# Art Museum: Venting/Random Thoughts About Art, Creativity, or Projects



## WickerDeer

Feel free to talk about challenges or whatever comes up in a stream of consciousness way if you'd like (or in other ways).


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## mia-me

It drives me nuts that I can't create without some form of inspiration. It drives me even more nuts when people tell you that you should just do it. When I try, pieces come out flat, emotionless and boring.


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## WickerDeer

I didn't want this thread confused for one of the other venting threads so put "art museum" in title.

So I am pleased that I have made something like a paper clay...but I don't know how long it will take to dry.

I am sort of nervous because it took a long time and a mess, and a lot of thinking and some research, and it's not even a main priority in my life.

I don't know if I can justify the mess everywhere just for this...it did encourage enthusiasm for going through the mail, which is one of my least favorite activities in the world. 

And I have messed up my life in many other ways--so paper pulp and flour mess is really pretty mild. Perhaps even something to be proud of, in comparison.

It also took a lot of time...and it's like following breadcrumbs. I have no idea where it's going. I mean, I know that it will be a doll (maybe...maybe not) but the process started with chiyogami paper and went from origami to paper doll, and now it's just clay...which might be able to be other things. 

But it may be relaxing and perhaps it's good to have side projects that you haven't got any good reason to do?

I thought about how my ex would certainly say I was wasting my time.

But, as I said--I've wasted a lot more time on stupider shit, and made a lot bigger mess, so considering that it also dovetailed with doing an act I hate (checking mail), it is really a nice activity. 

I guess...I just don't know how far to let it take me. Maybe as far as I want to go? 

I thought about using seaweed for the doll base--like the little round air-bobber things could be the head, and I could put paper clay around it to shape the face...idk

I will just have to go where it leads. And I am sure I'll learn new things, and perhaps it will build into something else I didn't know.

I am imagining the holidays might be a fun time to make dolls too--or put them out. You could probably make decorations that way--either angels for the Christmas tree or halloween witches. Many possibilities--I am not really sure about how it will go though.

--

I have a doll that I got from a yard sale, who has blue hair and a broken nose. I think she is a puppet...maybe like sixty or something...idk. I found one that looked like her once, but male, online. She is an opera puppet or something, but she has broken her nose and her hair is all glued and tangled.

I was also thinking about cutting her hair off and putting new hair on her, but that will also be a learning curve. But I have some wigs so maybe that could be good too. Her clothes are made of fabric though, so she won't wear paper. So she has been something I've been thinking about, but just a little bit connected to the other project--because it's a doll.

I don't know if I could fix her nose with paper clay though...Maybe. I saw the zinc oxide makes a really white paste--I wonder if that could be used to help fix her nose.


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## WickerDeer

I am nervous I haven't done any paintings for a long time. Or drawings.

I painted a small square painting...but it wasn't very good. And I didn't do any more. I should be painting more or I won't get used to it. I put up a painting I made from last year in my room though, and I like it. It will hopefully remind me to paint.

I know I cannot keep on like this. There are a couple things I can do and I know to do--I should do them.

I feel like it's about switching modes and ease of access...probably one of the reasons I drew so much as a kid was because I always had to be holding a pen or pencil in class, or because I had access to that in most places as a kid (most relatives had paper and a pencil or ballpoint pen).

So perhaps being more confident in the media and making it easier to just use would work. To set up that kind of utility beforehand when I do not have motivation. Sort of like gesso on a canvas--it's not difficult and doesn't take thought, but it prepares it so that it's easy to just use. I could always do things like that when I am not sure about what to do otherwise.

I could clean/organize things better...I did separate the art supplies into bins. One for oils, on acrylic, one pens, another drawer colored pencils, one for silk painting, and another for soft pastels.

Perhaps now having the pads of paper and a place to work/sit would be good, since I did leave my rock collection all over where I was thinking was the "work table" (really just a small rolling table that stores old drawings.

So perhaps I should take some time to focus on that...to prepare.. It doesn't always have to be the rising sun of springtime, it can also be fall or winter, as those are times to do other things. Or something. W/e --it seems like a good idea.

As a preschool teacher I did often consider setting up an area for the children--I didn't like to micromanage them artistically, it annoyed me that many teachers did and they were so obsessed with messes, when children should just be allowed to explore the materials. 

So I could also consider doing something like that for myself--just in the way of setting up an area to work in, so that I only have to focus on the materials or creating, and not focus on things like "where is the pencil" and "what base should I put this pad on?" or "what type of paper should I use?" It's very open-ended since I have so many art supplies, so I could narrow it down for myself and just leave it out as an option, which is what I did for the children, and usually they will want to come try it. But that way it is no pressure--just some available activity. 

Like I tried setting up the colored pencils like that and I haven't used them yet--but they are in a drawer. 

Yeah--today seems like a good day to organize the art materials.


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## Squirt

I’ll draw the same thing over and over until it comes out “right.” Usually I’ll go through a ton of garbage drawings to get there. I read in a book that it helps to do warm-up exercises (testing line weights, random lines and squiggles, etc) before starting a “real” drawing to prime the visual-motor connection, especially if it has been a while. In practice, I’ve found this does reduce the number of unsatisfactory drawings afterward, which helps with confidence as a side-bonus.


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## Infinitus

Like a lot of creatives, I'm afflicted by being most creative post-midnight. I despise when people suggest that I should be creative during the day. As if I haven't tried everything in my power to funnel my creativity into a more sensible window. It doesn't work that way, I can barely control & manage inspiration and creative flow, even in optimum flow-state conditions. The constant insistence that I'm somehow at fault or a nuisance for (what I understand is) a pretty common thing amongst creatives, is a fairly cruel kick in the teeth. My theory is that tiredness promotes a lack of inhibition, which allows one to be relaxed enough to initiate and sustain a flow state. When I've tried to get up and create at 6AM or whatever, the fact I'm woken and alert doesn't allow me to work without overthinking, & focusing on details rather than the bigger picture. Besides, the results don't seem to be as inspired, if I'm totally honest. I'm just not a morning person to begin with.

So whilst I can be creative at a lot of different times (whenever inspiration hits), I have little conscious control over the fact I'm optimally creative post-midnight. For someone to criticise me for that, despite my best efforts to change it, is fucking evil.


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## WickerDeer

I get irritated at the people who treat art or creativity as if it shouldn't ever have anything to do with money or work.

edit: lol that was a bit dark--I do want to process it a bit more before I put it out there, even though this is a rant/vent thread.

I'm going to talk about something else:

I was working on composition, and trying to understand how to use minimal colors and more blocky spaces to describe a landscape.

And then this deer and her two fawns just walked right in and it was really nice. You never know what you will see in nature. The babies were so cute.

It all worked alright--I'm trying to learn from my great grandmother (I never met her but she was a painter), and think of how she might have thought of things since that is how she survived--by selling her artwork, and she also helped support her daughter when her husband was also killed in WW2 and she was left with children to raise. It's impossible to imagine what they thought about, but I assume it wasn't always roses and chocolate. It must have been difficult and scary at times.

But doing wood-block or lino-block printing allowed her to be in control of production, and to offer artwork at a lower price than like her oil paintings or watercolors. So I think she also made cards and other things so that she could support herself and her daughter and her grandchildren during that time.

But ultimately, I feel she became amazing at compositions and her prints are almost abstract--I want to study what she did. I think she may have developed some of those techniques herself out of necessity, rather than what was taught to her in school. And I am gaining new respect for her prints. Idk.

I am irritated at the idea that art is a luxury. Or creating art is a luxury. Fuck off.

Art, music, lore--they've all been integral to humans since some of the earliest known records of human intelligence. It's not a fucking luxury--it's part of who we are as a species.

edit: not sure why I made a vent thread if I'm going to censor myself--but I think it is sort of fresh and unresolved, which makes it seem riskier because I'll likely change my mind about it when I process it more. Not that I don't do that all the time anyway.

I also find substance use...I worry about it. I use cannabis to help me to avoid alcohol, at least for now, and I worry that it will somehow um...like stain my creativity and it won't be "truly me" or something, which seems silly when I think about it.

Honestly, I think most of it does come down to just doing it and perhaps not overthinking it and coming up with all the reasons not to.

I am struggling with figuring out what to do--I think I get too critical about whether something is inspired enough, but there can be so many different types of inspiration. I really like listening to Neil Gaiman's lectures on writing, because he talks about how inspiration can come from so many places. He talks about having a compost pile of ideas. But it's nice to hear that some people also just let the project lead to a degree and they find out as they go.

It bothered me to not know why I am doing something--but I have experienced a time when I saw an old pastel painting and it helped me. So for me, it was just documenting something for when I lose touch with my normal ability to process things, and it was familiar and calming. I thought it was a reminder that there is beauty in the world, even if I don't feel like it in the moment. So it helped.

The "why" is so illusive though--probably better explained the more I hear the individual whys of different creative people, such as Gaiman. I suppose we all come up with our own manifesto though, maybe that is also part of the process. having that why gnawing at you until you can finally assert that "because, that's why."

I am far less judgmental and demanding of "why" other people make artworks than why I do.

I wanted to design some greeting cards and sell them--which perhaps isn't "true art" or something, but fuck off--if you've done the same type of work I have for the same length of time (meaning jobs with little respect--menial jobs...low paying, no benefits, no health insurance, burnout inducing etc.), you can tell me that. Otherwise go flounce your way back to your ivory tower and keep your rose scented shit away from me. (I swear--I don't even know who I'm telling that too--probably myself. lol Maybe Jackson Pollock idk) I have heard so many stories about "artists" since I was a child.

So many...like cautionary tales and didactic ones...from people who don't even do it. They are the worst at these standards. I would have liked to talk to my great grandmother and see what she had to say about it, as that's what she did for her living and she had to care for dependents.

I had a mini breakthrough yesterday with this issue about business...and it was because I decided to try to start businesses. Perhaps I feel better calling myself a business woman, or even a business wannabe. I don't care. So long as the result is the same. So I want to be a business woman...if it means coming up with five businesses for art. Because I'm sick of having no energy at the end of my day of wiping asses for minimum wage--why do I feel like I have to justify it. Like I'm supposed to stay in my ass-wiping lane...lol It's true though! people love my ass wiping, especially when they don't pay me a living wage for it and they just assume it's the way things should be because what can a dum dum like her do other than wipe my ass for a few pennies? So the idea that I would try to create a business scares me and makes me feel like I'm stepping out of my place. The ass place. ROFL Maybe if I just frame it this way it will be too silly to be scary.


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## WickerDeer

Part of me has always wanted to make some world change with art--and I wonder if that's common. But I've always felt it so inaccessible. 

Which is silly. I mean, memes are hugely influential in the world. But a lot of them are also propaganda.

And I've wondered where the line is drawn between propaganda and art.

I've felt like for me, I have that part of me who could totally have been a propaganda artist. Something always feels sort of forced about it though, like I'm not really expressing as much as persuading. And it cheapens it.

Sentimentalism (in literature) was still engaging and interesting to me, because it really did usher in a lot of social changes. Even the movie Bambi changed society's view of hunting.

Art has always been used as a political tool--that's why the giant catholic churches have elaborately painted murals and stuff. The tales of King Arthur were invented in order to make England feel special. lol Patrons and patronage. And that is also why now corporations use artists for advertising and making their products more appealing. They use musicians, they tell stories and use writers, and they use visual arts and photographers etc. in their commercials.

I think that many artists also secretly want to be able to tell their own power, rather than just be funneled into working for the dominant powers within their society. 

When I did a sculpture class I kept coming back to religious iconography and I wondered why...but I think that in some way I so want to...bring something good into the world or something beautiful. And I think that expectation is sometimes a creativity killer for me, because I want this expression to be some positive change, some good influence. Something that reflects everything I see as good, or a change I see as good.

I remember talking to an artist once about this, and he said that it kills the creative project to demand that it have a reason, a point...

A point like, to make some impact in the world. Maybe because then it becomes persuasion or propaganda instead of just expression of the truth.

Can propaganda be expression of the truth? Can the truth be propaganda? Is it all just about the intentions? 

Some of my family...even my great grandmotehr's husband was a reverend and I wonder if it ever crossed her mind to try to make her artwork have some good impact on the world, but seems to me she mostly just painted what is. Which is more of an expression of what she saw...of the truth. Without any message beyond whatever came out in the process. Of some kind of beauty that was hidden there, to be shared. I don't know.

I feel this anxiety about contributing and having a point and a purpose, but...I don't know if it really helps creative work or how do you mix the two? It almost feels like they are opposing each other.

Keats said beauty is truth and truth is beauty, and that is all you need to know. 

This stuff eats away at me.


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## WickerDeer

One of the posts (by Infinitus) made me think about how waking/sleep schedule could affect creativity or overthinking. 

I've had times where I stayed up all night long and overthought a lot less the next day, so I can see the point. But I wondered if there is some optimal schedule. 

It is really interesting to learn about other creative people's schedules and what works for them. I remember watching a video about Salvador Dali? Or was it Picasso--I think it may have been Picasso. And he did most of the creative work at night and in the early morning. I think it was also because there are less interruptions then. He spent the daytime on more social calls, but people probably left him alone to work at night.

I decided to go to sleep early last night to see what would happen, and didn't go to sleep as extremely early as I wanted. But woke up around 5ish, and I felt a strong desire to go outside (I am not sure where this comes from--my thinking is constantly fuzzy anymore, and it's this sort of impulse to just GET OUT...not sure if Ne or Se or something).

I just followed it and I ended up seeing something that inspired an idea for a block print...I am still sort of stuck on washi paper and those designs...which are also prints of another type. And so sketched it out and perhaps I should carry better tools for sketching in my purse since I moved some of the pens I'd had in there, but it might be useful to have a better set of tools just for that sort of situation, unplanned sketches or studies.

And I also noticed ANOTHER thing that I wanted to consider capturing in visual media--which is the lichen that grows on the side of the trees, as it was foggy and the lichen had perhaps come to life or swelled up, against the dark bark of the tree (dark from the moisture). Sometimes I am impressed by scenes like this--it just captures something. I think it would make interesting looking design for washi paper--all the types of lichens and textures against the fog.

So this seemed successful as far as inspiration and motivation. I like the early mornings because no one can bother me too.

I've been thinking about the role of undisturbed focus lately. Seems like as a kid I always heard that "periods of time that are completely undisturbed..." People might put a do not disturb sign, or unplug their land line.

Now we have so many different distractions--e-mails we are supposed to keep up with, texts, and phone calls...people wanting to say something etc. Perhaps the morning time when people are all sleeping is also peaceful for that reason. At night I usually have more anxiety and I think it makes me feel stressed--so I would like to try getting up even earlier, though I am not sure--I am considering trying a number of schedules. Anything to break out of this shitty creative constipation.


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## WickerDeer

So this is good for me to look at.

I went to bed really early and I woke up really early and I did experience some sort of inspiration.

But that's not the problem for me. The problem is DOING IT.

Because now I am like "ugghhghgh I don't know how to do that. wut 2 do? I cant."

I suspected that this is one of the problems I have with overthinking, because it blocks action. I find so many ways to pick apart my own ideas and to diminish them, that I then am left feeling like...completely lost.

It also struck me that I do this when I was moving recently, and so I organized my old drawings into the table, and I looked through them and was like "dang...I HAVE actually done art." I feel like I haven't or I never do. And that thought dominates, and then I feel anxious about not doing, when I have.

But it's the same thing...it's like belittling myself, telling myself I'm incapable. I'm not enough. I don't have enough experience to know how to do what I thought of. Perhaps it can't be done. etc.

THAT is my problem. It's not that I lack the ability to come up with ideas, but that I pick them apart mercilessly until my brain just goes "fuck it! Have it your way, I'm going on vacation. Enjoy your brain fog bitch." My brain is like a bitter ex who doesn't want to deal with me anymore, because I complain too much. It wishes it could get away from me.

And I also get irritated at it and try to throw it away by drinking or doing drugs to shut it down. We hate each other. We can only spend about twenty minutes together in the morning before both of us are just over it.

So anyway, aside from whatever ridiculous and silly tangent that is, I think I do need to confront these thoughts that sort of get in the way of executing the idea...because I had an idea this morning. It may not be genius but whatever, I'm not a genius. 

And instead I'm thinking about every other little thing, because I gave up on thinking of my idea because I was worried I would get overwhelmed and fail, and that would prove I am a failure who can't draw or even wipe butts well (other people's butts).

So this...I don't know...but this little thread here (like literal thread, in a weaving) is the weakest link, so I need to just like tie it in a knot or something, and move on in some linear fashion until I figure out what else is possible. Maybe it is time to settle down and practice instead of bouncing from idea to idea, because then I would feel more confident. 

But then I worry...is this the one? Is this my true art love, that I want to make block prints? Am I willing to put on the ugly frilly veil from the local thrift store and walk down the isle with this rectangular linoleum block? SUCH A BIG DECISION (or else I could just um...try to make this stupid print of some water and a sand dune in the fog with some seaweed, and get over it.) I don't really like linoleum blocks that much, but I don't have to be monocreative do I?


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## WickerDeer

I'm not sure if thinking about the previous post's ideas helped me, but I felt successful today. It took me an extraordinarily long time, but I ended up doing a bunch of shitty drawings, and finally, I started something completely different, and I really liked the idea--it tied in a lot of what I've been obsessing over and thinking about lately.

I am still not sure about the mechanics, but I am really happy with the idea.

I tried snoozing in the evening...like I thought maybe if I took a nap I could wake up again in the middle of the night--but I tried to fall asleep for about three hours, and then maybe slept for a half or one hour? 

I had read Leonardo DaVinci slept in short periods--like less than two hours. I can't imagine doing that though, because it takes me so long just to fall asleep. 

Either way, I still felt really productive today, and that makes me happy. I'm not sure if sleep schedule may have played a part--or perhaps I was just hopeful, or perhaps even just talking about it here allowed me to see how silly some of my hangups were, and to just push myself through.

One thing I noticed is how incredibly rude I was today--my mom came over unannounced, and was going on and on about something and I was just sketching the birds, but somehow it worked. And I barely listened to her. This makes me think that for me, some of the issues with trying to be productive during the day time could also just be people being demanding of attention. But when I started becoming ruder and ignoring them, and asserting my weird boundaries like "I want to take a nap at 4:30" (to experiment with sleep cycle and productivity) I found it worked better.

It was like being in a flow that kept building, and eventually I was actually happy with the result! Which is so rare! I can imagine making a series based on the concept I worked on today, as much as it also feels like I spent all day almost doing nothing, since it was mostly sketching ideas all day.


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## WickerDeer

But now I don't know what media to use--here are my concerns/thoughts:

lino-block printing--I'm worried that I won't remember how to do it right.
But I'm also worried that the paints won't have enough colors, and I don't understand what kind of constitution a block print paint should have.
They can have oil or water based...but does that mean I can mix my oils, acrylics, or watercolors with the block paint/inks?
And what about normal inks?
And what about liquid gold stuff? I have some liquid "renaissance" gold paint stuff, and it won't come off the brush--I don't know what it's made of. It's worse than oil paint. Can I use that stuff?
What about gold leaf adhesive? Should I just do one layer like that...applying the flakes of gold leaf instead of a paint?
I guess I could do black and then watercolors--or perhaps gold? But I don't even know if it works yet!

Oil painting:
what if the brush strokes aren't clean enough?
what if I get too clean by making them cleaner? I'm usually terribly messy and I don't know about trying to make super clean brush strokes over gold/silver leaf.
How can I oil paint over watercolors or over block prints?
Can I use block printing on canvas, with oil paints?
So far oil painting seems more challenging, but I want to keep my mind open to it since the print I thought of is so small, it might be easier to do it over a larger canvas I covered with silver leaf--or that could be an extension of what I was working on--with a different, but similar type of image.


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## WickerDeer

When I finished the sketch for a block print I was planning, I felt this hoarding instinct to sort of continue on with ideas and to decide what to do with this canvas I put silver leaf on.

But I think that's not the best way to go because it's like a process--if I create the block print I can learn from my mistakes, whereas if I just try to conceptualize the next project before finishing this one, I am afraid I'll just stay stagnant in the realm of ideas.

The feng shui bagua concept (which I don't understand and am ignorant about) started to make sense to me as a process--like the young wood turns to old wood, which then turns to fire--I kind of see it like a process of fueling the fire of creativity and life.

And I think the urge to stay in that stage, when it is time for the next, is stifling. But I can also see why I might think it would be efficient to try to focus on ideas when I had success with that once. I think it is better to just follow through and complete the process though, so I can learn from it before the next project.


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## WickerDeer

Disengaging from social media seems to be one of the biggest influences on productivity for me.

I'm thinking that perhaps undisturbed time is the key--so that is perhaps why early in the morning before anyone is awake is a more inspirational time. 

I wonder how I can limit distractions better or what will happen if that becomes more of a focus. It would be good to try a schedule for a week and see if it helps...with more unbroken and undisturbed time to focus.

Almost like swimming under water. I feel like it's like a dive and the deeper you go and the quieter it is, the more I feel I am in a flow state, maybe. 

So again...I feel like I've just washed up on the shore again, due to my own poor choices, which is one of the worse states--shipwreck. And it's so impotent feeling--but perhaps it it still a fine place to start, so long as I limit my distractions.

I should try a schedule with an emphasis on limiting distractions. 

So far, the only things I can think of are:
1. Having an off-kilter schedule so that I'm awake during some periods many people are sleeping.
2. Limiting or completely avoiding social media
3. Using a sound machine or headphones
4. Cooking all during one day of the week--so that the rest of the time I'm not spending a lot of time cooking.

I noticed that cooking becomes a creative outlet, but it also takes up a lot of time when it does. So I think cooking once with leftovers for a few days can help.

All of it comes down to whether or not I can make myself stick with the schedule--perhaps the limiting of distractions will also help with that.

I think maybe setting a timer for social media--and also having certain hours completely blocked off from it.

I have a branch in my room from Mabon, and it has small messages tied on it--which is sort of interactive, even if it is just between myself and myself. The messages have ideas on them to do, should I feel lost in the future (such as shipwrecked). One of them is to start five businesses. I haven't ever started one business. But I guess maybe if I start five of them then I will get over the fear of them failing, since I'd probably prefer they do fail as I do not want to actually have five businesses. I have no idea what I'm doing, but that is okay--at least I have a tree branch in my room with messages and home made perfumes and origami forms tied to it. Surely that also helps. Maybe I should make a forest of them to get lost in.


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## WickerDeer

My current project that I am working on also features imagery of diving--I really like the human form. And the human body in active poses--especially the female body--is inspiring in a different way. Like as an activity of diving, rather than just a object that is sort of passively being observed...perhaps it makes the figure look like it has more agency, more animation and self-determination. And more direction.

I think it's a metaphor of what I am hoping to accomplish but it also just came together as a creative work, in my opinion. 

They don't have to be forced--the themes just come up on their own. But what does have to be forced is getting off of social media or creating undisturbed time LOL Perhaps idk

Sometimes social media can be helpful, but only if it is limited and perhaps when I am maintaining focus on my goals. Like this thread has been helpful to me so far, and perhaps it will be helpful to me again now (or perhaps not--idk).

Before...ugh...

So agreeableness, being motivated by other people--that is a double edged sword, because it can lead to focusing too much on others as I described--being distracted. Especially by social media or other people in the household or around.

At the same time, it can probably also help hold me accountable--like if I was taking a class and I didn't want to disappoint the teacher, I would be motivated to show up and focus, and likely get a lot done.

And whining about it in public is probably sort of motivating because it makes me feel more socially accountable since I don't want to only whine and never succeed at anything. I should also focus on trying to use it to my advantage. Though right now limiting distractions might do more.


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## WickerDeer

So I am using my twenty minutes of allotted social media time to write blocks of text about um...blocks for printing (orreally just one block).

