the new pencil, and I think I’ve gotten better at quick sketching (nothing here took more than 30 mins to draw, though I’m not super happy about the joker lol). I think I’m going to spend this week drawing balatro jokers because I like their art, and I think I’ll spend more time per sketch in the coming weeks. I’m itching to make something unique, and I might have enough to go off of now (updates to come).

Bought a new pencil this week to have a nicer time while drawing. It’s heftier, and I’m not super please with how they came out, but overall I think I’m getting better at taking an images idea and turning it into my own thing (the genie is an ok example of this). As the summer’s coming up, I might take an art or sketch class or something if I can find time/afford it. We’ll see.

I missed a week! Been super busy but finally back to some simple drawings. Decided to switch it up to Disney characters after being suggested to (thanks Jenn). Things will still be busy for a while yet, but it’s finally going to be a manageable busy so I’ll try and do a better job keeping up with art.

Another week of no art! Still have had too much to do; I might need to consider lightening my load a little bit, but I’ve already committed to so much that I want to do that’s it hard to justify time for other things. As a consolation prize, here’s a ukulele arrangement that I made from last week: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AiuEK6JQq9bmb463FksCxgF1wr-WACUP/view?usp=drivesdk

There are no updates! I didn’t draw a single time this week! There’s been too much going on and too little time to deal with it all! I am hoping to get back into the swing of things this week.

Another busy week so I didn’t make as much progress as I’d like. I’m also in a bit of a rut creatively; I’m not having as much fun drawing because I’m not being challenged, but I don’t know what to start doing to challenge myself. I think it might be time to change up the subjects I’ve been sketching, maybe try for some realistic creatures instead of fictional ones. We’ll see what next week brings.

It has been a busy, shitty week. Lotta personal troubles, lotta stress from work, lotta stress during this upcoming week. I suppose these are all excuses to say that I haven’t practiced much if at all. The only highlight is that I dipped my toes into character and comic design, which I quite liked. I think next week will be a simple re-create week, but when things get less busy I’d like another stab at this.

I did what I set out to do: harder pieces, spent more time. While I think I did a good job improving with things like heads and faces, I’m getting a little bored with just static pieces. I want to start creating something more meaningful, and it might be time for me to try my hand at writing a story. Doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but I’m going to spend this upcoming week trying to make a simple comic panel that tells a simple visual story. Not sure what I want to say, but I’m going to try and say something.with

I’ve continued the trend of doing larger pieces that will take longer, but have run into another issue: pieces that would normally take me a good amount of time are taking me less time. The issue with that is that I don’t necessarily think I’m getting better as much as I am getting impatient. Next week, I want to choose a single piece and spend the whole week REALLY making a good piece of art. Hopefully that ends up challenging me a bunch. Otherwise, I am relatively pleased with the pieces I’ve done this week. A friend of mine asked if I had considered doing colour, so that is another direction I might want to go in the near future (although I’d have to buy colour pencils lol).

As I mentioned last week, I wanted to do fewer drawings this week but spend more time on them. To this end I think I succeeded and I’m very happy with the results; I’ve managed to make some fairly ok recreations of complicated subjects (people!). Only two “drawings” this week, but I’ve included all the steps in between in case anyone seeing this wants to know more of how the pie is made. Going to keep this up next week and just keep sketching away!

Week 3 update: relatively disappointed this week. I had a lot of other obligations for work/committees so I was very tired and couldn’t focus when drawing (on top of keeping up with Ukulele practice/arranging and other projects I have on the go). Some drawings this week were just sketches, as I wanted to practice more complicated lines/shapes. To that end I was successful, but I wish I spent more time on them to really nail the curves. I’m also getting to a point where I might need to break up drawings over several days to do more complicated ones; will play around with that next week.

As it’s finally been publically announced, I am this years Gilead Early Career Award for Excellence in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. This involves giving a talk at CSC 2024 in Winnipeg this summer, and I am thrilled to be given the honour and opportunity to present about something I care about so much.

Week 2 of art progress/using my website: continuing with fundamentals, trying to recognize shapes where I see them and get more comfortable at that. Continued with Peanuts characters for fun (can draw those with no tutorial now), and I’ve found that pokemon full art cards are great practice to try and replicate. I also did some drawings for a Sarah (a friend; the psyduck and pochita). Overall, pretty happy with the steady progress I’m making.

I mentioned in my new year’s resolutions post that I was going to learn to draw this year. To help motivate that, I want to post my art progress on a weekly(ish) basis. This past week was a lot of peanuts characters, practicing fundamentals, and the loomis method of drawing heads.

A new year has begun, and I’m trying to make the most of it. I have a lot of things I think I want to accomplish, but I wanted to write it down here to hold myself more accountable.

I recently finished reading Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations,” and would like to share my favourite quotes from it. Hopefully one of these can help you as it has helped me.

A few months ago, I was asked to do an interview as a graduating chemistry undergraduate to share some advice/stories of why I got into chemistry and how I stuck with it. I have just received the poster for this, and needless to say this paints me in a far better light than I might deserve (see below).

I went to Butchart gardens today and wanted to share my favourite roses. Nothing too crazy here, just highlights of a lovely garden just an hour out from the main city. If you ever go to Victoria, I would definitely recommend checking it out!

This past week, I went to Newfoundland (NL) for the very first time. Despite living close to it (provincially), I never really had an excuse to go, nor did I really have the time. It wasn’t until a friend of mine (Sarah) said she needed someone to go with her to a wedding that I ended up throwing my hat in the ring and taking the trip. And what a week! I haven’t done this many activities in such a short amount of time ever I don’t think. So let’s talk about a few of those.

My first ever CSC! What a trip, what a time! I got to do a lot of fun things, meet some great people, and learn a ton of great chemistry. I want to express my immense gratitude to the organizers, volunteers and awards committees for this event, as something of this scale was unimaginably challenging to put together so well.

After many years of having to do everthing online, there has finally been an in person event that I can attend for chemistry: Chemcon! Three days of chemistry talks, interspersed with workshops, panels and networking. The most people I’ve seen in ages as well.

As someone who lives with colour blindness, the way I see the world is quite literally different than other people. For the most part, this isn’t a big deal, but every now and again I find it can get in the way of my day to day life, particularly with my job.

Hello and welcome to my site! Here you can find life updates, academic documents, list of publications and contact info for one Nicholas (Nick) J. Roberts. Feel free to contact me via email or on Mastodon! I’m looking forward to busying up this site over the years.