Story of Joseph - working diary

At long last, at 11am Oct 31st, I completed and delivered the 23 pages of full colour lettered art that comprised The Story Of Joseph for Bible Society. I'm told some people deliver a job like this every month. All I can say is I'd seriously need to streamline my working methods to manage that on a regular basis.

I have loved drawing this project, as I have my previous strips for Bible Society, and look forward to seeing them in print. But making this workload fit around the rest of my schedule is quite a shenanigans. As it is I have two other art jobs - a Christmas card for Laurence and a CD cover for the SofT podcast, both of which should also be finished by today's deadline and both of which have a way to go yet. So why is this all taking me so long?  Three reasons primarily, Socks, schools, and the office, out of which I was supposed to move today.

Gerry, my landlord, gave me two months notice when I'd returned from Edinburgh, on the 1st of September, so I should have been out by now. But look at my calendar since then.

Sept 10 - 16th was Heather's exhibition. During this time, as co-invigilator, I wrote the script for Joseph.
I've done days at schools in North Lincs (2 days), Avonmouth, Furze Down, Sutton Coldfield, & Manchester.
Oct 8 - 17th I was in Denmark with the Socks, where I pencilled and inked most of Joseph.
Socks gigs have also taken me to Swindon, Lydford, Canterbury, Redhill, and Tetbury.
I've also made a number of visits to Kibworth to visit Mum in The Knoll care home, where I'm happt to report she's making good progress and has been drawing a bit of late.

So in this whole 2 months I've been able to manage about seven days clearing out the office and loading it into storage and, to be honest, you wouldn't think I'd done a thing. There is so much still to do that I've had to beg Gerry for another fortnight in which to do it (while also finishing the artwork on my desk). So, before I rush on, let's look at the breakdown of how long Joseph actually took to do.

Script - 23 pages written and laid out Sept 10 - 14 (average 4.6 pages per day)
Art - 23 pages pencilled & inked Sept 26 - 28, Oct 9 - 18 (average 2 pages per day)
Colouring - 23 pages coloured Oct 21 - 31 (average 2.5 pages per day)

So, were I to do nothing but this for a living (and dear reader I once did that, many moons ago) I could produce a 23 page comic every 28 days. If that eventuality comes, the first thing I shall be delegating is the colouring. Now, back to work.