I got up early, have worked on it for about six hours--I had already made the sketch and so transferred and then carved the block. It's small.

Positives about the material: Very easy to carve. It's eraser material. And it also hasn't warped.

But I am thinking now that the material and idea don't match.

It's supposed to be a person diving in there (among other things) but because block is so minimalistic it looks sort of like it could be a person hanging upside down...LOL which I guess I could philosophize and read meaning into, but it wasn't what I was intending.

I mean...sometimes you do just feel like that though--so it is fitting. It's just, I think I need to try to make it more clear.

Color would help but the ink is water based and I think I need oil based ink to put watercolor over. I did do one with some quick watercolor and it looks interesting, reminds me a little of illustrations in medieval texts or something William Blakeish kind of.

I think I am going to try the same concept in oil paints to compare which medium might work better for it. That way I can paint the figure, which I might enjoy better than the more abstracted, symbolism of block printing.

I worked on cleaning out a shed to use as a workshop last night, maybe eventually I can paint in there.

So I think the undisturbed time worked well--time passed quickly. I am not upset that six hours of effort as well as another probably three hours for coming up with the sketch didn't work out, because it is a learning experience.

I think it's a success that I have spent as much time on developing the skill, regardless of the result. But yeah--it looks kind of like a naked woman hanging upside down...lol

I am kind of disappointed, but it also makes sense to consider that it might have been too much for such a small size and the medium. It could probably be much clearer if it was larger and it might also be more interesting to me. Perhaps painting it on a larger canvas can help me understand what I prefer.


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## WickerDeer

Here's the watercolor version



It was hasty--I could have and will plan colors out better, but it's got a weird affect--the flowers on her abdomen were dissolved because of the way the ink went. And I think she looks like she's hanging from her ankles. But I was told by someone else, that she looks like she is standing up (if you make the image upside down, and holding a streamer).

So yeah...it's really kind of interesting to me, but it's not super satisfying as a product that I would present to other people. I don't think they will see things my way, and my job is to somehow communicate that--and I can't do it unless I streamline things. 

I had painted it with my landscape tin so perhaps if I thoughtfully choose the colors, it will work better. 

But this is the YOLO version 

I am pretty sure this whole set is not something I'd present anywhere else, so I'll put it here. Because I don't trust the internet--I'm more open here than most places in my life, but I also feel cautious here because I know not everyone is kind online, and what if they try to harm me in some way. So I compartmentalize here from everywhere else. I wish I didn't have to. In some ways, I feel this image belongs here, because I thought about it here, so this place was seminal for me. 

I think with other colors it will be nice, and perhaps different concepts--maybe less messy.


----------



## WickerDeer

So irritated this morning.

I just wanted to start to try to do something with the oil painting--but it's dark outside and I don't want to use my bedroom because the fumes from oil paints aren't good for people.

So I don't know--can the box fan filter I put together with a furnace filter and a box fan, and I also have some carbon filter (I think it was made for a fish tank but idk)--can it work? I don't really want to risk it.

Maybe if I could put some kind of filter material around where I sleep--or if I could sleep outside it might be easier--but I don't think I'm going to want to do that.

I want PRIVACY and solitude. And I want to have the place I sleep not be full of a bunch of fumes and shit.

So...I could also maybe try to make a "studio" inside my room--like a blanket fort--with an air filter inside. It sounds annoying and stupid but perhaps it is the best choice. It's going to look like shit but perhaps it will be functional. I already have wood panel that can be the walls.

I can't tell if my irritation is because I feel caged in and can't do what I'd like, or because I am not drinking. Probably both. But I think the blanket fort studio sounds like the most reasonable.

Edit: It would probably be easier to just close of the bed part of the bedroom and just put an air filter in there at night as well. I mean, this all seems unnecessary but it will be so much easier when it's figured out.

This is the same problem I ran into when trying to figure out how to oil paint before--ugh--there are also plants. House plants are also natural air purifiers. 

I will figure it out. It's already light out--it seems fine now--most of my room is just for storage of art materials anyway--it's practically a studio.






Yes--I think it will be fine.

It's just annoying to me--I had hoped the livingroom could be partly used for something, but instead it will just be another place to avoid, that will not be used at. I am still happy to have a door and this will be fine.


----------



## WickerDeer

I finally started painting on this silver leaf canvas. It required some research and trial and error to seal it, since fake silver leaf tarnishes with some of the varnishes, and you must put varnish over it before painting on it. Plus oil paint won't necessarily work over every varnish.

So it was a tedious process...so far it still hasn't tarnished, which is nice because the last time I tried it the entire thing tarnished immediately.

I never knew I'd rhyme tarnish and varnish so much lol makes me laugh

edit: all the rest of that is just wtf and tmi--art can be very personal.


----------



## superloco3000

WickerDeer said:


> I finally started painting on this silver leaf canvas. It required some research and trial and error to seal it, since fake silver leaf tarnishes with some of the varnishes, and you must put varnish over it before painting on it. Plus oil paint won't necessarily work over every varnish.
> 
> So it was a tedious process...so far it still hasn't tarnished, which is nice because the last time I tried it the entire thing tarnished immediately.
> 
> I never knew I'd rhyme tarnish and varnish so much lol makes me laugh
> 
> edit: all the rest of that is just wtf and tmi--art can be very personal.


Only now I found out about this technique, that's cool as hell.
That silver paper , what is the percentage of silver or if they only use alloys , I want to know - -u.


----------



## mia-me

Edge is an underrated guitarist. He's very creative and innovative, almost delicate in sound. Most guitarists use hammers, shredding unnecessarily, all.the.time.


----------



## superloco3000

WickerDeer said:


> I have energy today but no direction--but this complaint goes beyond art. I just do not know what to do.
> 
> Is having no direction ever helpful for creativity? Maybe it is if you just let yourself find the way when you're in there.
> 
> But it paralyzes me...maybe I should just pull out that "fuck-up" painting and work on that, or else spend a lot of time brainstorming to find a direction.
> 
> I talked to a young man who is a friend of an artist and working on art himself, though he'd been writing a book about the creative process for the last couple years...and he said it's like baking vs. cooking.
> 
> That some people are more like bakers. They have a formula and they put all the ingredients in, they often have a recipe.
> 
> And some people are more like cooks? So they just smell and taste as they go--they don't necessarily know how it will turn out.
> 
> Perhaps people are usually a mix. Even when cooking I usually have some vague idea of a general flavor or similar sort of dish.
> 
> He also said some people can turn from cooks to bakers, they cook something they really like and then they sort of make it again, but change it a little...but they start to do the same thing.
> 
> But I think he had a good point--it is about process. It's about process to me.
> 
> I should stop worrying and start saying fuck it more.


Are you a perfectionist? I think this is the worst enemy of creativity.
A work of art will never be finished otherwise it wouldn't be art ....

I find this analogy impressive.
In theory, knowing how to use both at the same time is the best thing to do.

I like that you mentioned spirituality in the other post, before it was always believed that it came from something divine.


----------



## mia-me

Sony, your menus suck but I love the end product after a lot of torturous research.


----------



## mia-me

Working with raw files is worse than bathing in battery acid. I hate it with every fiber of my being and want to kill something, every.single.time.


----------



## WickerDeer

I'm thinking that I would benefit from getting formal training in painting. I'm trying to teach myself but it's not easy--I'm not really an autodidact. I really enjoy being able to connect with a human being to learn something. I assume it's more common with feelers--I don't know.

But I am also thinking that instead of just trying to push one painting into the "fucked up" category, I just need to allow all my paintings to be part of the "fucked up" part of my life, which is now.

It's a lot easier. And that way all the fucked upness doesn't have to go into just one painting.

Here's my current painting that I'm making during my fucked-up period.

Like picasso had his blue period and I have my fucked-up AND don't-know-how-to-paint period. LOL At least I have something to focus on while I find the whole world depressing right now.



So this vent:

EVERYTHING SUCKS

But at least I'm painting! I do think taking a class would be good--I should look into it. My favorite art professor is also an oil painter, and he teaches at the community college. Maybe I can take a painting class in the future. Until then, I guess I should maybe watch some more tutorials or get a book. 

IM STILL HAPPY WITH MY PROGRESS THOUGH


----------



## Squirt

I've been doing some experiments with drawing in pen without thinking about what I'm drawing - just doodling lines with no image in mind. The pictures remind me of... insects? Or... something. Here is one:










Then I drew this thing the same way. It looks like a cnidarian, or some kind of marine animal larvae... or a rose with tentacles? Thought it looked kind of cool so I inked in back around it.










Anyone else wanna try it out? It is kind of fun. If you can blank out your mind and just let your hand do the drawing.


----------



## WickerDeer

I want to try that some time.

--

My venting/thoughts:

I think reducing social media is helping. For example, I was thinking about what to do and I don't know--it's stressfu.

So I decided to go back to the idea of working on landscapes...but then which ones? I have tons of old pics from my old SLR (I used to be really into photography for several years...even as a kid--my mom worked at a drug store that developed photos so she used to let me use the camera at times as a child--ugh I haven't visited my aunt for so long) and so I thought I should pull it out and...

Then I was like "oh I have ten minutes to wait till I go do my plan " (or whatever)

But I almost logged onto PerC, and instead I decided to pull out my SLR, charge the battery, look through a pack of old photos and pick out a few that could be good practice landscapes.

Eventually I would like to do more plein air but I think it's worthwhile to at least try to get some handle on painting first...because it's not easy even if I want to think it will be. I am going to go through that dunning kruger stage where I am like "FUCK THIS IS NOT LIKE IN MY MIND"

But I just did those things instead, and it was an advancement. I haven't used my SLR for years. But this could be a good way of getting references for paintings. : p

And a solution for the fact that I hate stock photos (I don't completely hate them, but I get really tired of looking through them after a while...I can't do it too much).

I think it's like framing the mountain...hey...I am painting one too. But it's keeping that big goal in focus, and perhaps doing little things that really make it easier...like just having those old photos.

Also a reminder that I have done shit. That a lot of the unfinished, untied loose ends that my entire existence is made of, the years I spent drawing or photographing, they can all go into painting. A lot of the stuff people assume is just wasted time is actually preparation for the unknown.

I mean, I hear that critical voice saying I haven't done enough, I always start things and don't finish etc. But all those starts have ended up being something, and it's important to remind myself. I don't necessarily have to finish things. 

I mean...even pulling out an old figure painting watercolor that I thought of as "trash" almost, even though my professor didn't...I think it's like practice I'm just supposed to throw away, but it can also be used. It all gets used. Even if you don't see it--it's all fertilizer for the new growth. And its also a good reminder against that negative self talk, that yes--I have done stuff...I have been working on this, even when I didn't know it.

Oh--I was listening to music and I was thinking of how visual art to me is sort of a form of recording...because I just feel there is so much lost of the past. My great grandmother's world...I miss my aunt. I haven't visited my other aunt who is still alive for a long time. I mean...this is part of what art does...it takes these memories and makes them into a beautiful, rich tapestry to learn from. I feel...in some way. I kind of wish I'd spent my whole life painting them so I could remember them easier and perhaps so that in the future, people could know...just as I could see what my great grandmother saw when she painted on another continent. Idk--there's just something valuable to me about it.


----------



## Squirt

WickerDeer said:


> I want to try that some time.
> 
> --
> 
> My venting/thoughts:
> 
> I think reducing social media is helping. For example, I was thinking about what to do and I don't know--it's stressfu.
> 
> So I decided to go back to the idea of working on landscapes...but then which ones? I have tons of old pics from my old SLR (I used to be really into photography for several years...even as a kid--my mom worked at a drug store that developed photos so she used to let me use the camera at times as a child--ugh I haven't visited my aunt for so long) and so I thought I should pull it out and...
> 
> Then I was like "oh I have ten minutes to wait till I go do my plan " (or whatever)
> 
> But I almost logged onto PerC, and instead I decided to pull out my SLR, charge the battery, look through a pack of old photos and pick out a few that could be good practice landscapes.
> 
> Eventually I would like to do more plein air but I think it's worthwhile to at least try to get some handle on painting first...because it's not easy even if I want to think it will be. I am going to go through that dunning kruger stage where I am like "FUCK THIS IS NOT LIKE IN MY MIND"
> 
> But I just did those things instead, and it was an advancement. I haven't used my SLR for years. But this could be a good way of getting references for paintings. : p
> 
> And a solution for the fact that I hate stock photos (I don't completely hate them, but I get really tired of looking through them after a while...I can't do it too much).
> 
> I think it's like framing the mountain...hey...I am painting one too. But it's keeping that big goal in focus, and perhaps doing little things that really make it easier...like just having those old photos.
> 
> Also a reminder that I have done shit. That a lot of the unfinished, untied loose ends that my entire existence is made of, the years I spent drawing or photographing, they can all go into painting. A lot of the stuff people assume is just wasted time is actually preparation for the unknown.
> 
> I mean, I hear that critical voice saying I haven't done enough, I always start things and don't finish etc. But all those starts have ended up being something, and it's important to remind myself. I don't necessarily have to finish things.
> 
> I mean...even pulling out an old figure painting watercolor that I thought of as "trash" almost, even though my professor didn't...I think it's like practice I'm just supposed to throw away, but it can also be used. It all gets used. Even if you don't see it--it's all fertilizer for the new growth. And its also a good reminder against that negative self talk, that yes--I have done stuff...I have been working on this, even when I didn't know it.
> 
> Oh--I was listening to music and I was thinking of how visual art to me is sort of a form of recording...because I just feel there is so much lost of the past. My great grandmother's world...I miss my aunt. I haven't visited my other aunt who is still alive for a long time. I mean...this is part of what art does...it takes these memories and makes them into a beautiful, rich tapestry to learn from. I feel...in some way. I kind of wish I'd spent my whole life painting them so I could remember them easier and perhaps so that in the future, people could know...just as I could see what my great grandmother saw when she painted on another continent. Idk--there's just something valuable to me about it.


My aunt has been insisting I get her copies of my artwork. My great-grandmother (whom I resemble in appearance, funny enough) was an artist, and my grandmother liked to draw. My aunt preserved digital copies of grandmas artwork but most of my great grandmother’s work is lost. I am guessing she wants to preserve mine to avoid that happening with me.

Your thoughts on it are very sentimental, but I have a hard time with her request. I’ve been tempted to burn/dispose of most of my work, most of which was created for my own desire and not for others, or I just don’t see it as good artwork. I tried to throw out some old paintings the other day and had them leaning against a wall to go to the dump, but my mom grabbed them and hung them on her wall.  

Yet, I have a burnished wood piece my great grandmother made in 1901 hanging on my wall. She made it when she was 12 years old:










It had been hanging up all through my childhood. I thought it looked neat but I had no idea my great grandma made it! I didn’t find out until I was an adult, and when I did it somehow felt she was “here” even though I never met her…

So, I guess these things can be special. I should remember that before I decide what is “objectively” worthless, huh?


----------



## WickerDeer

Squirt said:


> My aunt has been insisting I get her copies of my artwork. My great-grandmother (whom I resemble in appearance, funny enough) was an artist, and my grandmother liked to draw. My aunt preserved digital copies of grandmas artwork but most of my great grandmother’s work is lost. I am guessing she wants to preserve mine to avoid that happening with me.
> 
> Your thoughts on it are very sentimental, but I have a hard time with her request. I’ve been tempted to burn/dispose of most of my work, most of which was created for my own desire and not for others, or I just don’t see it as good artwork. I tried to throw out some old paintings the other day and had them leaning against a wall to go to the dump, but my mom grabbed them and hung them on her wall.
> 
> Yet, I have a burnished wood piece my great grandmother made in 1901 hanging on my wall. She made it when she was 12 years old:
> 
> View attachment 889246
> 
> 
> It had been hanging up all through my childhood. I thought it looked neat but I had no idea my great grandma made it! I didn’t find out until I was an adult, and when I did it somehow felt she was “here” even though I never met her…
> 
> So, I guess these things can be special. I should remember that before I decide what is “objectively” worthless, huh?


I also tend to look down at my own work. But I let my parents have whatever they want as I figure it's a parents thing. 

That's such a pretty burnished wood picture--it looks kind of art nouveau to me. 12 years old! I sometimes felt I compared myself to my great grandma (who was a professional artist) and it's hard to measure up to that--especially for you with your prodigy 12 year old great grandma! Jeeze!) My great grandmother went to art school and was formally trained, and you can see it in her oil paintings, something I feel I will probably never get to, but w/e at least I am trying (which is what I wanted...at least I'm not letting my self-criticism completely stop me).

It's difficult with family though--like my mom has a bunch of childhood drawings I made and there is no way I'm ever putting a drawing up I made when I was five, on the wall. I'm just not that into baby me. Those go in the trash if the parents don't want them. lol

I've found an interesting pastime lately of hanging my own paintings/drawings on the wall, and it feels a little more official now...like I am not just going to sketch in sketchbooks and hide the drawings away as usual. Before this year I don't think I'd ever hung any drawing or painting I made on a wall. It sort of changes the way I look at them.

Do you have any of your own paintings or drawings on your walls? Have you done classes on it? I wonder if that could increase your confidence, because I think your artwork is really amazing.


----------



## mia-me

Can't see the pics that squirt linked but the description reminded me of sketching without lifting your pen or pencil. If you haven't tried it, try it by drawing your hand. It adds a lot of life to the sketch.

WD, would love to see your photography. You'd be awesome at stealth portraits of people since people are where your raw/polished style really shines through.


----------



## Squirt

WickerDeer said:


> I also tend to look down at my own work. But I let my parents have whatever they want as I figure it's a parents thing.
> 
> That's such a pretty burnished wood picture--it looks kind of art nouveau to me. 12 years old! I sometimes felt I compared myself to my great grandma (who was a professional artist) and it's hard to measure up to that--especially for you with your prodigy 12 year old great grandma! Jeeze!) My great grandmother went to art school and was formally trained, and you can see it in her oil paintings, something I feel I will probably never get to, but w/e at least I am trying (which is what I wanted...at least I'm not letting my self-criticism completely stop me).
> 
> It's difficult with family though--like my mom has a bunch of childhood drawings I made and there is no way I'm ever putting a drawing up I made when I was five, on the wall. I'm just not that into baby me. Those go in the trash if the parents don't want them. lol
> 
> I've found an interesting pastime lately of hanging my own paintings/drawings on the wall, and it feels a little more official now...like I am not just going to sketch in sketchbooks and hide the drawings away as usual. Before this year I don't think I'd ever hung any drawing or painting I made on a wall. It sort of changes the way I look at them.
> 
> Do you have any of your own paintings or drawings on your walls? Have you done classes on it? I wonder if that could increase your confidence, because I think your artwork is really amazing.


I think it’s cool we both had professional artist great grandmas.  

It is interesting how it can run in families. Somewhat genetic, of course.

I have a friend who has her art hung around her house. I certainly enjoy it when I visit. It does alter the perception… makes it “real.” I also have a tendency to hide my artwork away in sketchbooks, lol. I don’t know what freaks me out so much, tbh. Maybe there is some vulnerability there.

There is one painting on the wall - an impressionistic acyrlic portrait of a 19th century opera singer referenced from a photograph. It’s not the best, but somehow it seemed displayable.

I am considering going back to school for art - somewhere I can really challenge my skills, find opportunities and improve. However, it wouldn’t be a practical decision and would require enormous dedication to be worth the investment. Perhaps I am “wise” enough to know what would truly be required, compared to when I was younger.


----------



## WickerDeer

I managed to do three things today...(actually I only did two of them but the other was significant enough that I decided to note it...you know, I was culpable in some ways).

I painted a self portrait--it was nice. I love the human figure. It's not done yet but it's done enough for today.

I lost my lens cap. WTF I only just started using the camera again one day ago and I already lost the lens cap.

I let the shed leak rain onto the floor. The shed that I was hoping to convert into some kind of studio has a big puddle of water on the floor, because it's leaking somewhere. If I am going to convert it into something useful, I should probably find the leak and caulk that (I hope it's not the roof). I am kind of a big caulker so I'm not worried, but uh...I should not procrastinate.

So it was good...except the lens cap is missing. I haven't done a self portrait in so long, and not in paint ever I don't think--and I want to gesso a canvas to get it ready for any future expressions. 

I remember when I was taking life drawing, my professor really made a point to reinforce "if you find yourself without a model or you don't who to draw or paint--do self portraits." I thought it was thoughtful he talked about the times when one might not have access to or want to reach out to others for figure drawing/painting. It had this feeling like...you will find yourselves in places you don't want to be, but you always have yourself.

Reminds me a little of mirror gazing, the meditation.

I am pretty happy today even if I did not act very good. I still feel happy about what I accomplished. I want to find my lens cap though. WTF it's only been three days of using the camera again.


----------



## Squirt

So, I finally cleaned out my old art supplies and organized them. It sounds simple enough, but I've been carrying an emotional block against the task for at least a decade. The paint box has been a Pandora's box. To be honest, @WickerDeer helped inspire the shift in perspective (along with a lot of subconscious upwellings that seem to dictate my disposition more than I'd like). In short, it's a new day.

I haven't gone through everything yet - just my drawing supplies (collected into a large make-up caddy) and paints (kept in a toolbox). I still need to organize the various papers and canvases scattered in odd corners, and old sketchbooks which are currently piled into a giant bin that I routinely trip over in hopes of a revelation. I also purchased a pencil roll so I can set up a watercolor pencil "kit" for travelling (currently the pencils are in a tin which is awkward). Thanks to @Infinitus for the drunk painting session that reminded me how much I like watercolor pencils. 

Some of the supplies I don't need, but are still serviceable. I'm hoping my cousin's daughter will want to try them out. She's a budding artist; inventive and creative, practical and yet fanciful, a lover of nature and animals and also Minecraft. She marches to her own drum.

Also, I learned India Ink stands up over time. I haven't used inks since 2009, and yet when I tried them out to see if they were still good, they were smooth and clean and almost like new! The blue one especially had no caking at all.



WickerDeer said:


> I remember when I was taking life drawing, my professor really made a point to reinforce "if you find yourself without a model or you don't who to draw or paint--do self portraits." I thought it was thoughtful he talked about the times when one might not have access to or want to reach out to others for figure drawing/painting. It had this feeling like...you will find yourselves in places you don't want to be, but you always have yourself.


We had to do self-portraits for life drawing classes, and I got so bored of them - until I figured out to use multiple mirrors to catch odd angles. The prof got upset because she thought I was using photographs, which wasn't allowed, and didn't believe me when I insisted it was done with mirrors.  It can provide a fresh take, and I highly recommend it.

I hope you find your lens cap soon. Leaky floors suck. Converting your shed sounds awesome, though!


----------



## WickerDeer

I sometimes enjoy the mindless gessoing of canvas.

I guess it takes some thinking, but it's mostly for me trying to just pull and push the gesso in different directions, until it becomes abstract.

I've always disliked the methodical twine of canvas weave.

So the gesso is its own ceremony of my artist block. I love sweeping it across, making my own lines, as the foundation for the painting.

If I don't, I feel like a cuckold. Betrayed by the canvas manufacturer--trying to make my brushstrokes fall into familiar grooves.

But it's the same sort of feeling to me--this sort of blank slate--cleansing the canvas to be ready for what I paint on it.

edit: snip snip

If I ever find out that applying too much gesso and making your own brush strokes from it is bad for a painting, I will be sad. Unless I've gotten good at making my painting stand on its own legs, which so far I'm not great at.

But I just wanted to express how much I love gesso and that methodical, mindless painting over of the weave. I hate the weave...I don't know why. Maybe because it's so predictable and like many tiny squares. I don't like most textures on paintings/paper unless I make them myself, on purpose.

It is so nice to space out and paint white gesso on white canvas though, just to see the subtle pull and lines of the random brushstrokes--rather than the blocky weave of the canvas. Reminds me of wind, maybe water, and life vs. industry.

It's really pretty nice. The movement.


----------



## WickerDeer

When I started taking a painting class, I stopped--because it was too difficult to carry everything without a car--I lived in another town and took the bus.

But my instructor started the class with a lesson on how to make canvas...I wonder what I would have learned from his class. How to make canvas, how to make frames maybe...I would like to take painting from him one day. Maybe I would learn to appreciate canvas weaving.


----------



## WickerDeer

Ugh I have started to paint while drinking lately, and I am going to switch that for painting while sober, and see the difference (because I really do not want to drink).

I've done a self portrait with two coats of paint on now...I wonder if I did one while sober how it might be different. I'm not happy with the lips at all when I look at what I did last night. I am certain that I could make a much better one sober.

I feel a strong dislike of it now that I am looking at it--perhaps also mixed with disappointment in myself. I think I would feel much better about the accomplishment if it was done on my terms, how I really want it. Which is not like last night. Ah well. It happens and it is good to move on.

ugh...maybe it will look better if compared to a sober portrait that reflects goals/wants etc. Then I can be happy with how I have changed my behavior. And I want to be more focused on health and happiness. It's such a beautiful world, I shouldn't add ugliness to it. lol

The birds don't do stupid things like I do at times, I should be more like them. My original painting I started was more about a goal and a dream, and this has been a little derail in which I have learned, but I am ready to move on from.


----------



## WickerDeer

Alternately...I could also fix the painting or paint more layers while sober and perhaps add fireflies to it to be symbolic of um...seeing the light in the dark. And get over feeling so upset and perfectionistic and wanting to distance myself from my mistakes, and accept them...

And fix the Jeff Goldblum looking lips--like wtf But that's something you can also do with a painting is to paint new layers? I am just not very used to it though.

lol we will see Shitty drunk portrait that reminds me of Jeff Goldblum.


I wonder if I could fix parts of it or how it works when you put thick layers. I like the color in the background though. Idk...what to do--but if I keep referring back to myself it will be good, and howcan you not do that with a self portrait?
I need religion.

Like how a sea creature will smooth over the sand and the irritation, into a smooth pearl, I would like to do that with the wounds in my life--to sort of create beauty with them and heal them. Like a pearl.

lol if my lips had botox and plastic surgery I think they might be more like this. But it's a picture--it doesn't have to be exactly like reality--it just has to not bother me a lot. I like the red against that pthalo green/blue color and the little bit of yellow.


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## Squirt

@WickerDeer The drunk painting experiment made me realize I don’t like drunk painting, lol. I had such a hard time focusing my eyes on the subject and it was frustrating. I also do much better sober. It was fun to give it a try and see what would happen, though! Don’t be too hard on yourself. 🥂


----------



## mia-me

Absolutely chuffed and near euphoric over something that others might consider to be minor! I've finally managed to take the quality of pics that I've always wanted to take. Never thought it was a camera problem and chalked it up to my skill level or more precisely, lack thereof. Apparently not, especially since the pics were taken with a kit zoom. Now I need some serious glass to see what else might be possible! -dances in circles-


----------



## WickerDeer

Uh I saved a quote I am reminded of:

" ' Double starts' --Drawing the major structural and gestural lines of two paintings, within one hour--help drive the creation of a collection of work forward." --Valerie Collymore

I really like the colors in her paintings--I really want to work on mixing colors because I think that is a big deal with oils and I tend to want to just go by the seat of my pants, but premixing colors will help the painting have harmony.

I am not sure what she means by double starts, but I can see how starting two or more paintings can drive creation, because I often find that blank canvas stage daunting, and so perhaps better for me than having to do one at a time.

I gessoed a large canvas--larger than anything I've painted on. I mean, not as big as it could be, but 3ft x 2ft. So far I have only painted like one foot in oil.

My old professor used to say that painting large is easier than small.

I intend to start it, but I don't have any idea what to paint. I love figures and I enjoyed my shitty/drunk self-portrait as much as it looks like total crap. I think just going into figurative is nice--I just...

So I often would find subjects through stock-photos, but I get really tired of looking through stock photos because they feel so mass-produced and generic. I feel I can still use them to compose a painting though.

But I also wanted to try to do landscapes--so I could try to make a landscape or a still life...ugh I forgot to take a photo of this arrangement I had on a desk, but had to move...of just small objects. TBH I already do "still lives" just for myself--without the intention of photographing or painting them. Just tend to collect small objects, natural objects--then this morning the light was shining through making a rainbow prism lighting on the objects, which I was going to photograph but the light has changed.

It is an arrangement of shells, rocks and gems, and an ostrich feather and a peacock feather (I used to work where there was a bunch of wild peacocks) and a couple bead covered small boxes. On a plate. 

But y'know--could just paint that for practice. Why not.

This is always so difficult for me...like I have this giant white canvas and I really haven't got any idea what should go on there.

Or I could try to create an idea that is origami inspired. 

When I did the self portrait I just sat down and looked in the mirror and started. The more I think about it...the more it perhaps becomes embellished? And then too much? I am sure either way will be good--I mean, it's really just a large, warped canvas (the fog warped it so it's twisted) and I shouldn't overthink it too much--whatever it is it will be good, and it will be good practice.


----------



## WickerDeer

Maybe...in an art class, I would just see everyone start and I would just be like "fuck it" and start something, because the teacher just wants you to do SOMETHING.

And I think I need to remember that mindset. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's just practice or not. Who knows. Most of life is not perfect.

I could just draw some naked woman on there and I'm sure it'd turn out nice because who doesn't like naked women? 

Or I could challenge myself to try a...landscape, and maybe I will surprise myself and it will be interesting. I could stand to improve with that.

Or I could design something more complex. But with this shitty canvas, perhaps it's better to just go with "practice" since it's already warped anyway and it's the first time I've ever painted on this size. Yes...I think better to think of it like practice.


----------



## WickerDeer

I ended up painting a naked woman on the two by three foot canvas...

It was from a drawing that I made with charcoal--so I wasn't sure how it would work, since I am not using a realistic reference. I also do not know what to do, but w/e it's good to be free to experiment.

I like figures, but I also feel disappointed that I wouldn't really want to share them with family.

Then I started painting ANOTHER nude figure.

It was like night of the nude female figures. 

I really like this subject, but I don't like how awkward it seems to share it or display it. But maybe it's that awkwardness that I am also attracted to, because it represents the things we sort of ignore as a society. The discomfort we have with our own bodies. And tbh the discomfort and questioning that I have of the relationship between the subject and object--of the nature of objectification and the material world. 

So um...but I also put a big flower in the painting. 

Looking through my old charcoal sketches, I had at first thought--no...I can't crop it like that, because I'm just copyng the photographer, and then realized I am the "photographer" and I also drew it--it's not a photo. 

I wonder how this will go--it would be nice to see someone else who uses this and how they solve the problems, painting from drawings. Though I guess that is what they would have done before photography.

I was thinking about trying to cover the figure with origami patterns, or else making a landscape across her body...perhaps incorporate her form into the landscape somehow.


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## Celtsincloset

I could research how to create compelling characters; I already know how to make them, but to make them even better. I could look into my favourite story, and ask myself, how did they make these characters stand out so much, that I could do the same thing for my own characters. But then I realised, is it really worth doing? I've felt this before. This isn't the fun part; will I even care about these characters if I were to know how to make them 'great'...

I decided not to do it, instead, I will _discover_ (develop) these characters and how to make them pop out, through my own _creation. _Not so much research. Writing little stories about them, that's my plan for the next week or so, and perhaps even beyond.


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## WickerDeer

I actually really like it--which makes me not want to work on it more for now. I feel like there are some really big problems with the proportions and other aspects, but I find the image, itself, so pleasing right now that I think I will move on to something else, and then work on that.

I don't know...what I'm doing.

It's clearly sexual as well, which is another reason I wouldn't really want to exhibit it in front of family or anything. I think it has a lot of potential too--but I'm not ready to commit to what that might look like.

It just looks like a big ass (in some ways). But y'know, asses are important and deserve respect. And that is a large cactus blossom too.

Idk--I'll figure it out. But I feel apprehensive about working on it because I already like the composition--even if I also feel it is not very good. How does that even work.

And then...is it objectifying? And what does it mean to me, as a woman?


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## WickerDeer

I feel like I maybe didn't spend my day as well as I should have.

I didn't paint anything--just gesso'd a couple canvasses, which will be good for the future.

I mean...and I don't know what's really useful.

Like I gesso canvasses, and they will be useful. But...starting a painting is a bigger responsibility.

I have no idea waht it means to be responsible for a painting? I should do a deep dive into artist manifestos and philosophies, because I'm certain I am not the first person to have worried about this.

Maybe I should research what books for visual artists, because I feel so lost.


----------



## mia-me

Beyond stoked! It's been a long time since I've felt so alive and all because of creative possibilities.


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## WickerDeer

I decided to start reading an instruction book for oil painting--maybe trying to be more formal about this will help me. 

I feel like I'd rather just be in a class and interact with people. But for now it will be interacting with myself and a book. haha which is still great. I can't complain.

First lesson is about how to do brush strokes. It will allow me to get acquainted with the brushes and what they do--and feel more comfortable with them.

I mean...I'll be honest, I do get this sort of familiar rapport with art materials--and I guess I associate them with instructors too, because I had positive feelings and interactions with my art instructors. 

Like every little "mundane" thing is colored by these positive emotional interactions and memories...so they all have some meaning to me. When I pick up a charcoal I feel that. It's like we have a history--like we know each other very well.

Maybe I just need to have some pretend teaparty with all my painting supplies and I'll get closer to being comfortable with them. 

I'm not sure how to describe it. So when I'm just reading a book I don't really get that emotional aspect. But I still think it will be helpful. I don't feel a great kinship with the author yet, but maybe if I read more of it I will. I am certain I will learn about the brushes.


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## WickerDeer

I had a dream a while back...it was partly about my ancestors relationships (I never met my grandfather but he was in it).

But one of the images in the dream was a bouquet of red roses that was sitting in a vase, and it was sort of wrapped in lace, but the lace was not covering the front of the vase, and where it was open, you could see water running down the front of the vase, covering it in moving water.

It was like it was leaking from the top, just overflowing and running down, spilling.

I thought there is a crack in the vase but the water was still full. It was just moving like a waterfall. Leaking.

I thought about trying to paint it at the time, but was working on digital art and now I think it might be easier to do with actual paint--idk.

Just thinking of it because I was thinking of how to maybe think about thinking (I love my writing--I'm never redundant), about some concepts. 

But it might be useful for symbolism or imagery about a topic I just thought of.


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## KindaSnob!

WickerDeer said:


> I had a dream a while back...it was partly about my ancestors relationships (I never met my grandfather but he was in it).
> 
> But one of the images in the dream was a bouquet of red roses that was sitting in a vase, and it was sort of wrapped in lace, but the lace was not covering the front of the vase, and where it was open, you could see water running down the front of the vase, covering it in moving water.
> 
> It was like it was leaking from the top, just overflowing and running down, spilling.
> 
> I thought there is a crack in the vase but the water was still full. It was just moving like a waterfall. Leaking.
> 
> I thought about trying to paint it at the time, but was working on digital art and now I think it might be easier to do with actual paint--idk.
> 
> Just thinking of it because I was thinking of how to maybe think about thinking (I love my writing--I'm never redundant), about some concepts.
> 
> But it might be useful for symbolism or imagery about a topic I just thought of.


Reading your latest posts, i assume that you might have some vague water imagery in your headspace lately? I don't know why but i just got that vibe! Also i'm back and i really need to catch up to this thread. 

Also i hope you would eventually make some painting out of the dream! I think it would be great.


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## KindaSnob!

Recently i've been taking photos of trees and streetlights a lot and the autumn is the peak here now! I have always loved this season as far as i remember, but i'm not really feeling it this year. 😕 I feel like i should have took lots of photos in summer when the leaves were green. I think i should really let myself relax and enjoy the autumn scenery. Would like to take some lighthearted photos like autumn in last year. Maybe i should practice indoor photos using this time!

Also i found out that admission tests for art schools require cameras with no wifi equipment to prevent cheating... But every DSLR that is made since mid-2010s have that! I was kind of forced to buy one of old cameras with inflated price. The cheapest ones were damaged used ones with scars from removing molds. I eventually bought never-used canon camera that was stuffed into storage after being displayed. It is relatively cheap but it is still a camera! Now i have two cameras and i kind of feel guilty. I feel like i don't deserve two cameras. Also since i'm still very young, i had to buy it with parents' money... I feel really bad. Maybe i should try to get some part-time job near and slowly pay them back.

But i would be lying if i said i wasn't actually happy that i got new camera.
Now that i hold the new camera, i realized how cheap and easy to handle was my old Nikon camera.
I'm actually very excited.


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## WickerDeer

I finally got all the supplies together to start the book lessons on oil painting, and today I did the first lesson.

And I was really pleased about one technique, especially--it was supposed to use a "hake" brush...but I don't know what that is, really, so I just used a soft brush I had that says it's for glazes, but it feels soft like a watercolor brush (I think I used it to brush off silver leaf before, because it had pieces of silver leaf in it, but it is that soft).

I was really into the results though!

You can put down say...different colors or brush strokes in the oil with another harder brush, and then you can take the dry soft brush, and lightly brush over the wet oil paint, and it blurs it...it makes the lines between the colors soften, and so it's really neat to me. It's a lot like the blur tool in digital painting.

So you can sharpen some strokes and then let others blend together more.

I'm not sure how it can be used but I really liked it. 

I wonder what it might look like with several layers built up like that--with some sharper and some blurred.

Maybe that is the technique that some impressionists used to make the really soft lines...though probably not. IDK--but this painting, I was always impressed by the way the girl's eyes and some parts are sharp but some parts of the portrait are so soft, and the edges are so blurred

Maybe it could do something like that?

(these are two paintings by Renoir--which the effect of the soft dry brush over the other strokes reminded me of how soft some of Renoir's paintings look in some parts...but IDK how he painted.)










Eh probably not--it will probably take me a long time if I ever really understand how he painted. But it was still exciting to me to learn how to soften.

I will just have to keep experimenting and learning.


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## KindaSnob!

WickerDeer said:


> I finally got all the supplies together to start the book lessons on oil painting, and today I did the first lesson.
> 
> And I was really pleased about one technique, especially--it was supposed to use a "hake" brush...but I don't know what that is, really, so I just used a soft brush I had that says it's for glazes, but it feels soft like a watercolor brush (I think I used it to brush off silver leaf before, because it had pieces of silver leaf in it, but it is that soft).
> 
> I was really into the results though!
> 
> You can put down say...different colors or brush strokes in the oil with another harder brush, and then you can take the dry soft brush, and lightly brush over the wet oil paint, and it blurs it...it makes the lines between the colors soften, and so it's really neat to me. It's a lot like the blur tool in digital painting.
> 
> So you can sharpen some strokes and then let others blend together more.
> 
> I'm not sure how it can be used but I really liked it.
> 
> I wonder what it might look like with several layers built up like that--with some sharper and some blurred.
> 
> Maybe that is the technique that some impressionists used to make the really soft lines...though probably not. IDK--but this painting, I was always impressed by the way the girl's eyes and some parts are sharp but some parts of the portrait are so soft, and the edges are so blurred
> 
> Maybe it could do something like that?
> 
> (these are two paintings by Renoir--which the effect of the soft dry brush over the other strokes reminded me of how soft some of Renoir's paintings look in some parts...but IDK how he painted.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Eh probably not--it will probably take me a long time if I ever really understand how he painted. But it was still exciting to me to learn how to soften.
> 
> I will just have to keep experimenting and learning.


I'm glad to hear that you did your first lesson. I didn't know there were specific brushes for each painting techniques! No wonder that there are so many details on all these paintings... Hope you would post it here when you get to use that technique on your painting. 🙂 i think it would be inspiring to see you applying it someday!


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## KindaSnob!

Wearing mask and taking a picture sucks... my glasses get foggy whenever i exhale. But if i don't wear one, i can't see anything through that small viewfinder... i wonder how other people cope with this. Also why am i being so lazy lately? I think overthinking really got to me. Maybe i just need to do whatever i want without trying too much.


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## WickerDeer

General notes about the book lessons:

I should have finished the chapter lesson when I started it--instead I cleaned up all the paint and brushes, and thought "blending" would be just as big of a lesson, but it wasn't.

It was supposed to be attached to the brushstroke lesson (which I did)...so I pulled out the paint and started, but I found after only a few exercises it was done.

So then I spent the rest of my time (because I didn't want to waste the paint or the effort into setting up), painting freestyle, which resulted in a nude woman walking to the left, with tall boots on (I originally just painted her thigh up, and her hands looked kind of like claws. But I think it was still a good experience.

It turned out kind of muddy but hopefully with time I will be able to avoid that.

It's interesting as an exercise in what anatomy I remember, and also even why...lol. But I think the boots just came in because I originally painted just from above the boots...so I filled the legs in later.



I used the glaze brush to blur some of it too--integrating what I learned from the brushstroke assignment with the blending. IDK


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## WickerDeer

I did this lecture--or something similar--with this lady who was talking about making an art business, and being able to make income from art.

The first step she outlined was having an artistic vision, or basically having a cohesive body of work to sell...whether it's prints, knitted caps, originals etc.

But like...she said that way whoever buys the art will know what to expect. And it has to be something you love doing.

I am worried about this step--but it's just for a side business attempt, so it's not like you can't do anything creative outside of this. 

I do wonder though--figure drawing is one of my favorite things--I really like drawing the human form. But at the same time, I don't know how many people would want to buy a print of a naked person, like it's not like everyone wants to have naked people displayed on their walls. 

I also feel awkward showing family or really anyone (especially the parents of the children I cared for at work) nude drawings, because some people get offended by them and I don't want people to think I'm a pervert.

I wonder what it's like to try to sell figure paintings or drawings--who buys them and why, or if anyone does buy them.


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## WickerDeer

Not to mention, one of her points was to open up to an international community who might purchase whatever art (prints, scarves whatever)...but there are enough sexually repressed Americans who can't handle nudity--across the rest of the world I am sure there are countries that are even more offended by seeing nude human beings, or just expect it to be pornography crafted just for their own sexual appetites which, no thanks--the art world doesn't revolve around your dick.

Even on IG and I'm sure facebook, artists have to blur out live drawings and paintings, so I think that figure painting/drawing is becoming more difficult to even show.


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## Celtsincloset

WickerDeer said:


> I did this lecture--or something similar--with this lady who was talking about making an art business, and being able to make income from art.
> 
> The first step she outlined was having an artistic vision, or basically having a cohesive body of work to sell...whether it's prints, knitted caps, originals etc.
> 
> But like...she said that way whoever buys the art will know what to expect. And it has to be something you love doing.
> 
> I am worried about this step--but it's just for a side business attempt, so it's not like you can't do anything creative outside of this.
> 
> I do wonder though--figure drawing is one of my favorite things--I really like drawing the human form. But at the same time, I don't know how many people would want to buy a print of a naked person, like it's not like everyone wants to have naked people displayed on their walls.
> 
> I also feel awkward showing family or really anyone (especially the parents of the children I cared for at work) nude drawings, because some people get offended by them and I don't want people to think I'm a pervert.
> 
> I wonder what it's like to try to sell figure paintings or drawings--who buys them and why, or if anyone does buy them.


I think you can both do this, create your figure drawings/paintings that bare all, but also do other _similar_ works that can be more marketable. If you’re going to interest a buyer with one of these works, they might find your other work (ones with nudity) even more desirable. And you’ve brought someone in. Just my two cents.

Well, I feel ashamed talking about or showing my art too. Just show them your passion for it, and they’ll get over it.


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## WickerDeer

My laptop charger broke and I think it helped to eliminate that distraction, but even though I did more of the lessons--like I made a color wheel and worked on lightening and darkening colors and also on adjusting chroma, I still didn't feel very satisfied.

Then I made a page of grays which I felt a little better about.

It just feels lost. 

Like what is that?

Why sometimes something can feel so satisfying and other times no matter what I do or how much, it's not enough?

I think the grays will be good though--b/c I love contrast and so being able to contrast between more neutral colors that are very pale and more vivid, bright colors, or darker ones...it'll be good.

I don't know why my turpenoid doesn't ever settle though--like I thought you are supposed to be able to get the clear stuff after pigment settles, but pigment never seems to settle. 

I mixed colors a lot while trying to learn watercolor, but I think a lot was just mixing on paper. With oils, it is good to take this time to understand mixing more, because a lot of people mix colors on their palette and then use the pre-mixed colors for the painting (as mixing on canvas can get muddy).

I also learned about shadows--which I am kind of excited about. Because I love complementary colors. So I am excited to try painting shadows using a darkened version of the objects color and the complement. 

I am glad I finished the assignments but I look forward to feeling satisfied with something--being to put the information together to produce a work and then become better at it until I feel like I kind of know what I'm doing.


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## WickerDeer

I had a shitty day so I am just going to focus on this.

I saw a painting this morning and I thought it was pretty--I wondered to myself, whether or not I could do it. Perhaps it will be easier...I think I will skip the assignment in the lesson I'm doing. Idk--if I was in a class and had to face another person as my teacher, I would do it, but I just don't want to bother. 

I think I'll challenge myself in my own way--perhaps I will try to do something like a thin underpainting or something like that. Idk.

I saw a cactus with a bunch of bees the other day and I took some photos--one of the paintings I started has a similar type of cactus flower in it, so perhaps I will add bees. Why not.

Or perhaps use the photos as inspiration.

I think I just need to try to apply what I learned in my own way.

Let's see--why was it beautiful? It was--maybe I'll try a thin wash--if it doesn't work I can always paint over it anyway.

Some things suck--I feel bummed. Better wake up and work on it more tomorrow though. But that was a nice thing this morning--seeing a painting. The artist who made it wasn't done either. They were just going to keep working on it. There are so many ways to make a painting.


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## Celtsincloset

Okay so, after being confused about which story I should focus on, which usually happens whenever I restart my writing routine, I decided to stick with _My Alley. _It's not got that quality yet, that my other three big fish have; and I know that for a debut novel, or at least _debut manuscript_ which I'll hopefully send to a publisher, it has to _be_ one of your big fish. The greatest, or most meaningful story that you want to tell, whether it be for the plot, or for the characters; shouldn't it be the one, one should focus on? All three of my big fish stories, I can do this, flesh them out into something I can consider great. But My Alley is inspired by recent events, and my word two months ago was that I would work on it. It may not be a big fish story, yet, so I decided I would work on it for two weeks, or even a month, and then see if it can gleam that quality, that I may have seen for it a few years back, though it was a bit of a different story.


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## WickerDeer

I need to take a break from social media and this site again. Seeing myself as "top contributor of the month" should be a wake up call.

It is helpful to write about things--and can also be helpful for others who are processing and understanding themselves. But the distraction is something I should take seriously if I have ADD. The procrastination. And so I really should just stop.

Not to mention that I just came on to edit something and say I'm going to try to take a break, but then instead started arguing about politics. So...yeah.

I need to take responsibility for if I have some dopamine low system that procrastinates too much, and instead I should be focusing on being productive.

I have felt that Rhodiola Rosea helped me, and I'm interested in trying out a couple other things--I also found Ginseng helps give energy but without the same problems as caffeine. 

I should really just shift my focus though so I can focus on what needs to be done. And that means I need to quit it with the social media and being "top contributor"--that is the last thing I need to be doing right now.


----------



## mia-me

WickerDeer said:


> I need to take a break from social media and this site again. Seeing myself as "top contributor of the month" should be a wake up call.
> 
> It is helpful to write about things--and can also be helpful for others who are processing and understanding themselves. But the distraction is something I should take seriously if I have ADD. The procrastination. And so I really should just stop.
> 
> Not to mention that I just came on to edit something and say I'm going to try to take a break, but then instead started arguing about politics. So...yeah.
> 
> I need to take responsibility for if I have some dopamine low system that procrastinates too much, and instead I should be focusing on being productive.
> 
> I have felt that Rhodiola Rosea helped me, and I'm interested in trying out a couple other things--I also found Ginseng helps give energy but without the same problems as caffeine.
> 
> I should really just shift my focus though so I can focus on what needs to be done. And that means I need to quit it with the social media and being "top contributor"--that is the last thing I need to be doing right now.


As a firm believer in taking breaks from social media, with or without a reason, hope your break helps you to attain your goal. You'll be missed.


----------



## Celtsincloset

WickerDeer said:


> I need to take a break from social media and this site again. Seeing myself as "top contributor of the month" should be a wake up call.
> 
> It is helpful to write about things--and can also be helpful for others who are processing and understanding themselves. But the distraction is something I should take seriously if I have ADD. The procrastination. And so I really should just stop.
> 
> Not to mention that I just came on to edit something and say I'm going to try to take a break, but then instead started arguing about politics. So...yeah.
> 
> I need to take responsibility for if I have some dopamine low system that procrastinates too much, and instead I should be focusing on being productive.
> 
> I have felt that Rhodiola Rosea helped me, and I'm interested in trying out a couple other things--I also found Ginseng helps give energy but without the same problems as caffeine.
> 
> I should really just shift my focus though so I can focus on what needs to be done. And that means I need to quit it with the social media and being "top contributor"--that is the last thing I need to be doing right now.


A suggestion. You could always set a screen timer, 20 minutes of use before you rest your eyes for 25 seconds, and after three mini sessions (an hour) you take a 10 minute or so break. Enough time to focus on other things. You could use a work-out timer for this. But yeah, whatever works for you.


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## WickerDeer

mia-me said:


> As a firm believer in taking breaks from social media, with or without a reason, hope your break helps you to attain your goal. You'll be missed.


Thank you! I'm not sure I'll just completely avoid--but maybe picking certain hours of the day that are off limits. That's helped before--like I could only use it before 6am (then I have to wake up early if I want to) etc.

I'm not sure yet.

@Celtsincloset that's a good idea with the timer--my cell phone can do timer and I'd like to do more advanced timer stuff too, and alarms, because people have said it can help with focus and attention. Thanks.


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## WickerDeer

I don't want to give attention to negative online experiences, but recently I have had a renewed sense of "wtf humanity" from how people act online. Along with, of course, being aware of the many other things people do that are completely wrong and unethical in all area of life.

But this morning, I was watching some videos of one of my favorite artists--her content is very fantastical, but it's also sort of child-like. It reminds me of things I may have thought of as a child, and she tends to paint in a realistic and traditional way, but she paints scenes with a lot of girls (like young girls), animals, and fantastical animals like unicorns or flying kittens. 

As a child I used to like to paint tigers with wings and unicorns, and I can't help feeling comforted by her art--profoundly, this morning.

It is a world in which there simply are not bad guys, there aren't predatory people, and even the predator/prey relationship in nature is not present. 

And while I normally view this as sort of child-ish maybe? Not really, but it's glaring that it's always peaceful, always loving, always beautiful...this morning I realized just how needed it is to have a world in which bad things simply do not exist. In which you can focus on beauty, kindness, goodness, and love--and in which exciting, unusual combinations exist--such as fish who swim in the air, pigs and kittens who have wings, kind dragons, can all coexist peacefully with each other along with little girls and vulnerable maidens, who never end up being harmed.

So it was very profound, and I was very grateful to know her work. She is working on a lot of tiny paintings right now--I saw she did one of bunnies, and of a lamb, and of a fish swimming through a forest, and of a baby unicorn.

And I think I want to be inspired to do something like that--perhaps instead of trying to do a painting every day challenge, just a 10 paintings in 10 days challenge. I don't actually know how to paint traditionally (or to paint at all) but I would like to try to learn, as inspired by her work.


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## WickerDeer

Alright--time to start bringing this back to the forefront of my thought.

I often times feel sort of paralyzed by not knowing what to do. I haven't got a plan, and I don't even like plans. I know how to basically plan out a painting...you know, like you figure out the composition.

It's the idea that I struggle with.

I think I get a collection of themes but I don't know how to explore them. But that's probably what defines some bodies of artwork--I mean, like a collection of a certain body of work. It doesn't just have to be one way.

I still haven't finished the other two paintings I started though--one of them is a large female nude figure with a cactus flower so far.

Another is a female form with some bird forms and some aquatic forms. I had done a print of that one, but tried to do it again--I am sort of paralyzed by not wanting to work on it. Perhaps I'm afraid I'll make a mistake. It is done on a canvas I put silver leaf on, so I can see why I'd be more afraid of that since I was hoping some of the silver leaf would show through.

Idk. Or I could just practice more--since I genuinely don't know how to paint still. And just follow the oil painting book instructions--but they want me to paint a fruit and I don't want to. My art instructor would just make me do it and then I'd learn something, but on my own I will just avoid it and do nothing.

I also started painting a drunk portrait a long time ago that never completely finished, which I could finish. Oh and also a picture of a bird that is very colorful. And a mountain.

Ok I have a lot of unfinished paintings going on, I guess.

This is contrasted with when I first started, I was setting the goal of a finished painting in one day...and so I had a lot of finished paintings, but they weren't very well planned out or of much theme, just like sketches of things I saw.

I just have to do more but idk...I guess maybe I'm just nervous of making mistakes or making things I'll be unhappy with, but I'm not doing anything which means I'm not improving.

Or I could just go on to a different medium like silk painting or origami. Or I could just use the concept of origami in the paintings, which was one of the ideas that inspired me with the female figure paintings.


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## WickerDeer

This was a really cool video though--this guy shows how many different activities can all feed together into his creative work.

It's cool to see people's processes.


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## WickerDeer

I think it's just I felt some idea should be fully complete before starting. Which hasn't ever worked for me.

But when I think about the themes of these paintings and things I've been working on--they do share threads and themes. There is some cohesion there. 

The repeated bird imagery. The aquatic imagery. The theme of lust and sensuality. Of completion and perfection. The emotional and intellectual being in harmony. The sensual and the spiritual also being in harmony and balance. So...I maybe need to just have faith in the process...to accept that I might be blind to the outcome to a degree, but to still just move into it blindly...to trust that there is some greater purpose or something that seeks to come together, even if I don't know consciously what it is.

I don't have to have it all planned out. I don't have to be in control of all of it with my conscious mind. Some of it is just unconscious coming to surface, and I just guide that process by listening to it and following where it leads.

But I don't know where to start again. I still feel something missing...


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## WickerDeer

Perhaps it is those things I need to do like cleaning my room...but that also feels sterile.

It is better organized, but I need to set up my computer in the new desk and I need to go through and get rid of paperwork.

I need to worry about economics.

But all those also just take up my time and energy, not replenish libido or whatever it is that is the energy source for creative activities.

I feel like I need to do some soul searching...to focus exclusively on the invisible, the spiritual, the big picture as it means to me (whatever you want to call it). Soul searching. And soul listening. Because I feel like that piece is missing from the modern life and expectations. I will always have someone reminding me I must take care of paperwork (the paperwork itself is demanding). But no one will remind me to look within and listen to myself and what my unconscious is telling me, and what is truly meaningful to me.

No--that will be conspicuously missing from most people's messages they try to impress upon me.

So perhaps that is why I feel it's the missing thing though many people might complain I spend more time focusing on that then I should.

But did I spend quality time? Have I really spent real QUALITY TIME doing that lately? Undisturbed time? Prioritized time? Not for a long time--last time may have been Mabon and even that was only a day.


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## WickerDeer

So what is this?

Faith.

How to have faith.






This is about multitasking in "slow motion" which I kind of get. I just maybe need to have faith in myself. This isn't really what I was looking for though--because it's interesting, but I am looking for a way to have faith.

But I am seeing it's suggesting not to push a single one idea too much, but to go where the mood takes you and multi-task, putting some things on the back burner and attending to others as inspiration comes.


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## WickerDeer

ok maybe this is more helpful idk...it's called "how to have faith."


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## WickerDeer

He says lief means "wish" so it is really a strong wish.

He says "if you really have faith you don't need belief." 

So maybe I need belief and not faith, or both.

I do think I need a wish also--a wish and also a faith. Because I am trying to bring something into the world. Not just have faith in what's already here.


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## WickerDeer

I mean...when I was a child I did sometimes make wishes. I was taught you make wishes on stars. And I remember distinctly wishing that all the rivers were made of chocolate and that the ground was made of beef jerky.

lol

And I think that's why I don't trust my wishing, because if that had actually come true, it would have been apocalyptic. 

And so I have a lot of trouble wishing and I take it very seriously.

So maybe the soul searching I really want to do is that--to listen to the deepest wish of myself and also of the rest of the world, and find a harmony between them...or maybe not "the deepest" but just a very strong one, that I can harness for my creative purpose.

Maybe wishes are like horses. Maybe they are like the sun rising in the east. They can emerge from the unconscious or appear when you least expect them. But if you don't take the time to follow them, they will also ignore you.

I mean, maybe not the sun because it always ignores everyone anyway. But it does offer illumination and announces the beginning of something.


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## WickerDeer

I think maybe too...I am just having trouble finishing things. Because if I have a bunch of unfinished paintings that I won't get back to...that is also going to disrupt the natural process. I don't want to "end" things. It's something described by Kiersey as a P thing.

And maybe that is the problem. Because I have refused to finish what I started because I am afraid that I won't fulfill its potential, I am stagnant. I have created sterility.

Maybe I just need to follow it so I don't feel so responsible...because if I hold on to it and guide it then it will not be showing me anything new.

So perhaps I need faith in the art itself--the art project. And to let go and just allow it to guide me. And if I do an imperfect job of what it is expressing, that is okay--I am only human.


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## WickerDeer

WickerDeer said:


> I think maybe too...I am just having trouble finishing things. Because if I have a bunch of unfinished paintings that I won't get back to...that is also going to disrupt the natural process. I don't want to "end" things. It's something described by Kiersey as a P thing.
> 
> And maybe that is the problem. Because I have refused to finish what I started because I am afraid that I won't fulfill its potential, I am stagnant. I have created sterility.
> 
> Maybe I just need to follow it so I don't feel so responsible...because if I hold on to it and guide it then it will not be showing me anything new.
> 
> So perhaps I need faith in the art itself--the art project. And to let go and just allow it to guide me. And if I do an imperfect job of what it is expressing, that is okay--I am only human.


I think THIS. THIS feels the closest to right.


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## WickerDeer

The scenes with the wisps are my favorite scenes from Brave because it kind of reminds me of this idea:






They must not be letting the whole clip out. But perhaps she's got to let go of control (by falling off the horse) and then also she is in a circle of stones, which sort of suggests she is alone--she is following something of herself but not really. And then she has some faith in the wisps.

But just as a metaphor, since in folktales often people got lost when following things like wisps in reality--and could be dangerous or not.

I guess the point is that she doesn't have to know where they are going.


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## WickerDeer

There is also the tradition of Invoking the Muse in literature--this claims to be ancient Greek song about invoking the muse?


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## WickerDeer

Another version of the Ancient Greek song Invocation of the Muse


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## WickerDeer




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## WickerDeer

I don't think there are Greek Muses for visual art:








HellenicGods.org - MUSES - MOUSAI - ΜΟΥΣΑΙ


FOTO: Antique 19th century painted spelter statues of Tháleia and Eftǽrpi in the possession of the author. Foto taken by the author who releases it to the Public Domain. HellenicGods.org HOME GLOSSARY RESOURCE ART LOGOS CONTACT "From the Heliconian




www.hellenicgods.org





Visual artists weren't seen as being divinely inspired, I guess. 

There is Pygmalion and Galatea who was trapped in his own perfection.






And also Arachne

Who wove the truth (with all the imperfections) and was punished by being turned into a spider.

So Ancient Greeks don't really give very reassuring stories. :/


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## WickerDeer




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## WickerDeer

So I think the solution is still to have faith in the creature itself--the creature of artwork. And myself. And just follow it. 

Not to try to hold on to it with my conscious mind, but to follow it--to submit to it in a way. Or at least submit to the process and have faith.

If belief is a wish then that is also fine--it could be the wish that brings it into being anyway. The wish to be created or to create.

Idk. 

I mean, it's not uncommon to hear wood carvers or carvers of marble either, say that they work with the stone or the wood to bring out the shape inside of it. Not necessarily have everything perfectly planned out beforehand like an architect.


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## WickerDeer

Reminds me of Shinto a little:





27 minutes is interesting, with the myth. But I think I just need to do soul searching.


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## WickerDeer

In conclusion, I think I just need to allow my own private connection between myself and the project I am working on, and to listen and have faith in that.


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## superloco3000

lol , I am quite similar to you in the approach to the creation of a work, I have many unfinished projects and when the initial spark is lost I only see them as failed children.

When I was a student it was easier for me to finish projects because I had to sacrifice ideas to achieve the goals.
I have also searched for the muse in all kinds of beliefs .... I believe that a great motivation for me is the combination of logic, emotion and beauty, to show the true individual spirit.

Now I am having internal battles to finish a project I started a month ago, I still ask myself : should I destroy a whole section ? Should I start something else? Do I persevere to the end? Do I need to look at things from another perspective? , ect.

Obviously it must be P and Ne maybe, but I am also aware that when one starts an artistic creative process it must be finished even if its quality doesn't seem the best to you.
Well I have been thinking about having several projects, like a big one where I try to put all the spiritual concepts and inner experiences, and other small ones much easier to do, like copying a style and creating a version of that.


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## WickerDeer

This is going to be a rant about productivity and my weird idea about it.,

It is currently 7:30AM and my mindset is already "well I didn't do yoga or follow the schedule, so the entire day is LOST and I may as well give up on trying to do anything productive today and just start again tomorrow."

The fact that it's BARELY LIGHT OUT and my mind has already jumped to this conclusion really shows how absurd and distorted it is.

I wonder where it came from. Just being a quitter? Perfectionism for sure--like I am not being "perfectly productive" today so I may as well give up the entire day, because I already perused the internet and started off with daydreaming rather than doing what I should (which I have no idea really how to or what that is).

I cannot just go with that...it is seven fucking thirty in the morning. The day has not been lost yet. WTF.


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## WickerDeer

I guess I feel anxious because I don't know what to do or how to do it. I don't know how to be "productive" and I don't know how to be "efficient."

And I feel very uneasy about that...like what if I fail? 

Idk--it's like my life isn't my own I guess...like the projects I would do would not be for me, but they would be for this abstract goal of proving how "productive" I can be, which I am not even sure how to do that since I probably would minimize my achievements anyway and conclude I hadn't actually done anything worthwhile.


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## WickerDeer

This book looks interesting--I am reminded of Isabelle Allende's Zorro and some of the tropes in it.


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## WickerDeer

Maybe it's like the unconscious "shadow personality" of the Si or Te...ESTJ. He says I'm not being productive, but I say that I am FAR MORE productive than him.

What would Jung say you are supposed to do? I guess not "hold the object" so "aloof." So I have to just accept the object close to me (in this case, maybe like an art project or some other project) and maybe claim it? Or didn't he say you're not supposed to try to dominate it.

Idk I'm confused. But it feels right to yell at the productive guy and tell him I:M THE PRODUCTIVE ONE NOT HIM. He's just overly critical.

Systems family theory or whatever--internal systems dynamic something would say I could ask him "who are you protecting?" And then also..."what would you be doing if you didn't have to protect them?" Because that theory says that there are guardians within ourselves that get sort of rigid and not always functional. They protect weak, afraid parts of ourselves. So that this Productivity Judge is protecting an undeveloped and weak part of me that lacks confidence. It thinks it must protect it to allow it to survive.


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## WickerDeer




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## WickerDeer

I haven't got any idea what to do now, but maybe if I do more planning/lists/graphs etc. I can then also find some room to just claim and allow myself to passionately pursue projects that allow me to feel alive and connect with a sense of meaning. I don't really remember what the counselor said to do next, except just start that dialogue.


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## WickerDeer




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## WickerDeer

I think I will edit all these with pictures instead--because it's very personal. 

But the conclusion would be good to remember and it is nothing secret or anything--just personal so I don't feel like leaving it up. I do think that it's similar to Jung's concept about the unconscious personality and also internal family systems theory.


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## Squirt

@WickerDeer If you’re getting overwhelmed by your (self-imposed) schedule, it may need some adjustment - paring down, most likely. What are your real priorities?

Pick one important thing you need to do today - something that after you do it, you’ll get that sense of accomplishment. _One thing. _Then do that. Whenever I start to get “off track” or distracted, this mindset helps to refocus. It can even be a small or simple thing. Like unloading the dishwasher that’s needed it for days or completing one sketch that has been on your mind a while.

A schedule or plan for a day isn’t about you _as a person_, it is about what you need or want to get out of your time and energy. What is actually important for you to do in this moment?

If you get over that hurdle, then you can think about the next moment. Slowing down, keeping it simple and flexible, rather than speeding up and making it more complicated or rigid.

If that is at all helpful…

Yesterday I procrastinated pretty hard getting the one important thing done. Had to complete a drawing and didn’t leave much time to do it, so I didn’t do as well as I could have. The irony is I struggled to start because I was worried it wouldn’t turn out well. Yet, I was increasing my odds of failure by putting it off - self-sabotage. I think this is what happens when the ego gets wrapped up in shit. It “must be right” all the time, even when working against you.


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## WickerDeer

Thanks @Squirt for some reason I got no notification of your mentions, but glad I saw it.

I think you're right--I need to have a plan and know what is THE most important thing to do. There's one thing I'm dreading, but it's not the most important thing (it's paperwork and honestly, setting up a desk space to process paperwork would be more useful than just doing this one paperwork that I'm putting off).

I think I am having a hard time reconciling the practical with the meaningful to me, and it's just a struggle I'm going to have to go through, and I'm going to also have to wrestle with "reality," which hasn't ever been a great strength of mine (navigating it lol).

I just need to pick something, accept the risk, and think about/plan and just do it. It's something that my "inner critic" could help me with if he loosens up and starts to impose onto reality, rather than onto me. And also I need to not be focusing on that as well--but rather looking outward.

I don't really feel "accomplished" by a lot--I do feel like when I make or finish a painting or drawing, sort of accomplished. But I rarely actually feel that...the most positive feeling I've had is feeling alive at all by doing an activity. So maybe creating a "product" will eventually lead to more feelings of accomplishment. I know the paperwork wouldn't, because it's just something that has to be done regularly.


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## WickerDeer

Maybe I should get back to trying to do something like "finish one creative work a week"--so that at least I do end up feeling accomplished.

When I first began teaching myself to paint I was trying to do more of a "one per day" and it does seem productive. Now I have a bunch of unifinished things.

So maybe not one per day as that's kind of demanding, but one per week seems reasonable, and if it's not perfect OH WELL. I'm improving.

I need some balance of structure. I also need to do some soul searching. But I also need to do some blind leaping.


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## WickerDeer

I'm going to write here as a type of soul searching, since why not--perhaps it needs to take up space somewhere.

The "why" of art--what is it for? What is the purpose?

This question has bothered me. I've been attracted to the idea of useful objects, created beautifully--like the painted vessels that you see in museums. Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn is one of my favorite poems.

But stories and art also do something else--they inspire, they create models, they communicate unconscious things. It's really difficult to identify the utility they play, but they are essential to humanity. Some of the earliest signs of human intelligence were pieces of art and stuff...it's considered a major development in the human brain that we create symbols or express them or whatever, and art.

So I don't know why I get so stuck on it. I guess maybe I just struggle with practicality in general--with pragmatism.

So what would be a project I could pour myself into? I'm afraid of not having energy left over from work or for work, for income--for sustenance. In some ways I would rather just be a fisherman or have some simple life that I could just know will support me without totally draining me, but what fisherman is really like that anyway?

So is it some kind of holy grail? Do I have to find some perfect fit? It seems like a huge task to limit myself to one project or goal. 

I mean, even with art it's like I've done a lot of different techniques--I like charcoal and live drawing, I like printmaking, I like oil paint. I like watercolor. I've tried photography. I started getting into silk painting. I have a collection of soft pastels and have done soft pastels. I fucking have tried a lot of things. And actually doing one of them is difficult.

But I feel like I must pick one. And then another part is like "no you don't have to just pick one." But then it's true--I really do have to just pick one so I can at least risk it becoming a product that someone will actually give me money for.

Or else just do something completely different and then hope I have enough energy at the end of the day to try to find some kind of meaning in a creative project.

And what about something like romance? Where does that fit into anything? I mean, yeah I could like make romantic art or something. Everyone needs/wants romance. Just write romance stories or maybe illustrate porn. Sex sells--would anyone buy paintings/drawings of pornography? I thought about making an adult coloring book that's actually adult, but I don't think so b/c what if a child got ahold of it...I don't even want to be responsible for anything like that being misused.

I mean I'm really kind of have no idea--I was going to say "retarded" but I don't want to insult other people.

Perhaps this is why when people do "soul searching" it's not easy--they sometimes go on a vision quest with no food or water, or for weeks...or sometimes they see some crazy person who's supposed to deliver an oracle, or go on a pilgrimage to ask God. And so perhaps I should just write a bunch of options and then take them to some kind of sacred place, and throw them in the water, and whatever duck mistakes one for a breadcrumb first is the winner. 

Or else maybe I just try to do what my great grandmother did--she painted oils and she sold paintings, and she also sold prints, and she made enough to survive, and I still had some of her paintings to look at as a child and wonder about the world.

People say "don't quit your day job"==I never had a good day job. My day job paid less than most highschooler's first jobs. Don't quit your dayjob is probably the stupidest advice anyone could give me.


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## WickerDeer

It's "stupid" because do you have any idea (not "you" like...just inner critic or whatever) how much of a day job failure I've been? I am extremely bad at it, and it would take my whole life to even get to be a proper doormat--like a really good one what you don't notice while cleaning your feet on it, and you are like "wow...what a great doormat...these people went above and beyond."

So I would rather just be a shitty something I actually want to do than a perpetually failing random "day-job" professional. I think--it's not a bad trade--the only difference is that one is actually more meaningful to me, so I'm risking more by pursuing it. I'm not even risking anything except my own feelings, mostly. Because I would feel worse failing at something I care about than at something I'm just doing because society told me to.

But I am not some middle class person with a huge distance to fall from--falling is basically the same thing as taking a step forward for me. I'm already on the ground--it's where I have been my entire life. And in some ways that is very reassuring to me because I can just try to fall forward instead of flat on my face.

There are other things in life I want though--so I should do an inventory of those and see if my values and dreams and goals can match up with whatever kind of plan that is or I come up with. I mean, I do need a better day job too...but it's not the most important thing in the world.

I hate admitting I actually had a dream sort of--have some kind of dream. It feels like the most vulnerable, fragile part of myself. But if I never try to let it grow into the light of day, it will always just stay stunted and turn pale from lack of light, like a little sprout trying to grow under a rock.


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## WickerDeer

Also this for inspiration:








(except I feel bad for the bear)

But like a green spout I can grow strong or something...like the hulk. He was perhaps once a weak green sprout but then he got big and strong like a tree...lol Idk But a little anger can help. 

Also my cbt book said that sometimes you can change anxiety into anger--so if you are anxious about something, it's one way to keep from getting panicked or paralyzed, because anger is "opposite" to anxiety (along with pleasure).


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## Squirt

WickerDeer said:


> I don't really feel "accomplished" by a lot--I do feel like when I make or finish a painting or drawing, sort of accomplished. But I rarely actually feel that...the most positive feeling I've had is feeling alive at all by doing an activity. So maybe creating a "product" will eventually lead to more feelings of accomplishment. I know the paperwork wouldn't, because it's just something that has to be done regularly.


That's interesting. Maybe the addiction to a "sense of accomplishment" is more of an extraverted judging motivator, lol.

If not accomplishment, what would give you peace/satisfaction at the end of the day? 



WickerDeer said:


> When I first began teaching myself to paint I was trying to do more of a "one per day" and it does seem productive. Now I have a bunch of unifinished things.
> 
> So maybe not one per day as that's kind of demanding, but one per week seems reasonable, and if it's not perfect OH WELL. I'm improving.


Scale is important to consider. One per day of what? A completed painting? What about paintings that take longer than a day? What about working at least an hour on painting per day if a painting is going to take longer than a day?

I had an issue of impatience with art... if I couldn't complete it in about 3 - 6 hours, I'd never look at it again (well, still have that issue, heh). Some real growth occurred when I set the goal of working at least 10 hours on my artwork. Not necessarily in one sitting - but working at least 10 hours, a complete (digital) painting, no sluffing off. I completed three highly detailed paintings this way, and it was a leap forward. What helped was having a very clear, well-defined goal that aligned with what kind of artist I wanted to become. If I didn't care about getting better at rendering, I wouldn't have been able to get behind that goal. It must always go back to a core value, somewhere... and I must recognize it.

Even practical, tedious activities can be tied back to values. Getting paperwork done might show how you wish to be conscientious about your responsibilities and not let others down. That you have self-discipline to get through even the most unfun necessities. Or, if that doesn't speak to you... maybe that activity isn't actually important. Maybe you can take it off your plate. If that isn't acceptable, why not? What is tugging at you? Why is it _actually _important?



WickerDeer said:


> It's "stupid" because do you have any idea (not "you" like...just inner critic or whatever) how much of a day job failure I've been? I am extremely bad at it, and it would take my whole life to even get to be a proper doormat--like a really good one what you don't notice while cleaning your feet on it, and you are like "wow...what a great doormat...these people went above and beyond."
> 
> So I would rather just be a shitty something I actually want to do than a perpetually failing random "day-job" professional. I think--it's not a bad trade--the only difference is that one is actually more meaningful to me, so I'm risking more by pursuing it. I'm not even risking anything except my own feelings, mostly. Because I would feel worse failing at something I care about than at something I'm just doing because society told me to.
> 
> But I am not some middle class person with a huge distance to fall from--falling is basically the same thing as taking a step forward for me. I'm already on the ground--it's where I have been my entire life. And in some ways that is very reassuring to me because I can just try to fall forward instead of flat on my face.
> 
> There are other things in life I want though--so I should do an inventory of those and see if my values and dreams and goals can match up with whatever kind of plan that is or I come up with. I mean, I do need a better day job too...but it's not the most important thing in the world.
> 
> I hate admitting I actually had a dream sort of--have some kind of dream. It feels like the most vulnerable, fragile part of myself. But if I never try to let it grow into the light of day, it will always just stay stunted and turn pale from lack of light, like a little sprout trying to grow under a rock.


Inventorying your values/dreams sounds like a great idea. I recognize a dilemma - when it is something that is really close to the heart, if you "fail", then it hurts so much more than failing in something you don't value as much. So, best to keep it hidden (not to see the light of day), or never put in full effort to avoid the consequences of that vulnerability. Yet, you're telling yourself an opposite story at the same time - that you'd rather be bad at something you love than something you don't. I state both perspectives this post... so maybe there is a bit of tug of war, there? It's not very compatible.

This just sounds so familiar... that fragility you mention. I was told over and over that art wasn't worth anything when I was trying to pursue it as a profession. Honestly, going into a more respectable profession (a STEM career) was partly to prove my value - that I was serious about being successful and could find something that I was both passionate about and would be "accepted" as objectively worthwhile, and be damn good at it. Years and years later I finally realized that this was my motivation - that I wanted to _prove _something (much of it going back to a fear that I wasn't "fit for survival", a totally distorted concept for self-valuation - I could be hit by lightning or run over by a bus - what would that say about my fitness? lol). 

Yet, when I started to find that success, it wasn't right, either. The more I got into it, the more I sought that success part, indulged in the idea of power, rather than the passion. In the end, just before the wakeup call, I was working so much I was making myself sick. I was determined to keep proving myself even though it no longer aligned with my value system, and it caused a spectacular mental breakdown. Then I had to work through all this sort of self-loathing over having made the mistake, of never wanting to make the mistake again, etc.

I know this isn't your experience, but I see glimmers of the paradox - of being objectively successful and subjectively in alignment with who you are - can it be done at the same time? Maybe for some. Maybe not for others. Maybe that's okay. It's just that... until I decided where I was going and why, I could not plan anything adequately. I could not move myself towards anything. I needed to know the purpose, first and foremost, and be secure in that purpose (even if it is the "wrong" one, apparently). 

At this point, a new paradigm is the allowance for some variation in the plan - that is my cliff. Maybe something won't go anywhere - do it anyway. Maybe this won't turn out - do it anyway. Why do it anyway? Because I want to do it. Because I love doing it. There is nothing to prove. Maybe this is the lesson you've already learned, ha.


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## Iced_Mocha

I consider myself creative and it seems other people do as well. Usually the only "creative" things I do are writing and sketching, and I set a goal for myself to start finishing my novels and have started making lists on which novels I will do first, last, etc. It helps keep me more in control, since nowadays I like showing my work to small audiences. (Sorry if this is too unrelated, this is just my creative life).


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## Squirt

I tried using a graphite holder for drawing and… my my. The pencil shall be forever liberated from it’s wooden cage. Mechanical pencils, once praised for their ease of use and thin leads, have become blunt and flimsy knock-offs, the twinkie to the patisserie. I shall weep no more over ragged, ugly lines and uneven tonal transitions. In this ciborium, points don’t break. The infinitely adjustable tip can be sharpened into a deadly Lance of Longinus and wielded with precision. Selection of hardness and bare, long leads allow supreme control over soft, smooth textures. The valuable graphite powder can be collected from one’s sharpener and spread over the page like a delicate veil for a toned paper effect, or dipped with a brush to add mystique. I no longer dread a full-range value drawing in graphite.

Why the heck wasn’t this gorgeous instrument revealed to me in art school? Criminal.


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## Iced_Mocha

Squirt said:


> I tried using a graphite holder for drawing and… my my. The pencil shall be forever liberated from it’s wooden cage. Mechanical pencils, once praised for their ease of use and thin leads, have become blunt and flimsy knock-offs, the twinkie to the patisserie. I shall weep no more over ragged, ugly lines and uneven tonal transitions. In this ciborium, points don’t break. The infinitely adjustable tip can be sharpened into a deadly Lance of Longinus and wielded with precision. Selection of hardness and bare, long leads allow supreme control over soft, smooth textures. The valuable graphite powder can be collected from one’s sharpener and spread over the page like a delicate veil for a toned paper effect, or dipped with a brush to add mystique. I no longer dread a full-range value drawing in graphite.
> 
> Why the heck wasn’t this gorgeous instrument revealed to me in art school? Criminal.


My friends say I'm too deep.


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## Iced_Mocha

Iced_Mocha said:


> My friends say I'm too deep.


Great writing, by the way. You should be a poet.


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## WickerDeer

I just thought of this while talking to someone, but I really do have this weird fixation with getting things done first thing in the morning, or I feel like a total failure. 

I think I also benefit from getting a tangible art project done in a day...which is why I pulled out a bunch of tiny canvas 4 x 4 inches, because that should be easy to finish or at least mostly finish in one day.

I finished a silk painting before 7am and I finally feel like I did something. I also did a little bit of exercise.

But then I feel lost.

What is up with that? Why do I feel the need to do it before the morning?

Is it because I feel like I need to hide my activity? Like I'm "wasting the day" if I don't do it before sunrise?

I am really curous about this now...because if I am fixating on this OCD-esque (and I'm not being insensitive--I do have anxiety and symptoms of some unusual forms of OCD like pure O)...but this would probably semi-qualify as a compulsion sort of thing...maybe...this expectation that I MUST start the morning a certain way or else the entire day is ruined.

I feel like it's more common than a true OCD thing, but it's become kind of disruptive in my life. So if I can identify it, I might be able to do some CBT therapy to work on it...create some logical affirmations to argue with the illogical ones.

Maybe I'll do it in this thread or a journal--idk...or the CBT thread I made a while back.

It's like this feeling that if I don't start the day productively, I will get lost and not know what to do. Now I also feel like I don't know what to do...and I feel I MUST be productive, but I feel almost nothing I could do would be enough.

So perhaps it's also how I self-talk...I need to set up my desk. Would that be a productive thing to do? How important is it? Is it REALLY the most important thing? Am I actually just wasting my time? Am I being lazy by putting it off or doing it? Wouldn't someone else already have a desk set up? 

It also sounds like an executive functioning thing, sort of. Maybe it's a combo of executive functioning issues (having trouble prioritizing the most important thing) along with anxiety, self-doubt, negative self talk, or ocd.

And maybe it's related to how my ex, when I was in a relationship with him, treated me about doing almost anything--especially art. Maybe it's related to negative messages I've heard and somehow internalized and so I just deal with it by getting scattered and spacing out and engaging in distraction and hoping to try again tomorrow from a "clean start."

But I think understanding that "clean start" idea, and the idea that if I don't start the day perfectly I've ruined everything, that might help me to be more productive.


----------



## Iced_Mocha

WickerDeer said:


> I just thought of this while talking to someone, but I really do have this weird fixation with getting things done first thing in the morning, or I feel like a total failure.
> 
> I think I also benefit from getting a tangible art project done in a day...which is why I pulled out a bunch of tiny canvas 4 x 4 inches, because that should be easy to finish or at least mostly finish in one day.
> 
> I finished a silk painting before 7am and I finally feel like I did something. I also did a little bit of exercise.
> 
> But then I feel lost.
> 
> What is up with that? Why do I feel the need to do it before the morning?
> 
> Is it because I feel like I need to hide my activity? Like I'm "wasting the day" if I don't do it before sunrise?
> 
> I am really curous about this now...because if I am fixating on this OCD-esque (and I'm not being insensitive--I do have anxiety and symptoms of some unusual forms of OCD like pure O)...but this would probably semi-qualify as a compulsion sort of thing...maybe...this expectation that I MUST start the morning a certain way or else the entire day is ruined.
> 
> I feel like it's more common than a true OCD thing, but it's become kind of disruptive in my life. So if I can identify it, I might be able to do some CBT therapy to work on it...create some logical affirmations to argue with the illogical ones.
> 
> Maybe I'll do it in this thread or a journal--idk...or the CBT thread I made a while back.
> 
> It's like this feeling that if I don't start the day productively, I will get lost and not know what to do. Now I also feel like I don't know what to do...and I feel I MUST be productive, but I feel almost nothing I could do would be enough.
> 
> So perhaps it's also how I self-talk...I need to set up my desk. Would that be a productive thing to do? How important is it? Is it REALLY the most important thing? Am I actually just wasting my time? Am I being lazy by putting it off or doing it? Wouldn't someone else already have a desk set up?
> 
> It also sounds like an executive functioning thing, sort of. Maybe it's a combo of executive functioning issues (having trouble prioritizing the most important thing) along with anxiety, self-doubt, negative self talk, or ocd.
> 
> And maybe it's related to how my ex, when I was in a relationship with him, treated me about doing almost anything--especially art. Maybe it's related to negative messages I've heard and somehow internalized and so I just deal with it by getting scattered and spacing out and engaging in distraction and hoping to try again tomorrow from a "clean start."
> 
> But I think understanding that "clean start" idea, and the idea that if I don't start the day perfectly I've ruined everything, that might help me to be more productive.


Sometimes I feel confident yet sometimes I don't. I still struggle with negative self-talk a lot of the time if I fail at something. I also try to do my best at something to get the feeling that I'm not being lazy or won't succeed. (I'm a bit tired and don't feel like writing a lot)


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## WickerDeer

I've just finished testing out some fun paint that I found on clearance...so I want to respond to a lot of posts in the thread I made, but I don't want to forget to research the paint.

I saw it this and thought "you are going to spend your last dollars on art supplies." And then I thought..."yeah." And then I bought them because they are SPARKLY and PRETTY.

And so tonight, even though I didn't figure out how to be productive, I did experiment with them. I'd been thinking about them all day--they are Pebleo "prisme" paints--so they have strange solvents in them that make them separate into a honeycomb sort of bubbly looking form?

I've used Pebleo to paint glass before and it's got quality products, so if I see things like that on clearance I try to pick them up because art supplies can be expensive and you never know when a dry spell will end and you're in need.

But they are an "oil based alkyd" which I don't know what that means--if you can use them with acrylics or if you can use them with oils or not. I know they work pretty well by themselves or with other pebleo paints, but I realize I haven't got a clue what an oil based alkyd is.

Okay--I see--they are resin paints. 

So just like acrylic, you cannot paint alkyd paints over oils because oils dry so slowly.

ok wait nevermind--this site says they are somewhat compatible (I still wouldn't mix them right now or anything--I just want to know if they can be used on the same canvas next to each other).









4 Keys to Understanding Alkyds in Oil Painting - GARYBOLYER


Blog post about using alkyds in oil painting. Discover my tips and tricks to using the fast-drying alkyds in your oil painting regime.




garybolyer.com





Idk. 🤷‍♀️ I'm still not sure but it's not a big deal--I'm just curious.

I like how they bloom and mix. It reminds me of watercolors and silk painting. I just really like to watch it though I don't really prefer it, as it's hard to be precise when the paint wants to do whatever it wants. But it's very pretty!






I was thinking it'd be kind of fun to try to make something like Klimt's style, with a natural and smooth human form or skintone, but using this and other mixed media to adorn the garments or other parts, so there is a contrast and it is more decorative and gem like.


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## WickerDeer




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## WickerDeer

I've been messing around with sleep a little to see if changing it could help and so far it's just been messing it up more than anything.

The first time I slept in the afternoon I did feel a lot more productive, and really I have gotten more accomplished since changing it up.

Last night I fell asleep earlier in the evening and woke up at 2am and decided to officially get up at 3am. Dolly Pardon gets up at 3 am so why not me.

So that's the goal for today.

The gutta applicator still hasn't come so I am going to wait with silk painting and the only project I can think of is oil painting, which is kind of a pain as it requires ventilating really well. Or else maybe I can continue to organize my space.

I think I still need a long period of sleep for night--it would be nice to go to sleep very early in the evening and be more likely to miss having to interact with my roommate. That is one good thing about staggering a sleep schedule away from many people's.


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## WickerDeer

And I'll just talk more about some idea--it's not yet three thirty.

I wonder if I can pour resin over an oil paint on a small canvas--it's not good for longevity or the proper way to treat an oil painting, but I really doubt I have to worry about museum/archival quality and so why not just experiment with what makes them aesthetically ideal.

Printing technology has gotten so crazy, and so does copying/duplicating the image. So I think focusing more on what an image is like in person--the qualities it has in your physical environment, makes more sense for me for this project. And I think a thick glaze could bring that out, plus I want to mix the other paints together in mixed media, and perhaps a resin glaze applied on top will help keep all of it together.

The question is, do I paint the oil paint first, and also how will it turn out...I think I'll just try to apply all the paint without waiting for anything to dry completely though I will avoid using zinc white because it cracks easier than titanium white.

I was taking a bath and thinking about swimming--I think I had just been to the ocean that day and jumped in the water with my clothes on, as a sort of "cleansing" thing. That also seems like good imagery for a contrast between two different types of mediums--the figure being oil and the water being the oil resin paint. 

I also feel nauseous tonight--I'm not sure why. I'm also not sure about drinking coffee at 3:30 am or not...perhaps coffee would be better later on, in case this sleep schedule doesn't work out well I won't have reinforced it with a stong stimulant like matcha.


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## WickerDeer

Now it is already after 4am--I need to focus on my goals.

This morning it is trying to figure out these canvasses and possibly oil paint, even though my environment's not set up for it. I can't say it's not overwhelming.

I don't know what to do.

I don't know what will happen.

I don't know if I have a good idea.

I need to just try though, even if I feel like I'm going in blind and am not even used to the materials but who knows, maybe it'll be the beginning of a good thing.


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## WickerDeer

I will also say, I have a huge issue with feeling vulnerable in the hope/optimism department when I begin something new like this.

I either need a cheerleader around, a deep enthusiast (like a teacher or classmates), or I need to be alone.

In this stage, the ideas are most vulnerable to being shot down, which is why I don't say anything about them sometimes, because I grew up in an environment where there wasn't a lot of encouragement and gentle treatment of these tender stages of creativity.

And they wilt at a critical glance. It's extremely delicate, even for me--but especially if anyone else is around.

I used to hide my drawings from people and I got bullied at times. My ex actually forbade me. My mom is an Si dom, I believe, and as much as she cares about me it's like a wet blanket most of the time on my Ne...and I'm not exaggerating. I've been criticized a lot.

So these stages are so vulnerable and even talking about them requires some courage to me, but I also feel like I do myself a disadvantage by not talking about them, because then I am essentially pretending they don't exist. And they do exist--they need to exist in my mind and in my vision, every direction I turn, and in every breath. Because I am the only one who can make them happen. I need to eat, sleep, drink, and live in them and most people simply can't deal with that. 

Perhaps that's also why I feel the need to wake up before people to take this type of time for myself.


----------



## Squirt

WickerDeer said:


> I will also say, I have a huge issue with feeling vulnerable in the hope/optimism department when I begin something new like this.
> 
> I either need a cheerleader around, a deep enthusiast (like a teacher or classmates), or I need to be alone.
> 
> In this stage, the ideas are most vulnerable to being shot down, which is why I don't say anything about them sometimes, because I grew up in an environment where there wasn't a lot of encouragement and gentle treatment of these tender stages of creativity.
> 
> And they wilt at a critical glance. It's extremely delicate, even for me--but especially if anyone else is around.
> 
> I used to hide my drawings from people and I got bullied at times. My ex actually forbade me. My mom is an Si dom, I believe, and as much as she cares about me it's like a wet blanket most of the time on my Ne...and I'm not exaggerating. I've been criticized a lot.
> 
> So these stages are so vulnerable and even talking about them requires some courage to me, but I also feel like I do myself a disadvantage by not talking about them, because then I am essentially pretending they don't exist. And they do exist--they need to exist in my mind and in my vision, every direction I turn, and in every breath. Because I am the only one who can make them happen. I need to eat, sleep, drink, and live in them and most people simply can't deal with that.
> 
> Perhaps that's also why I feel the need to wake up before people to take this type of time for myself.


I think it is really cool how experimental you are.

There is a double-standard with art. It is at once widely appreciated and constantly consumed by others and yet also treated like a waste of time or unimportant when it comes to the creative development of artists. That has never made sense to me.


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## WickerDeer

Squirt said:


> I think it is really cool how experimental you are.
> 
> There is a double-standard with art. It is at once widely appreciated and constantly consumed by others and yet also treated like a waste of time or unimportant when it comes to the creative development of artists. That has never made sense to me.


Thanks! I agree with you about the double-standard. You articulated it well. I've wondered if artists reputation for being depressed etc. had to do with that, through the ages, because it really does seem like contradictory expectations. I also think it's why it's important for artists to be around people who share their values for art and expression, otherwise it probably feels very lonely.


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## WickerDeer

I got up early today--at about 3am, but I didn't get to doing anything until after 4. Mostly, I just organized and it felt slow and like it was taking forever...but I was happy to see white table underneath the mess that had accumulated.

And I also realized that I can use it for small oil paint projects as well as the other crafts I was intending to do there. My computer is mostly set up in the desk. I finally have a place to put the notebooks and calendars and other organization/writing supplies, though I haven't set up the stylus or digital art stuff. 

I did a lot of other little things--organizing paints, getting brushes that are the right size for the project, cleaning stuff...so now it is still messy but it is waaaaaaayyyyyyy more organized and useable. 

I was so happy to finally give away some of the stuff I had been saving--I had some sparkly pipe cleaners and stickers and a box of inexpensive colored pencils I didn't want/need, and I was able to give all of them to some kids down my street. I like this because to some people those might just be trash, but they could give the children hours of activity and allow them to create things, which I think is pretty awesome. Lol I tried to give them some books before and the tiny little four or five year old girl was like "eh...we don't really read a lot of books. We still have some books we haven't read yet, so no thatnks" But they took the art supplies immediately so I'm glad they're being used.

So as much as I didn't actually start yet, I still got a lot ready, which is important. I mean yeah, it took a long time and I did a lot of little things that might not have been essential, but it's better than doing nothing.


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## WickerDeer

Ugh I'm ridiculous. I took a nap hoping I'd wake up and be all energetic and ready to paint.

I think it's just the blank canvas is intimidating.

This is about the history of natural resins like pine resins in oil paint:









Oil Paints Artists Materials - Should Oil Painters Use Resin-Based Mediums such as Dammar and Maroger? Shop Artist Oils


Resins-based mediums are those made with resin dissolved in a solvent, such as dammar spirit varnish (dammar dissolved in spirits of turpentine), mastic spirit varnish (mastic gum in turpentine) or megilp (oil and resin based medium and later Maroger mediums). Resin-based mediums and varnishes...




www.naturalpigments.com





Here's about using epoxy resin over oil paintings (probably not good for longevity but is pretty):


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## WickerDeer




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## WickerDeer

I def don't feel as rested as yesterday morning when I woke up at 3am, though I woke up without an alarm and was excited to check on the experimental painting tests I did last night. 

They are still not totally dry but I am happy--I had some glass bead gel and was wondering if it could look like waves in the ocean, but I shouldn't worry about it too much. It does still remind me of it a little.










I dunno.


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## WickerDeer

Guess I better get to work. 



I'm freaking tired.


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## writer0642

Any tips on creating a youtube channel on an extremely limited budget? Thanks. I have access to lots of cool people. So, I have filmmakers, artists, actors, activists, etc. This channel will blow up immediately because I've been stockpiling ideas my entire life. Time to just stay up for a week straight.


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## writer0642

Wicker Deer, I like your stuff!


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## WickerDeer

writer0642 said:


> Wicker Deer, I like your stuff!


Thanks! I didn't make those youtube videos though. Good luck with developing them--you could create a thread about it as this thread's not super active, but there may have been other members who have made youtube content who would share tips.


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## WickerDeer

I need to get back in my pexels account for easy references


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## Squirt

WickerDeer said:


> I got up early today--at about 3am, but I didn't get to doing anything until after 4. Mostly, I just organized and it felt slow and like it was taking forever...but I was happy to see white table underneath the mess that had accumulated.


3am?? Ugh. How do you do that...

I'm not a morning person at all, and the last three years or so has been the first time in my adult life that every weekday wasn't dictated by either a packed school schedule or an overbearing work schedule. On top of that, ability to plan/be effective was totally shot during a period of depression. I've had to relearn how to dictate my time effectively in absence of external pressure (what a terrible set of affairs  ). I know this is something you've been figuring out as well, so I'll share what has been working for me in case it is helpful.

I've found some success by establishing a routine for every day that is simple to do/doesn't require a lot of thinking - and it's so funny, because it's pretty normal morning activities that I somehow disregard if given the chance (like eating and exercising). Currently, it's waking up at a specific time, having coffee and doing whatever I feel like for an hour maximum, going out to exercise for a minimum of 15 minutes and max of 45 minutes depending on how my body is doing, dressing and eating breakfast. The previous evening, I schedule out what I need to accomplish for the morning starting after that routine. I promise myself that I'll ignore any "don't feel like it's" when I make up the schedule. The routine gets me moving/primed for activity so the "don't feel like it's" are less likely to occur, and it's been working well.

Otherwise, I'll just screw around until after noon on days I don't go to work in the morning...



WickerDeer said:


> And I also realized that I can use it for small oil paint projects as well as the other crafts I was intending to do there. My computer is mostly set up in the desk. I finally have a place to put the notebooks and calendars and other organization/writing supplies, though I haven't set up the stylus or digital art stuff.
> 
> I did a lot of other little things--organizing paints, getting brushes that are the right size for the project, cleaning stuff...so now it is still messy but it is waaaaaaayyyyyyy more organized and useable.


I'm supposed to get some organizers in the mail today! I've literally been stuffing my jacket pockets to draw in the field, so I decided to purchase a makeup artist backpack which can be opened like a suitcase and includes pockets for brushes and partitions for small to medium size items. It can accommodate drawing pads/paper and grids, rulers, etc. without scuffing or bending them, so I won't have carry paper exposed to the rain (which I've been doing...). Also, I got some smaller pen bags to hold ink supplies and drawing supplies that can be removed and taken separately from the "stash." I'm quite excited to be able to easily pick-up-and-go for field studies.


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## WickerDeer

Squirt said:


> 3am?? Ugh. How do you do that...
> 
> I'm not a morning person at all, and the last three years or so has been the first time in my adult life that every weekday wasn't dictated by either a packed school schedule or an overbearing work schedule. On top of that, ability to plan/be effective was totally shot during a period of depression. I've had to relearn how to dictate my time effectively in absence of external pressure (what a terrible set of affairs  ). I know this is something you've been figuring out as well, so I'll share what has been working for me in case it is helpful.


I hear you--my ability to plan/be effective is also pretty much shot and I feel like I'm going through the same procedure, but it's just taking a long time.

It was easier to wake up at 3am when I had fallen asleep earlier in the evening like the day before last. Last night I fell asleep at a more normal bedtime so I felt really tired when I woke up at 3 though my body naturally woke up.

I think I am wired to be a morning person even though I struggled getting up in the morning while drinking especially--so I'm totally out of whack.

But this morning I managed to be tired and completely forget I'm supposed to ventilate the room during oil painting, until doing it for at least a couple or possibly three or four hours....then I realized...wait a second...I didn't even open a window?

Then at 7am I just fell asleep until now...I sort of feel like groundhogs day on steroids now waking up for a second time in the day, but I do have a weird obsession with "waking up" right...so I thought this could help me get more done, since if I feel lost or like idk what to do I can just fall asleep and start over.

um...there's probably a reason I'm not a psychologist or someone who specializes in sleep schedules though. It sounds a bit crazy when I put it like that.  

But I had rseen an article on diurnal sleeping and thought...well maybe part of the issue is that it is hard for my brain to keep alert for a full day like that and sleep a full night--I've always had trouble sleeping through the night as a child, and tend to sleep with one eye open, which can lead to very tired days. So...just testing it out now before I do have a more regular work schedule that prohibits it.




> I've found some success by establishing a routine for every day that is simple to do/doesn't require a lot of thinking - and it's so funny, because it's pretty normal morning activities that I somehow disregard if given the chance (like eating and exercising). Currently, it's waking up at a specific time, having coffee and doing whatever I feel like for an hour maximum, going out to exercise for a minimum of 15 minutes and max of 45 minutes depending on how my body is doing, dressing and eating breakfast. The previous evening, I schedule out what I need to accomplish for the morning starting after that routine. I promise myself that I'll ignore any "don't feel like it's" when I make up the schedule. The routine gets me moving/primed for activity so the "don't feel like it's" are less likely to occur, and it's been working well.
> 
> Otherwise, I'll just screw around until after noon on days I don't go to work in the morning...
> 
> 
> 
> I'm supposed to get some organizers in the mail today! I've literally been stuffing my jacket pockets to draw in the field, so I decided to purchase a makeup artist backpack which can be opened like a suitcase and includes pockets for brushes and partitions for small to medium size items. It can accommodate drawing pads/paper and grids, rulers, etc. without scuffing or bending them, so I won't have carry paper exposed to the rain (which I've been doing...). Also, I got some smaller pen bags to hold ink supplies and drawing supplies that can be removed and taken separately from the "stash." I'm quite excited to be able to easily pick-up-and-go for field studies.


I think that's a good idea for a morning schedule--I usually ease into waking up earlier like that too...I allow myself to do whatever I want for a certain amount of time. How we want to get up in the morning is such a big part of the day to me, psychologically. So I think that doing whatever you want is a great reward for getting your body to wake up earlier, when you want.

That sounds cool! I've never heard of a makeup artist backpack, but it does sound really useful. A lot of makeup stuff can be used for art since they're both kind of artistic. That sounds pretty cool!

I also am waiting on the mail today--I'm supposed to get the gutta applicators for silk painting, and also some mica powder which Id been wanting, but didn't need...but want...lol Because maybe I can add it to paint or even make paint with it. As well as some paint brushes.

Organization's so important with art...just being able to have the tools available and free up your mind to do the creative work. I love how it feels to have a backpack or bag set up too and be ready to go, like with the makeup backpack.


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## WickerDeer

So here's what's bothering me now:

Even though smaller canvas are easier to accomplish covering, they have a lot of challenges that make them more difficult than larger canvasses. 

Like I have a general idea and I want to express the human form in it, but the size of the canvs is so small I'm not sure if I should even try making a form...or if I should just do an eye.

I feel like one of the qualities of a small canvas could be to look closely, and that is my intention. I want to create something that can be looked at very close.

But I don't want the human form to become naive and clumsy, which I think is very possible because I'm not 5 inches tall with a tiny brush, so it's just not going to have what I like to see in figurative art.

So I'm not sure...I'm considering making a more symbolic human form or else a more detailed part like an eye, but I also have other things I want to do....anyway, this is what I'm thinking about. I may go with a silouette or something this time.

It's just experiment and I will learn. It's okay either way. And maybe I don't have to even do the human form since we are sort of critical of it since we pay so much attention to it (faces, bodies etc.) So maybe could do something else natural instead...like flowers or animals.


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## WickerDeer

Though here are some smaller paintings that are way better than mine so I got no excuse.  lol

That one's really cool--I like the dramatic lighting.























__





Ryan Morse | Abend Gallery


Ryan Morse is a Denver based freelance artist who received his BFA in illustration from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. His artwork is mainly representational with a deep affection for nature, and the human figure.Select Exhibitions26th Annual Holiday Miniatures Show, December 2016...




abendgallery.com









__





40 Easy Mini Canvas Painting Ideas For Beginners To Try | ArtBeek


40 Easy Mini Canvas Painting Ideas For Beginners To Try, best mini canvas painting




artbeek.com





I think this next time I will do a figure...I just don't want it to look naive so it will have to be easy to describe even without details since it will be small. Somethign about the ocean since I want to use the pebeo prisme paints with it and the glass bead gel.


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## WickerDeer

Garsh

I got my package today and I was so excited, I ran inside and opened it up and...the gesso had exploded all over the inside--it's a tub of gesso and the lid is broken too...the package must have been dropped.

So I spent the last hour or so trying to use up the leaked gesso on as many canvasses as I could before it dries and becomes useless. And I did a lot of canvasses! It must have just burst since most of it was still wet. yay I guess

I wonder if the seller will do anything. It doesn't seem like it was their fault--there was packing to keep it safe...maybe they should have wrapped the gesso in bubble wrap or something. Or perhaps a larger package fall on it and crushed it.

So I gessoed a bunch of canvasses and now I need to figure out if I can put the rest in another tub or jar, I guess. 

But it's a nice reminder that I can get a lot done and now I have a bunch of canvasses ready to go. I'm kind of impressed with myself for saving almost all of the gesso. It honestly isn't a big deal to me, but I may as well ask dick blick if they will do anything about it and I don't really care either way. 

I also learned from my oil painting this morning...and I like to think I'm more prepared now.

I, this time, traced out six 4x4 size on paper so I can draw out ideas for compositions. Rather than just sitting down and doodling on the canvas.

The first composition was my favorite, but I forced myself to do all five others. And so I think I have a better idea of what to do for the next canvas. 

Now, the only question is how close together I can put the oil paint to the other mixed media or else how to create a boundarie between them, but I will figure it out as I go.

But yeah...this was what I opened up the box to unpack!  I used almost all of it though--enough for 13 canvasses.


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## WickerDeer

This morning I woke up at 5am rather than 3, which I feel okay about.

I think just being more productive and seeing more creative activity allows me to feel a little easier on myself, as flawed as I am.


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## WickerDeer

Ok so I was going to go over what went wrong and critique this but I might have to wait--it's not done drying but I took pics of the process so that should also help me to see what worked and what didn't and when it went wrong etc.

1. First I painted the canvas with liquitex "pearl" sort of white shimmery paint. Then I used a "rose gold" paint to try to paint on the body because I couldn't really see the pencil drawing well. But I had to try to add more white on top and the pearl white wasn't very strong...










So I put extra pearl white over the parts of the body that are supposed to be obscured by the pebeo paints.

2. Oil painted body--this worked okay...I think it helped to have that acrylic underpainting...I also pre mixed some colors--a dark a light and a couple mid tones. I tried to see what would harmonize with the pebeo colors.









I used a photo of a girl in underwear and a bra as reference--I was hoping for a more generic and recognizable female figure since the canvas is only 4x4 inches. 

3.









This white stuff is glass bead/ball gel--it should dry clear, but I wanted to put it on to create boundaries for the pebeo (didn't really work as will be shown in next pic)

Some issues--pebeo paint can hold it's shape on a dry material I think...possibly not well on a metallic acrylic, but certainly not well next to WET OIL paint. So the areas around the figure that do not have the bead gel really didn't stand much of a chance against the pebeo.

4. Went a bit crazy with the pebeo paints...they completely dissolved some of the gel boundaries and they also didn't nhold boundaries anywhere on the figure that was wet oil? Like the butt is covered, as is the arm...I think I maybe just used a lot.









5. They are still wet, but they change...so they will do their own thing. This was how they looked recently, but it will be good to look after it's all dry, including the glass bead gel.

The green absolutely took over too...could be some pebeo colors are more dominating than others. I gave up on the idea of giving her black hair--I'll have to figure that out next time. 










Overall I am pleased and it was a lot of fun even if it didn't turn out exactly how I was intending. I'm excited to see how it dries--I wonder what kind of weird stuff might happen with wet oils trapped under the pebeo paints...pebeo is an oil resin paint but I didn't intend to apply it over wet oils...it just leaked out onto them.

I'm also wondering if the canvas texture will be visible under the pebeo paints when they dry.

But I'm happy--a lot of work for a tiny little painting, but I really wanted to see what would happen.


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## WickerDeer

Gosh I am so happy about this thing--but I need to focus on other parts of a healthy schedule now. Like I ate a meal of gummy bears and ranch flavored pretzels. Time to focus on holistic fulfillment and being healthy now that I'm happy about experimenting with materials and creative projects.

Pebeo and oils are both rather toxic, and I want to remember to care for my body and not just my curiosity and creative desires.

I am also going to have to make better boundaries with pebeo as the paint took over the painting. I wonder if I'll be happy with the next one I make.

I also accidentally dripped it sometimes, so maybe I should use a dropper or idk--I'm sure that with practice it will work better.


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## WickerDeer

It seems like the pebeo paint is lighter, or else it's the lighting of the photo--it could be that as it dries it will lose that wetness look.

Which is why I plan to cover over the whole thing with a really thick glaze after, so that it's sort of jewel-like, but it must dry and I also have more stuff to do--maybe touching up the figure or adding more elements to the whole thing.

The glass bead gel is becoming more transparent as it dries, and it is looking kind of like bubbles which is what it is supposed to, but none of it is dry still...I'm just impatient.

With a glaze, it should return to a more colorful, deeper coloring--the pebeo paint is designed to look best under a glaze and is often used for jewlry.


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## Squirt

WickerDeer said:


> View attachment 899525
> 
> 
> View attachment 899526
> 
> 
> It seems like the pebeo paint is lighter, or else it's the lighting of the photo--it could be that as it dries it will lose that wetness look.
> 
> Which is why I plan to cover over the whole thing with a really thick glaze after, so that it's sort of jewel-like, but it must dry and I also have more stuff to do--maybe touching up the figure or adding more elements to the whole thing.
> 
> The glass bead gel is becoming more transparent as it dries, and it is looking kind of like bubbles which is what it is supposed to, but none of it is dry still...I'm just impatient.
> 
> With a glaze, it should return to a more colorful, deeper coloring--the pebeo paint is designed to look best under a glaze and is often used for jewlry.


Wish I had more time atm to read through your posts and understand your process… but I wanted to pop in to say your mini painting is so delightful and whimsical and looks like it was fun to make. It looks like a foamy ocean wave is washing over her, except it is also like she’s floating in a dream. I love the effect.


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## WickerDeer

I guess I'll talk about art stuff again, because hopefully it will help me to keep on track. A lot of people say you shouldn't talk about things, but do them--but I'm not really a do it kind of persona nd I think talking about things helps me to get immersed in them and to solve problems for doing them.

I have some deep blue aquamarine mini canvas that are less glossy and I think oil paint would stick to them better. I do not think the oil paint stuck well to the pearlescent acrylic...or it could be the oils from the resin paint.

Oil can go over acrylic, but the glossy metalic might just not give enough to grab onto, whereas this blue is much more matte and gesso-like, and I think it probably would be fine.

I also chose the color because deep blue looks good with gold and it goes with my goal/theme of "gem like" mini canvasses that I want to make more ornimental.

I was staring at the canvas last night imagining maybe someone praying? I guess the color does remind me of old rennaisance religious paintings.

But I also thought of a self portrait with Christmas lights--as I think pebeo could make up christmas lights interesting...idk.

I also thought about making diagrams and symbols instead...like the rune sign I traced on my body last night by following my imagination, and then looked it up and it means protection--I probably forgot the meaning, but it all worked together so well. I could record that in a painting, or perhaps that's something better for a closed book. Idk. I would rather keep it more organic and less perfectly ordered and symmetrical/geometrical. 

I should follow the same process as last time, and trace out and sketch several different rough sketch ideas, and choose the one I like the most.

This beginning stage is one of the most daunting to me...with the blank canvas, so I should really focus on doing what works rather than getting stuck feeling lost and intimidated.

Yeah...I need to remember to use the sketch book. Just because I am trying to get more serious with my art doesn't mean I should just focus on only the serious parts. Brainstorming is super important as is sketching loose ideas and meandering.

I did want to paint gold on it so much though. I can maybe do that after I figure out what I'm going to paint. 

I also thought about doing another layer on the canvas--pouring epoxy resin over the painting and then painting on that resin layer, to give a more three dimentional shadowbox effect...so I want to experiment with that, but not sure with what yet.


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## WickerDeer

Going to write more vent/sreamofconsciousness 

So clearly sketchbook idea brainstorms are helpful. I know this.

So now I need to actually make time for that. And actually do it.

Maybe I should just make it a habit to always have sketchbook on hand to jot down ideas and to draw stuff out when I'm not doing anything.

Like right now I'm waiting for something and I could just perhaps sketch.

But perhaps it would be better to have a more prolongued period of focused time per day to do this stage. To come up with ideas and draw them out to see what they might look like or how they might work.

It really seems like this is one of the biggest issues I have so perhaps I try both and see which one's most useful.

Also I should find a way to get into my old pexels account because I probably spent dozens if not hundreds of hours on that site finding references and I HATE doing that. So why waste my time doing it over again? Would really be useful to access it or at least this time not lose my account so that I don't have to slog through it again because looking through stock photos gets so disheartening after a while. I like some of them, but it's just full of a bunch of crap too and gets really tiring.

That way I have the stuff I need to make patchwork ideas and references easily available.


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## WickerDeer

I'm doing that thing where it's just ten minutes past seven AM and I'm already feeling like the entire day is gone.

It's not!

But I'm feeling lost. I wonder if this is an ADD thing.

I should maybe make some tasks for myself--some creative goals/tasks. Yes, I do have other responsibilities today, but maybe "creative goals" can be it's own, separate thing so I'm not thinking "yeah, I should really try out the new gutta applicator, but I have so much other stuff to do."

I am just going to focus on a creative list for today? 

Or just brainstorm some ideas of things I should/could do:

try out the new gutta applicator--redo the sunrise boat silk painting with gutta.

touch up--fix the oil figure in that painting, so it can just dry?

Do the sketch of a new painting on a canvas?

paint on one of the old canvasses that aren't finished yet?

draw out four or six canvas in sketch book and come up with four or six different ideas for compositions, and sketch them out.

do another chapter of the oil painting book

go to some of the websites for art business? Spend time coming up with or deciding a platform?

setting up my digital painting stuff so I can start working on a digital painting?

draw a new silk painting idea?

Go take photos somewhere for reference/inspiration?

Go do a plein air painting

frame something

idk...none of these sound like "YES THATS THE ONE!!!" I am going to drink coffee. Maybe things don't have to sound like that "YES THTS T?HE ONE" --but you just do what's logical, what makes the most sense?

Maybe I have NO capacity for executive functioning, but I feel like I have no idea how to do this. I think I just lack confidence.

Maybe I need to have confidence in my ability to plan and prioritize, and then apply that plan...so whatever I choose, I'm going to pretend like it's the most rational thing to do and that it's the perfect plan, even though I have no idea.

Maybe I should just flip a dice.

I saw a guy with ADHD recently talking about that--which made me feel better. He made dice to help him decide what he was supposed to do in a day because of what he called "decision paralysis"--and it makes me wonder if I have the same issue as him, because I've actually done that before too because I find it so difficult to do this kind of thing.

This might be at the heart of why I feel like if I don't know what to do by 7:31am the entire day is lost. But I shouldn't have to be smacked by God in order to be inspired to do anything, I mean...I'm sure I can use logic too. It seems helpful to learn gutta and I did want to do silk painting.

Maybe I should narrow it down and commit to smaller time periods--like one week of ONLY silk painting, no canvas...just let me explore silk and see how I feel after putting my all into it, hyperfocused...for a week.

That way I won't have to make decisions and perhaps my puny executive functioning can go diddle itself, which I think it's doing anyway...since it's sure as heck not doing its job very well.


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## WickerDeer

Yesterday I melted down on the site--I go through phases where I am very open and very closed, and I think the truth is that I actually do not care.

As long as it doesn't do me a disservice, then it's fine.

I think it helped...I've often wondered what that purpose is. To express things in public. it's part of creative expression, I think--to bring out taboo things, and the process for myself is also facing my own fears etc. I don't feel like explaining it.

But as much as it may be something I'm afraid of. It's also something that I just did...and I woke up the next morning like...who cares?

Perhaps it's just the role of destruction in the creative process. I try not to burn bridges, but if I don't have forest fires regularly I feel overwhelmed? Need to clear the brush a little bit?

And socially, I guess it could alienate people...but sometimes that's actually what I want. Because I have a part of me that doesn't want to be bound or controlled by other people and social expecations. And this is one, probably unhealthy if it were to be something I used in my life more often, way of clearing through that brush...the tangles that hold you, the briars that pull at your clothing and keep you away from what you want to do?

Sleeping beauty was surrounded by briers and I am no beauty, and I don't need someone else to cut them down, though people can always been inspirations.

But I was very productive this morning. Waking up and saying "so what"? Helped, because I do need my energy, even if it means burning away as much as I can to free it up.

I spent the morning drawing a new idea for a silk painting, and then I realized a lightbox would be helpful...since silk painting requires tracing gutta on silk from a drawing. And so I cleaned out an old terrarium this morning and am going to put christmas lights in it, and make my own light box so I can do the gutta faster. 

I still haven't tried the new gutta applicators yet...I really hope that they work or I can make finer details...that will be the next thing I do when the light box is dry and made, and I start transferring my drawing to the silk.

❤


----------



## Squirt

I'm happy I finished my first drawing that I'd say is "worthy" of a portfolio piece. Comments from others in the class I'm taking were positive - one person (whose work I admire) said that this piece looked like it could be in a book, which made me giddy to hear (especially from her). That has been my goal for starting my portfolio - to produce drawings that already look like they've been published somewhere. It's been really nice to have feedback in a class setting. Participants who are more skilled serve as an inspiration for how to improve because I can get to know their process and learn from it. The gal who complimented my work is the same person who showed me graphite holders and emphasized that she always used sharp tips, and her results is what convinced me to try that method.

What I'm really enjoying about this type of drawing is how much analysis goes into it. The instructor stated that scientific drawing is 1/3 research, 1/3 preparation, and 1/3 rendering... or in other words, the actual drawing part is less than half the work. I'm finding this to be true. Most of my time was spent ensuring I had a good foundation for the drawing - reading papers, thumbnailing, testing different compositions, verifying accuracy, drawing studies of the subject, gathering references, making decisions about what to include and what not to include, the purpose of the drawing and how to clearly communicate a specific idea, etc. I spent three weeks on it. I struggled quite a bit trying to find the right composition for seven different elements, but while sketching one evening and half paying attention to something on tv, it suddenly worked itself out. From there, the actual drawing part was done in two days.

Developing a focused and complete idea before execution - letting it really marinate until a clear picture emerges suddenly - that is how I'm wired, and so being in a setting which expects a high investment in preparation has been bliss.

If only the rest of the world was so patient...



WickerDeer said:


> Yesterday I melted down on the site--I go through phases where I am very open and very closed, and I think the truth is that I actually do not care.
> 
> As long as it doesn't do me a disservice, then it's fine.
> 
> I think it helped...I've often wondered what that purpose is. To express things in public. it's part of creative expression, I think--to bring out taboo things, and the process for myself is also facing my own fears etc. I don't feel like explaining it.
> 
> But as much as it may be something I'm afraid of. It's also something that I just did...and I woke up the next morning like...who cares?
> 
> Perhaps it's just the role of destruction in the creative process. I try not to burn bridges, but if I don't have forest fires regularly I feel overwhelmed? Need to clear the brush a little bit?
> 
> And socially, I guess it could alienate people...but sometimes that's actually what I want. Because I have a part of me that doesn't want to be bound or controlled by other people and social expecations. And this is one, probably unhealthy if it were to be something I used in my life more often, way of clearing through that brush...the tangles that hold you, the briars that pull at your clothing and keep you away from what you want to do?
> 
> Sleeping beauty was surrounded by briers and I am no beauty, and I don't need someone else to cut them down, though people can always been inspirations.
> 
> But I was very productive this morning. Waking up and saying "so what"? Helped, because I do need my energy, even if it means burning away as much as I can to free it up.
> 
> I spent the morning drawing a new idea for a silk painting, and then I realized a lightbox would be helpful...since silk painting requires tracing gutta on silk from a drawing. And so I cleaned out an old terrarium this morning and am going to put christmas lights in it, and make my own light box so I can do the gutta faster.
> 
> I still haven't tried the new gutta applicators yet...I really hope that they work or I can make finer details...that will be the next thing I do when the light box is dry and made, and I start transferring my drawing to the silk.
> 
> ❤


Yay for new silk painting idea! With the patterns you contemplate and see in nature, I'm sure your silk painting is beautiful.

I bought an LED lightbox last week for about $30. I was tired of using a window.

How transparent is silk for transferring drawings? Even 2-ply, 100 lb bristol board was a bit difficult to see through with 4500 lux.


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## WickerDeer

Squirt said:


> How transparent is silk for transferring drawings? Even 2-ply, 100 lb bristol board was a bit difficult to see through with 4500 lux.


Wow! Your class sounds so interesting! And it's nice that there are people in there who can give you feedback--I really enjoy being in art classes and getting that interaction. I think it's really helpful to get ideas from other people's work as well as hear their feedback and criticism.

I can't imagine being able to see through bristol board--are you joking?

Silk's pretty thin--especially the silk I'm using. It's probably less expensive, the thinner it is.

I basically drew from my mind/memory without using many references...I did a tiny bit of research on what Nordic people may have eaten--so I put some of the ancestors of plums in it and also some "garden angelica" flowers, but they don't look too realistic.

Some people do make really beautiful silk paintings of nature though. After drawing it, I started noticing that there's a lot wrong with it, but I just wanted to try out the gutta anyway, and remind myself to finish things. My hand got a bit tired from all the gutta so perhaps I will learn to be more sparing with it.

Here's a pic of the "light box" and the silk over the paper when I was doing it--I'm curious what it will look like painted, because this "silver" gutta is really sort of matte looking and not metallic--so I don't know what it will look like when done. I think I'm going to try different dyes this time too and not the fabric paints. 

I also finished putting the touches on the mini canvas' oil figure so that the next step will be resin and then I'll consider if I want to paint more layers on the resin or just do the sides. I added red and pink to the figure.

Here's the lightbox and the drawing-from-imagination. 

I can't say I'm over the moon with it--like I kind of like the eyes before pupils, but it was work and I will hopefully learn something from it. Oh...I was also worried that her hair looked like she was farting...so I think I'll probably make it red since I think that will be the least farty looking.

But I love scarves and so maybe this makes sense for that reason--so why not decorate something I really like in a nice way? Plus, anyone can wear a scarf--it's a nice way to carry something you like with you.

















I figured lightboxes would be less expensive with the led technology--this fish-tank one was pretty uncomfortable on my back to try to bend over it--maybe if I put it on a desk or something, but I had it on the floor.


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## WickerDeer

Here's my touched up figure on the mini canvas--I felt a lot of concern giving her red would make her look like her head was bleeding, plus I was in a foul mood while doing it and wondering if that would bleed through--though maybe red is the color of passion, and passion can fit many moods?

My bathroom lighting is bad but I think the red helped the painting--adding it after the pebeo paint helps too...

But the biggest thing I realized is she HAS NO EAR.

I have a problem with this--once I drew a big horse and didn't realize I forgot the tail till so much later. It's kind of silly. 

But I finally realized I actually forgot her ear and I'm not sure if I'm going to do anything about it or what to do...I'm pretty sure her ear would be visible though I get she was intended to be a generic form. But c'mon. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this, but I have a history of forgetting details (essential parts?) like this.










Here's the poor horse that I forgot his tail:


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## Squirt

@WickerDeer I love your design for the silk painting! I can see why your hand would hurt after that. There is so much detail and flow. What does the sort of cross design over her body mean?

The red added to the painted figure works well, gives her more "life" and depth. To be honest I didn't notice she was missing an ear, either.  

Bristol board can be see-through enough to transfer, but it would be a good idea to test how thick of a paper I can get away with on that lightbox.

Here is one of the "studies" I did for my drawing that I thought turned out well (a gecko). I drew until she moved... which wasn't for over an hour... and yes, she was hanging upside-down. What a great model.

* *


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## WickerDeer

@Squirt

The cross thing over her body is a rune. It's usually called Algiz.

I don't know a lot about runes and I am pretty skeptical of their interpretations, since they are so old and not really English


But I just looked up this video and I found it pretty informative. Would have been useful to watch before making the silk painting! lol





Like maybe I would have included the elk sedge

* *


























But the idea came to me one night when I was laying in bed meditating, and I had some rose oil, and traced the rune on my body.

I didn't really remember what the rune was though I've seen them, so I looked it up afterwards and saw that it is this rune, clearly.

So then I used that experience to inspire making this drawing/painting though I wouldn't say it's a perfect depiction, especially now that I've watched the video. Though she was supposed to be in a tree...so that sort of maybe. She is also supposed to be holding a shield behind her though that is something I added later.


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## WickerDeer

So I want to apply the idea about ADHD to art...the idea that my mind might be wired to have low dopamine reserves. I just need to conserve them, so it's hard for me to push myself to do things "because I should" rathe rthan "because I want to see what happens--because it's interesting."

So this comes to coloring the silk painting--I am worried that I'm nto in the right state of mind to do it. I also wonder about the dye itself and how it will mix. I'm worried about ruining the painting and I don't know what to do.

Perhaps changing this thought to something that might help increase dopamine reward temporarily:

Perhaps stating it like a challenge...do I think I can get the colors to harmonize together?

Do I have an idea of what I'd like to achieve--what would look pretty or feel right.

Do I want to try an activity of coloring from some weird intuition place...

Idk--I need to find a way to make coloring the silk interesting as I'm not looking forward to it that much. I need to figure out why I want it to be colored and what I Want.

Then it could increase dopamine and I'd get a better idea of what I should do and want to do it because even if I fail at an attempt, I Will have learned something. However, I will not have learned anything much if I just say "I must do this because I must do this" and I either fail or am happy. I want to know what I'm doing and why...what does color mean to me? Why do I need it? What should the color do? What about for me? Should I just go for it? Should I try to channel a certain feeling into it? Get into a trance to put the color in spontaneously like some connection between myself and God? Am I filling the lines like um...like a euphemism? Is it a sex act between myself, spirituality and God, art, and the painting? Are we all having a giant orgy? What does it all mean?

Maybe I need to ask myself questions like this to get a better dopamine response rather than "why don't u just do it? You have to put dah colorz in!"


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## WickerDeer

Ok I am THRILLED by this. I'm going to try to vent all my thoughts down at once:

I went to sleep...I woke up after way too long (I wasn't able to sleep well last night at all). After I woke up I felt really weird, but I did at least feel like I had an idea.

**** So this makes me wonder--could sleep help replenish dopamine stores for me? Is that why I get so crabby and negative when I don't do things first thing in the morning? Do I have some kind of extra amount of neurochemicals I need when I wake up?

I listened to a podcast which talked about how ADHD brains may be different. What if sleeping and especially fantasizing and imagining (something I USED to get lost in as a child but learned not to do as much as an adult) replenishes my dopamine stores?

Maybe that sleep helped? But idk*****

So then I felt kind of negative and crappy but I had an idea for the painting...the silk painting. Why not paint her hair like a rainbow? Try to create all seven or whatever colors from the three dyes?! Because she's a goddess or a mystical figure, and so why not have all rainbow hair?

So I did this and it turned out AMAZING.

I'm so happy with this process.

I took photos so I could see a little better what I did and when, but overall I just allowed myself to experiment and to mix the colors, and some colors I went over several times and some colors not.

I worked on trying to make some neutrals and some more bright colors, and to try to reach a whole range of color.

I AM SO HAPPY with it.

So this must be my dopamine is filled up? I am just pleased...I love the way the silk sparkles like metallic even when it is just the weave of the silk. I am looking forward to seeing how it looks when dry.

This is my first time using this type of dye and I think it was a huge success, way better than I imagined.
And I didn't force myself to just "start." I waited till I came up with an idea that interested me--which was rainbow hair--structured idea, try to create the entire rainbow since I've never used these colors...what would this Goddess look like with rainbow hair? What will it end up looking like with that as the only 100% guideline?

I really like these dyes.

so happy! So this is dopamine maybe? 

I found empty plastic egg carton to be perfect for keeping the dye for mixing and painting!









These earlier paintings, the colors are more clean and less neutral...but a lot of mistakes happened too so I tried to correct mistakes too (like on her leg the dye seeped through the gutta).












This is with all the layers and stuff...who knows. But I was really pleased with this process...and the thing is, since it's a drawing, I can make more and try out different color combinations. Like I really like the earlier one before I put so much green in too.










💖 💖 💖


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## WickerDeer

So here are some pictures of it dry now.

The gutta isn't perfect and neither are the colors, but it's a good starting point and I think there will be a different mindset to doing the gutta because the gutta is basically tracing so perhaps I can do it without much creativity. So the next step should probably be about making some gutta line ones of the same things that I've already done, and then trying out different color combinations.

I guess like other crafts--even knitting is like that, where there is a lot of repetitive actions that don't require as much thought as other stages...so it's kind of interesting. Some people say it could be meditative--maybe I can put on an audiobook or a podcast and listen to it while tracing the gutta some morning or evening. I will have to keep working and not stagnate, but I will try to be mindful of how to work in a way that isn't demanding me to do something I don't want to do in a way I don't want to do it.

Silver gutta in the sun:



















With the sun shining from above/tilted--sort of a weird angle. Normally it would probably not catch the light like this but with a silk scarf it could.


















In the shade and with light behind:










Silk can do a lot of things.

I also thought about upcycling as I always liked to find silk clothing.


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## WickerDeer

Vocaroo | Online voice recorder


Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs.




vocaroo.com


----------



## Red Panda

that was a great idea and beautiful execution @WickerDeer !

Dopamine gets secreted when putting the effort and anticipating the reward, perhaps because you are so set on doing things on a specific time schedule, not doing them causes a major crash. From what I understand there's a delicate balance 
between all the phases of dopamine secretion in the effort, anticipation and getting the reward so you'll have to train it somehow, prob by relaxing your expectations and allowing yourself to achieve smaller victories when things don't go exactly the way you'd like. I guess what you're describing here, by waiting for the idea and not forcing yourself fits that. BTW This neuroscientist explains it very nicely.


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## WickerDeer

Red Panda said:


> that was a great idea and beautiful execution @WickerDeer !
> 
> Dopamine gets secreted when putting the effort and anticipating the reward, perhaps because you are so set on doing things on a specific time schedule, not doing them causes a major crash. From what I understand there's a delicate balance
> between all the phases of dopamine secretion in the effort, anticipation and getting the reward so you'll have to train it somehow, prob by relaxing your expectations and allowing yourself to achieve smaller victories when things don't go exactly the way you'd like. I guess what you're describing here, by waiting for the idea and not forcing yourself fits that. BTW This neuroscientist explains it very nicely.


Thank you! 

I really need to train it. I don't have Instagram on this laptop--do you know what the name of the neuroscientist is, and I will look it up on my phone?

Thanks for the recommendation and compliment!

Yes...I think I didn't only wait for the idea either...because I'd been worrying about it for days. But I did go to sleep and then feel good about the idea when I woke up.

So...I think I was also listening to dopamine and my body, because I was listening to my brain go "yum yum that's a nice idea!" rather than being like "EAT YOUR BROCCOLI NOW AND PAINT IT NOW BITCH" So I was listening to what seemed interesting to me, which I think is a very basic way of maybe paying attention to what's triggering dopamine in that moment...or what could trigger dopamine later?

Idk--kind of weird. 

I mean, I know that if I start there's a good chance that I will find something interesting, so I don't maybe have to wait...but I think just listening...listening for that little "hm...that's interesting, I want to try it" and then following that perhaps helped.

I don't know. I will have to try it again and hopefully train myself to perhaps go with my brain and not force it so much.

Self doubt gets in the way too. Idk. I would really like to try again.


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## WickerDeer

Dear Wickerdeer,

It is not the end of the day. It's only the afternoon. The day is NOT over. Stop acting like it is. Take a rest maybe? And lets reevaluate.

I repeat--the afternoon is not the end of the day. Stop acting like the entire day is lost. You couldn't even sleep till past midnight last night--you are awake and you can do things when you are awake.

Maybe I will try a small meditation or nap-like thing, and see if that helps. I really don't understand if sleep could or does help, but who knows....

Or maybe fantasy or something. I don't know. I will try to do some kind of inner refresh thing and see about approaching it freshly after that. It is not the end of the day--stop internally whining, me.


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## Red Panda

WickerDeer said:


> Thank you!
> 
> I really need to train it. I don't have Instagram on this laptop--do you know what the name of the neuroscientist is, and I will look it up on my phone?
> 
> Thanks for the recommendation and compliment!
> 
> Yes...I think I didn't only wait for the idea either...because I'd been worrying about it for days. But I did go to sleep and then feel good about the idea when I woke up.
> 
> So...I think I was also listening to dopamine and my body, because I was listening to my brain go "yum yum that's a nice idea!" rather than being like "EAT YOUR BROCCOLI NOW AND PAINT IT NOW BITCH" So I was listening to what seemed interesting to me, which I think is a very basic way of maybe paying attention to what's triggering dopamine in that moment...or what could trigger dopamine later?
> 
> Idk--kind of weird.
> 
> I mean, I know that if I start there's a good chance that I will find something interesting, so I don't maybe have to wait...but I think just listening...listening for that little "hm...that's interesting, I want to try it" and then following that perhaps helped.
> 
> I don't know. I will have to try it again and hopefully train myself to perhaps go with my brain and not force it so much.
> 
> Self doubt gets in the way too. Idk. I would really like to try again.


it's @hubermanlab on insta

what if instead of working in the morning you designate in some days to do so later? this might give you some space to be more chill in the morning and develop a more relaxed view (emotionally) on scheduling your activities. It might make you crave the actual practice without forcing yourself. Doing it right after you wake up sounds like a way to avoid dealing with feelings of anticipation or fantasizing about it and even potentially generating creative thoughts as it turns it into an obligation like schoolwork. Is that familiar? The neuroscientist explains how managing your dopamine is something very within our control because it's up to us to how we perceive what's the effort and what's the reward and we can change them by will. Of course this may require figuring out a different perspective when you are stuck which can be a challenge.


----------



## WickerDeer

Red Panda said:


> it's @hubermanlab on insta
> 
> what if instead of working in the morning you designate in some days to do so later? this might give you some space to be more chill in the morning and develop a more relaxed view (emotionally) on scheduling your activities. It might make you crave the actual practice without forcing yourself. Doing it right after you wake up sounds like a way to avoid dealing with feelings of anticipation or fantasizing about it and even potentially generating creative thoughts as it turns it into an obligation like schoolwork. Is that familiar? The neuroscientist explains how managing your dopamine is something very within our control because it's up to us to how we perceive what's the effort and what's the reward and we can change them by will. Of course this may require figuring out a different perspective when you are stuck which can be a challenge.


Thanks! I'll check him out!

I think that's a good idea--to try to be flexible. I'm really not sure where this idea came from that I must do it in the morning--perhaps it's because I sometimes get up before anyone in my house, so I can have time to do things without worrying about other people. 

But it makes sense to spread it out and also designate and claim time later on. 

That sounds really cool to learn about managing dopamine and thinking of it that way. And changing my perception sounds like a good way to do it. I think I already tend to try to change my perspective, but having the scientific guide will be helpful.

That's one reason I was so excited about this last time, because it was so simple--it was just a slight tweak in how I thought of things, and suddenly things fell into place.

I've been white knuckling my mental health for the most part, my entire life and I'm just too tired to do it anymore. I can't get myself to do anything and I really think perspective is key...it's done more (to reflect on perspective and "why" and "dreams" ) than telling myself to toughen up and just do it ever has, it seems. 

I'm not sure, at some point I think I decided that I should just be able to do it like everyone else, and just close my eyes and force it, but at this point--and especially with art and creativity, this approach doesn't work. I think the more intuitive approaches I took as a child--searching for meaning, following my interests, imagining etc....I think those are probably better than "just do it."

So I'm really curious to check out this neuroscientist. Thank you for the reference!


----------



## WickerDeer

WickerDeer said:


> Dear Wickerdeer,
> 
> It is not the end of the day. It's only the afternoon. The day is NOT over. Stop acting like it is. Take a rest maybe? And lets reevaluate.
> 
> I repeat--the afternoon is not the end of the day. Stop acting like the entire day is lost. You couldn't even sleep till past midnight last night--you are awake and you can do things when you are awake.
> 
> Maybe I will try a small meditation or nap-like thing, and see if that helps. I really don't understand if sleep could or does help, but who knows....
> 
> Or maybe fantasy or something. I don't know. I will try to do some kind of inner refresh thing and see about approaching it freshly after that. It is not the end of the day--stop internally whining, me.


So I fell asleep and woke up and felt sort of like shit, but the positive side is I feel like drinking water and perhaps kombucha--the later the day goes, the more I feel like drinking wine or something to regulate my anxiety (doesn't really work actually).

But that sleep seems to help me feel more like drinking water, electrolytes, maybe magnesium...so that's something.

I also went and checked on the old canvas I was working on.

I am really going to try to follow interests. I should narrow down things and not try to do everything at once. I am going to try to follow interests as often as I can.


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## WickerDeer

I'm paying attention to my feelings and interests:

I feel more alert and I got news that makes me feel sort of relieved, so some of my feeling of "lost" could have been related to stress I didn't realize about that.

Then my roommate went inside earlier--rather than hanging out outside in the yard, and I feel a sense of interest in painting. Like maybe if he goes in his room early I can open the windows and not feel like he might walk by my room etc. which would be nice. Currently he's wandering around talking to himself, hoping I'll come out there and talk to him probably but I'm just going to wait and hope he goes in his room.

Then I almost think I might like to open up all the windows and turn on the fans for ventilation, and do some oil painting even though it's evening....it would be fun to work on the little canvases? 

He keeps talking though so I will see...but it seems nice to me to have my own time and space and do some painting now, when maybe no one will bother me or know.


----------



## WickerDeer

Update on what worked/what didn't/idk:

I felt energized this evening after taking a nap and I chose a figure as reference and decided to paint a small oil painting.

I FORGOT to mix the paints ahead of time, so I mixed it on the canvas and I prefer to mix colors ahead of time. This is something I should try to remember.

I also didn't have the figure chosen yet, which was interesting and novel, but adds another step. 

Basically, I could have prepared like I did last time I made a tiny oil painting. This time I'm going to do the figure in two layers since it's really kind of messed up. It should be forgiving though? It's all a process...still good.

Did not paint very long...maybe 1-2 hours. I should consider making multiple tiny paintings at once, since mixing the paint and preserving the paint.

So it is good--next time I want to remember to MIX THE COLORS ahead of time. But this will give me an excuse to experiment with layers, which I don't know how to do anyway with oil painting.

Maybe I can remember with this particular medium to prepare. And also consider doing multiple small canvases if they are all going to be small figures, to avoid wasting paint.

I should probably consider taking lessons--maybe when I get a job. It was cheap but I can't really justify it right now.


----------



## Red Panda

WickerDeer said:


> Thanks! I'll check him out!
> 
> I think that's a good idea--to try to be flexible. I'm really not sure where this idea came from that I must do it in the morning--perhaps it's because I sometimes get up before anyone in my house, so I can have time to do things without worrying about other people.
> 
> But it makes sense to spread it out and also designate and claim time later on.
> 
> That sounds really cool to learn about managing dopamine and thinking of it that way. And changing my perception sounds like a good way to do it. I think I already tend to try to change my perspective, but having the scientific guide will be helpful.
> 
> That's one reason I was so excited about this last time, because it was so simple--it was just a slight tweak in how I thought of things, and suddenly things fell into place.
> 
> I've been white knuckling my mental health for the most part, my entire life and I'm just too tired to do it anymore. I can't get myself to do anything and I really think perspective is key...it's done more (to reflect on perspective and "why" and "dreams" ) than telling myself to toughen up and just do it ever has, it seems.
> 
> I'm not sure, at some point I think I decided that I should just be able to do it like everyone else, and just close my eyes and force it, but at this point--and especially with art and creativity, this approach doesn't work. I think the more intuitive approaches I took as a child--searching for meaning, following my interests, imagining etc....I think those are probably better than "just do it."
> 
> So I'm really curious to check out this neuroscientist. Thank you for the reference!


I may have told you before, not sure I remember, but I think you have a bad case of feeling judgment dominating the way you think. Creating conclusions and sometimes not even knowing why (happens with F especially) or how and then arranging your life and thinking around them. It's something I've noticed on many people with strong Rational attitudes especially when they struggle with something because of it. It's important to allow space for doing things without a plan or a conclusion in sight which don't make sense at the time but may lead to something better later.


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## WickerDeer

Red Panda said:


> I may have told you before, not sure I remember, but I think you have a bad case of feeling judgment dominating the way you think. Creating conclusions and sometimes not even knowing why (happens with F especially) or how and then arranging your life and thinking around them. It's something I've noticed on many people with strong Rational attitudes especially when they struggle with something because of it. It's important to allow space for doing things without a plan or a conclusion in sight which don't make sense at the time but may lead to something better later.


I will have to think about this more. I think you may be right though, because I have definitely gone down some weird paths in my life because of strange feeling judgments and also repressions.

My mom is an STJ I think, and so I grew up with only her and I in the house--no siblings, and I think perhaps I internalized some ideas about how wrong I do things, because we are both VERY different. I also probably have ADD inattentive or some kind of mental stuff, which was also very different from my mom.

I just had an interesting experience, where I dreamed of a childhood friend, messaged her, and then she told me she's in another country! And I was so excited, it really made me think about how I fence myself in without even questioning it sometimes. And that sometimes I just yearn for being able to go out and explore...and that I have also been a single mother for most of my adult life, so I am very bound to duty and trying to white-knuckle things through, and just get them done, and sacrifice--because that's what's required. But that now I am trying to take more time, since my child is an adult, to revisit the things I had told myself I can't do (like art or maybe even travel, or other personal goals and things).

So it is a good time to loosen up a little bit since rational attitudes do help with trying to keep ethical and keep what you value safe (trying to be a good parent--though I feel I failed etc.) but maybe when I'm not so pressed against a wall I can just try to relax a little bit.

So anyway--sorry, I'm super self-absorbed lately, but I appreciate that insight and am going to think more about it, because I do feel like what I need sometimes is more flexibility and exploration, and I feel like I can finally, maybe allow myself that a little better now since my responsibilities are changing.


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## WickerDeer

So preparation seems like a big thing to remember.

And I went through this again--like I decided that I was going to go sketch people in cafes but I needed to cut my hair and I feel self conscious about how I look, so I just cut my hair today. It took like 15 minutes but it's good, because even if I want to wear a wig too...because say I want to be incognito (I'm not famous, just a paranoid weirdo) then I can more easily wear a wig with short hair, and then I'll feel like even if people see me, they don't see "me."

I should have been a spy, but I'm pretty sure the CIA would reject my application. Anyway...

I'm now going to drink wine and watch oil painting tutorials--this last little canvas painting was pretty messy but it still has hope. I haven't done any research for a while, so it's a good way to use downtime and pretend that I'm not just drinking out of upset, and that I am doing something useful.

It will be okay. 

And I do need to learn how to paint. I can take some time to just absorb instead of try to produce right now.  And then I can remember to prepare...and now my hair is cut, which is one way of preparing.


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## WickerDeer

I keep hearing these super loud and fast jets both today and yesterday, but it's overcast so I can't see...but I'm guessing the military is doing training. It's kind of eerie though since they sound so low but also super fast--anyway. Not normal jets for sure. And usually it's military helicopters I see for military training here, not these jets. I think one of them sounded like it broke the sound barrier yesterday.

Time for the wine and oil painting videos.


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## WickerDeer

Wow I really liked that video. I was hoping he'd finish the painting though...but it's good to know you can really be messy in the earlier stage, because I wasn't super happy with the figure I just made and was hoping I'd be able to redeem it or to make it work with further layers of paint. I didn't use charcoal though, so maybe next time I should draw it out.

This video looks pretty interesting.


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## WickerDeer

I love this guy's painting--it's so beautiful.

I really want to know how to paint formally now...like learn the traditional oil painting techniques.

I should ask the guy from lockheed martin who teaches classes for 5$ an hour--he said he does traditional oil painting. Maybe I should do a class...maybe this trying to motivate myself isn't as easy.

These are really beautiful though, but it would be so much easier if I knew how to do it. 

Ok--he has a playlist of "instructional videos"


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## WickerDeer

I used to make flowers out of nail polish and wire sometimes--I haven't ever tried making them out of rice paper, but I feel like it could be done similarly.

And I have heard of others making them out of recycled paper.

It might be good to know for a sculpture project or jewelry.


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## BigApplePi

I suppose I'm only a foolish romantic but I've been playing this song over and over and finding a dozen versions. Has this poet created an art piece? I have this desire to comment on every line of his. Shall I do that?


----------



## WickerDeer

BigApplePi said:


> I suppose I'm only a foolish romantic but I've been playing this song over and over and finding a dozen versions. Has this poet created an art piece? I have this desire to comment on every line of his. Shall I do that?


ok thanks--I love leonard cohen and will listen to this as..


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## BigApplePi

The title is perfect ... a lullaby for those beyond childhood

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin - The opening line introduces the theme
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in - It's what happens with love, especially at the beginning
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove - You are good for me
Dance me to the end of love - Love is now. We do not think of time
Dance me to the end of love - There is only now yet logic says it can't be forever
Oh, let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone - It is you alone even if others are there
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon - A mystery we can never know
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of - An INTP could have rendered that
Dance me to the end of love - It goes on
Dance me to the end of love - No thought of after
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on - A salient stage in life
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long - This is meant to happen
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above - Our boundaries
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born - Best or deepest(?) line of poem
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn - What a line!
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn - True again
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin - It's that strong
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in - Again
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove - We do not say that word out loud
Dance me to the end of love - This is now. The dance goes on
Dance me to the end of love - Don't let it end
Dance me to the end of love - Love is time; ending is inevitable 

This little piece stays with me and when it ends I feel only pain so I have to play it again. Look for the empty chair. This version is what the song means:


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## WickerDeer

@BigApplePi 

Yeah Leonard Cohen is one of my favorite musicians but I don't listen to his stuff a lot, because it is so heavy.

My favorite song by him is this one:


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## WickerDeer

I also like this one. 
There are many that I like--he expresses humanity well but I won't list all of them.


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## WickerDeer

I can express negative and dark emotions, but I don't always want to. Okay--and I'm not that great at it.

I think about something like that though--I don't really want to express that. 

Renoir said something like there is already so much suffering in the world, why create more?

I think artists do both record and they also dream though.

If you're recording the horrors of the world in order to help people gain access to their feelings about an issue--such as photojournalists often do or reporters, or many artists, then that is wonderful.

But I don't think it's necessary. I think there are also really beauitufl paintings and pieces of music that just show the beauty in the world. PErhaps that's the default.

That older version--like when Keats wrote, there was so much death and sadness. He was a nurse. And he died young. But he wrote about beauty.

I can't help but identify with that--I am so tired of the ugliness of the world. I want to see something beautiful--maybe an alternative. 

I also agree with showing the ugliness in order to inspire change though, just as showing beauty can inspire change too.


----------



## superloco3000

WickerDeer said:


> I can express negative and dark emotions, but I don't always want to. Okay--and I'm not that great at it.
> 
> I think about something like that though--I don't really want to express that.
> 
> Renoir said something like there is already so much suffering in the world, why create more?
> 
> I think artists do both record and they also dream though.
> 
> If you're recording the horrors of the world in order to help people gain access to their feelings about an issue--such as photojournalists often do or reporters, or many artists, then that is wonderful.
> 
> But I don't think it's necessary. I think there are also really beauitufl paintings and pieces of music that just show the beauty in the world. PErhaps that's the default.
> 
> That older version--like when Keats wrote, there was so much death and sadness. He was a nurse. And he died young. But he wrote about beauty.
> 
> I can't help but identify with that--I am so tired of the ugliness of the world. I want to see something beautiful--maybe an alternative.
> 
> I also agree with showing the ugliness in order to inspire change though, just as showing beauty can inspire change too.


I think an artwork that demonstrates hope/humanity within chaos is interesting to me.
It can be horrible and beautiful at the same time, but even if I like melancholic music and darker aesthetics, I'm still an optimistic idealistic idiot.

Also your dark emotions can be the spark of madness to improve your art , But different psychologies appreciate different things , There are ideas that allow to manage emotions in music ( technically ) .

Great works do not have a single emotion but it is a story that has climax , great works always incorporate different emotional dimensionalities and makes us question human existence .


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## WickerDeer

superloco3000 said:


> I think an artwork that demonstrates hope/humanity within chaos is interesting to me.
> It can be horrible and beautiful at the same time, but even if I like melancholic music and darker aesthetics, I'm still an optimistic idealistic idiot.
> 
> Also your dark emotions can be the spark of madness to improve your art , But different psychologies appreciate different things , There are ideas that allow to manage emotions in music ( technically ) .
> 
> Great works do not have a single emotion but it is a story that has climax , great works always incorporate different emotional dimensionalities and makes us question human existence .


Thanks for sharing your thoughts--that's pretty interesting how different people interpret artwork and different artistic philosophies.

Interesting to read.


----------



## BigApplePi

WickerDeer said:


> I can express negative and dark emotions, but I don't always want to. Okay--and I'm not that great at it.


I don't like to either. I prefer if given a choice to pick the uplifting route. However reality says that things, events and people are dark, neutral and light. All three. I assume if we saw everything with rose-colored glasses there would be trouble. Things would sneak up on us. Therefore show (in art) all the dark horrible things we can put up with. This as long as we use that as a springboard to know what we don't want and to go higher.

I posted this before but now I can't find it. It is simultaneously dark and uplifting. I call it an "art" photo. Don't worry. You are not seeing through rose glasses.


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## WickerDeer

Today I practiced *"Externalizing"*

According to my hazy, vague understanding of it (I don't even know if its a real term or what it means)

And that was okay, but then I did even more and I wrote 10 homeworks for myself.

Most of them had to do with prepping for art, because I find that when I get inspired to do something, or have a vague desire, I then try to get into it and if I have a bunch of prep stuff going wrong, like I forgot to mix the colors or all the materials aren't in the same space and I have to go searching for them, it gives me a negative feeling.

And then I get less enthusiastic and it doesn't build that feeling of success, but rather just screwing around doing prep stuff.

So I wrote out a bunch of homeworks that are specific and can be done pretty easily. They will also help prepare for doing projects.

I felt it worked really well.

And also worked to avoid social media more.

I don't know why it was so excited to make homework for myself. I used to love college and it gave me this feeling of exhilaration to see "Homework" due, and stuff that I actually want to prepare for, or research, for my own projects. So it was like being my own teacher, teaching my own class, and being my own student. I'm really excited! I wonder if I should get gold stars to put on the ones I do, but I don't think I'll go that far as it's not necessary.

But maybe I will write a star...wow...maybe I can learn different types of stars to write for each homework assignment completion. 

STARS like these from google image search










This also looks cool--I wonder how to do this. Maybe I can make a homework assignment.









Muslim rule and compass: the magic of Islamic geometric design


Islamic craftsmen turned geometry into an art form because pictures of people were not allowed in holy places. Dutchman Eric Broug - who lives in the north of England - has become a global ambassador for this design style. Here he explains why it fascinates him, and gives a step-by-step guide...




www.theguardian.com















* *












I did use cannabis today as I am quitting drinking and so maybe that is why I'm so excited about this, but prep work can also be done without much thought, so it works for times like that.




I've always admired Islamic geometrical designs though.


----------



## Celtsincloset

I have to stop thinking that my writing is sh*t. My old drafts are actually good, the ones which I thought were average. My newer writing is pretty average, because I'm writing (as a writer should write) BUT that doesn't work for me. My own style works, yet I keep writing cr*p while trying to juggle all of my short course knowledge about writing: When I write like how a 'writer' should write, pretty much the words are crap. When I write without much expectations, my style, the words are actually good enough--that I enjoy listening to it, it's actually engaging, and interesting. The newer writing that I thought was more engaging and interesting, actually isn't. And I wasted all this time conceptualizing and trying to find motivation, when all I just needed to do was pick up a pen and write. 'Cause it will be good enough.


----------



## WickerDeer

I spent a really long time doing this random thing yesterday--trying to find a way to hang the silk hoops...I get these dislikes of things like glue...

And so I wanted to try to figure out how to make a hanger but without using glue, which essentially...through laziness was born some weird string thing...like tying the strings around the outside of it.

I am not sure if it came from my girlscout days when I was super mad that I had to learn macrame rather than how to light fires like the boyscouts or identify animal poop or tracks. I was so mad about that as a child and hated macrame, but now I am kind of wishing I'd learned it better.

There's something very primitive and archetypal? Idk...archaic? About doing it, even though I didn't know shit what I was doing. I felt like a cave woman trying to make a basket out of knots. 

Idk where it's going, but it is kind of cool...this whole project is a little magical, and I can also see hanging things like sea shells and perhaps prisms or even making a wind chime below the silk hoop.

One super amazing thing I realized about this (and even without glue since glue is heavier) is that the silk is SO light that it can hang on the tiniest, dried twig from my old Mabon branch of last year (obviously I could organize my room--Mabon happens in fall and I still have it up in my room, but it was perfect for hanging this thing I'm making...lol

So I plan on just keeping working on it for fun and adding to it. And want to figure out a way of knotting a hanger for it, similar to how people make hangers for plants out of macrame


----------



## Squirt

I'm encountering a bunch of hang ups around learning crow quill (pen and ink). I cannot get the ink to flow evenly, and it is just frustrating to use. I suspect some of it is that with pen and ink, materials matter _a lot_. Which nib, which ink, which paper... _how much humidity is in the paper _(learned that recently). When I was using graphite, I discovered that changing how I handled the materials changed the entire experience of drawing with that medium, so maybe it is the same here. I'm going to try drafting film and see if that is less annoying to use with very fine and hard nibs - nibs that are good for stippling, but clog easily on paper.

If I'm being 100% honest, I'm also very intimidated every time I pick up the pen. 

Years ago, I set a challenge for myself to only draw in pen so I could get over the fear of not erasing and also be forced to draw faster and with more confidence in the line even when I mess up. These are a couple sketches from that period:

* *


























That was using microns, however. Not nibs. I tried nibs and would just rip up paper and had zero line control, so back then I avoided it. It's totally different to use. It makes perfectionism, which I intended to break with those exercises, especially obstacle-y for improvement.

So, if I force myself into drawing with nib-only, it could mess with my sense of reality enough to get over it, right? Game on. 



WickerDeer said:


> So I plan on just keeping working on it for fun and adding to it. And want to figure out a way of knotting a hanger for it, similar to how people make hangers for plants out of macrame
> 
> View attachment 902239



That looks pretty wild and matches the mood of the painting, especially with how frayed the fibers are! I could stare at it for a long time, lol.


----------



## WickerDeer

Squirt said:


> I'm encountering a bunch of hang ups around learning crow quill (pen and ink). I cannot get the ink to flow evenly, and it is just frustrating to use. I suspect some of it is that with pen and ink, materials matter _a lot_. Which nib, which ink, which paper... _how much humidity is in the paper _(learned that recently). When I was using graphite, I discovered that changing how I handled the materials changed the entire experience of drawing with that medium, so maybe it is the same here. I'm going to try drafting film and see if that is less annoying to use with very fine and hard nibs - nibs that are good for stippling, but clog easily on paper.
> 
> If I'm being 100% honest, I'm also very intimidated every time I pick up the pen.
> 
> Years ago, I set a challenge for myself to only draw in pen so I could get over the fear of not erasing and also be forced to draw faster and with more confidence in the line even when I mess up. These are a couple sketches from that period:
> 
> * *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 902242
> 
> View attachment 902241
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That was using microns, however. Not nibs. I tried nibs and would just rip up paper and had zero line control, so back then I avoided it. It's totally different to use. It makes perfectionism, which I intended to break with those exercises, especially obstacle-y for improvement.
> 
> So, if I force myself into drawing with nib-only, it could mess with my sense of reality enough to get over it, right? Game on.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That looks pretty wild and matches the mood of the painting, especially with how frayed the fibers are! I could stare at it for a long time, lol.


Thanks! Maybe I am letting the painting guide me more, and it's helping with getting over the creative blocks because I'm not being so Apollonian. I mean, even the knotting and stuff, and I was thinking about dreamcatchers, and that spider imagery associated with weaving--it is probably also sort of Dionysian (sorry now I'm stuck thinking with you and the other guy's explanation of theories). There is the idea of the "hanged nymph" that scholars have talked about (according to wikipedia) which is associated with spiders and weaving and stuff that I thought about while trying to figure out how to tie or weave fibers together to make something. 

I remember a long time ago, an English professor back in Community College had made us do a writing assignment talking about the symbolism of weaving in the Odyssey so maybe I keep coming back to it for that reason.

I love pen and ink work and I think you are really good at it. But I get what you're saying about the nibs and the materials--I tried to learn to do pen and ink that way and it always felt awkward to me, though I still think it's cool.

Trying to do more elaborate pen and ink work looks super intensive. There is a lot to be said for the confidence in inking, because it's even more permanent than paint due to such a high contrast and how quickly it dyes the paper. But I still think you'll be really good at it, seeing your art I do feel you are strong with contour lines and I think you can excel in it.

I can't say anything much about getting comfortable with pen work. I like it myself, but I find it difficult since sometimes I have shaky hands--in a lot of ways working with silk gutta is similar to inking--where just a little waver happens and the line is permanent. 

I follow this metalic watercolor maker on Instagram, and she uses a traditional gutta tool (which I've never used) to "ink" in watercolor--it's weird to watch. (Though I have no interest in using that pen--it looks way too hard--but I figured out the name and here's a video about it in case it might be useful at any time):






But the tool is basically a little cup with a needle at the end and so it holds more than those ink nibs do...idk--I think that permanence is always hard though.

But I really do think you've got expressive lines and are good at contour lines, so I know you will also be good at pen and ink once you get the hang of it.

I am also pretty good with contour lines, but I have terrible handwriting and I think that it's useful to have better hand control for inking--like calligraphy is probably one of the things that those ink nibs were made for.


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## WickerDeer

@Squirt 
Here's another fluid writer pen--it's like the traditional gutta utinsil which is used to let heated wax (so maybe it's like a spoon to heat it up?)...but seems like a more modern utinsil people are using with watercolors or maybe ink for calligraphy:

(the video says it was originally made for automotive work)






But either way, I know your good at penwork once you get used to it, because you have great contour lines and are great at line drawings.


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## WickerDeer

I don't think the fluid writer thing is very good though, because it doesn't change the line size--it seems like people have to go over their lines to make thicker ones, but it could be useful for cleaning up areas, maybe.

While I think that the traditional pen nibs are better for changing line size like a brush. 

I wouldn't mess with it--idk why I decided to start talking about it except that I admire those sparkly watercolors.


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## Squirt

WickerDeer said:


> I don't think the fluid writer thing is very good though, because it doesn't change the line size--it seems like people have to go over their lines to make thicker ones, but it could be useful for cleaning up areas, maybe.
> 
> While I think that the traditional pen nibs are better for changing line size like a brush.
> 
> I wouldn't mess with it--idk why I decided to start talking about it except that I admire those sparkly watercolors.


You're correct... the nib is a preferred tool because you can vary the line weight quickly and easily. It is an important skill because it is cheaper and less variable to reproduce drawings toned in pen and ink techniques vs continuous tones.

I've seen those fluid writers in hand-lettering trends. Makes sense to use as a fineliner replacement without relying on the inks provided by manufacturers and avoid matching different inks/paints when finelining and painting on the same piece.

Another technique I'll be trying soon is scratchboard. Scratchboard is nice because you can combine addition (ink) and elimination (scratching) to produce tone - so if you scratch away too much, you can fill it back in with ink, or if you ink where you don't want, you can scratch it away. The versatility for producing "rich" tones shows when you compare scratchboard drawings with pen and ink on paper.









Farsund Dock Scene Pen and Ink Drawing by Janet King (fineartamerica.com)











It's cool that Dionysian vs. Apollonian discussion had such a positive impact on your approach to artwork. The weaving symbolism is fascinating. It seems all around the world weaving is seen as a mysterious and powerful, in the realm of goddesses, conjuring metaphors that express significant aspects of reality.

Even when you watch how cells divide - by action involving "mitotic spindles", there is a weaving and unweaving of strands of DNA.






We are literally borne of fibers.


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## WickerDeer

Squirt said:


> We are literally borne of fibers.


Wow--scratchboard looks awesome!

And the weaving of the DNA is such an interesting thing to tie in!

I kept thinking back to this story I read from a collection of short stories written by Native Americans (contemporary short stories) as a child, and one of them was about a Spider Woman goddess, and part of the story/myth is that each weaving made (like woven rug or blanket) must contain at least one flaw, because if it was completely flawless, the weaver's soul would become trapped in the weaving.

So the weaver purposefully does one stitch somewhere in the weaving "wrong" so as to keep their soul from becoming trapped in it.

So interesting to think that perhaps DNA woven together to create a body to contain a soul. But it's too early in the morning for me to figure out where that thought's going. But maybe something about us accepting our flaws as part of who we are and being individual (since maybe we all have flaws we wish we didn't have but it makes us who we are).

Looks cool! Thanks for sharing!


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## Squirt

WickerDeer said:


> I kept thinking back to this story I read from a collection of short stories written by Native Americans (contemporary short stories) as a child, and one of them was about a Spider Woman goddess, and part of the story/myth is that each weaving made (like woven rug or blanket) must contain at least one flaw, because if it was completely flawless, the weaver's soul would become trapped in the weaving.
> 
> So the weaver purposefully does one stitch somewhere in the weaving "wrong" so as to keep their soul from becoming trapped in it.


That is a contrast to another weaving folklore story that originates in China:



> During the Tang Dynasty, there was a royal court official named Guo Han. His parents passed away while he was young, so he lived by himself. He refused to cater to high-ranking officials, and was famous for his upright integrity. He was also known as being extremely elegant and eloquent.
> One hot summer night while he was resting in the backyard and admiring the moonlight, a cool breeze gently sent a sweet fragrance into the backyard. As the fragrance grew stronger, Guo Han looked around in curiosity; he saw three people slowly descending from the sky and they landed right in front of Guo. He saw an elegant young woman accompanied by two maidens.
> This woman was extremely beautiful and radiant. She wore a thin black silk dress, a white silk shawl, a hair accessory bearing a phoenix, and a pair of finely embroidered shoes. The two maidens that accompanied her were also extraordinarily beautiful. Guo Han was humbled by their presence. He got up from his chair, straightened his clothes, knelt down, and said, "I didn't expect the arrival of such an honorable immortal." He waited attentively for words from the young woman. The woman smiled and said, "I am the weaving goddess from heaven."
> Guo Han noticed that the weaving goddess' robe was completely seamless; he asked how it was possible. The weaving goddess told Guo Han, "Robes in heaven are not made with needles and threads, so they are completely seamless."
> The idiom, "A goddess' robe is seamless," originated from this story. It is now used to describe perfectly done work.


chinese idiom: a goddess&#039; robe is seamless | pureinsight

This also admits a tension around perfection. The Chinese goddess may be just so trapped as an ideal image but does not speak of what that does to her soul (if she has one). Chinese culture was much more Apollonian compared to Native American cultures. It makes me wonder if perfectionism as a "malady" is a product of a culture that insulates itself from the messiness of the natural environment.

Also, curious how there are three women - like the norns, who are also weavers, or the greek fates, symbolizing past, present and future.



















I recently saw a cute Japanese anime movie that incorporated weaving into the metaphor for the experience of life. It's called _Your Name._ It also features a scene with three females weaving together - a grandmother (crone?) and her two granddaughters (maidens?).










It was apparently a popular movie when it came out. There is a surreal and beautifully crafted scene towards the end that really emphasizes the idea of weaving time and space. Friggin' tear-jerker love story that is worth a watch.


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## Squirt

I'm finally starting to get comfortable with pen and ink after I found nibs that don't infuriate me, lol. Tachikawa brand - especially the mapping pen no. 99 and G superior no 3. The comics people have it figured out.  Using marker paper or film is also preferrable to Bristol board, which has been unreliable in terms of feathering. I've also discovered that if I'm not using the right scratch tools for the way I work, scratchboard just makes me cry. So, trying different tools/surfaces is definitely the way to go when it comes to these mediums.

What kind of sucks is that so much time has been spent figuring this part out. At first, I was beating my skull on a wall thinking I can't "draw right" in another medium - and then, like with the graphite, I decided to experiment more and realized I was making things harder than it needed to be by trying to adapt my work to the tools rather than adapt the tools to work for me. I really need to be able to make fine, precision lines, or it is a bust.


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## Squirt

@WickerDeer where is you?  My art thread buddy...

I'm contemplating investing in a stereo microscope. I've been fighting my own tendencies somewhat, trying to "broaden horizons" that way, but I'd rather lean into my obsessions, lol. I love drawing small things, and I've been blocked from doing that by lack of visualization equipment. I have a compound microscope, but a stereo microscope would be super helpful. Magnifying glasses just aren't cutting it.

For my next project I'm doing a study of a mutillid wasp... in particular, a yellow velvet ant. I have a specimen in the mail, as they don't seem to be common around where I live but are all over California and more arid regions of the US. Lookit this darling:










I might set up a small vivarium and get some live, as well. Apparently, they are super easy to care for even though you don't want to touch them because they have one of the worst stings of all the wasps.

The biggest issue is that my time has become so fragmented. I've worked pretty hard to make art a priority again, but I'm constantly juggling so many different demands in my life. I must "switch" mindsets every day, or sometimes several times within a day, and I'm realizing that my inability to do that very well is causing problems. Working towards some kind of integration is slow-going and full of obstacles. It wasn't this way so much when I was younger - the various aspects of my life, work, relationships, interests, obligations, etc. all flowed together fairly well. It's just the accumulation of experience and responsibilities over time has me going in very different directions sometimes.


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## WickerDeer

Squirt said:


> @WickerDeer where is you?  My art thread buddy...
> 
> I'm contemplating investing in a stereo microscope. I've been fighting my own tendencies somewhat, trying to "broaden horizons" that way, but I'd rather lean into my obsessions, lol. I love drawing small things, and I've been blocked from doing that by lack of visualization equipment. I have a compound microscope, but a stereo microscope would be super helpful. Magnifying glasses just aren't cutting it.
> 
> For my next project I'm doing a study of a mutillid wasp... in particular, a yellow velvet ant. I have a specimen in the mail, as they don't seem to be common around where I live but are all over California and more arid regions of the US. Lookit this darling:
> 
> View attachment 904402
> 
> 
> I might set up a small vivarium and get some live, as well. Apparently, they are super easy to care for even though you don't want to touch them because they have one of the worst stings of all the wasps.
> 
> The biggest issue is that my time has become so fragmented. I've worked pretty hard to make art a priority again, but I'm constantly juggling so many different demands in my life. I must "switch" mindsets every day, or sometimes several times within a day, and I'm realizing that my inability to do that very well is causing problems. Working towards some kind of integration is slow-going and full of obstacles. It wasn't this way so much when I was younger - the various aspects of my life, work, relationships, interests, obligations, etc. all flowed together fairly well. It's just the accumulation of experience and responsibilities over time has me going in very different directions sometimes.


Sorry--I've started a new job that makes me feel like I'm running around like a chicken with their head cut off. And yet somehow more put together than I have for a couple years.

But I am also having trouble with transitioning and think it'd be good to look into techniques for that. I have two shifts a day often, so I would do art between shifts, but it requires my transitioning into that headspace, which I'm finding challenging.

I hope you will show more art--that little wasp is a cute little stinger! Does he have a stinger or does he just bite? I was always kind of confused by wasps.

I found these cool black and shiney blue pupa that I thought about putting in a vivarium...if you do set up one, it'd be cool to see the pics too! 

But yeah, I haven't done art for too long. I need to get back to it. Why is it so easy to leave behind as an adult? So challenging to create a space for creativity among all the demands of the world sometimes.

I will try to get back to this thread more and I would absolutely love to see your wasp pics or anything about the little wasp house you were considering making.


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