i am in the midst of an artist’s block… my pen won’t cooperate my hand ignores everything i tell it my muses have all gone missing….
i have been trying to do art journal pages, but i have ended up ripping out pages, ripping up pages, re-doing the same picture over & over & over…. something is amiss. but i am working on it. & i am not giving up.
the above is a birthday postcard being sent to a friend… below are a couple of sneak peeks of art journal pages over on my patreon page…i have been relying heavily on edward gorey to help me through my block…interestingly enough, i drew two different self-portraits with my arms thrown up in the air….
so i got up this morning as usual way earlier than i would want to to feed & water the critters and also the livestock as i drank a cup of coffee i read the works of other writers and one story i read started an itch in my brain i was both envious & inspired but the idea did not leap from my skull fully formed until i was in the shower where it sprung along side ideas for a journal page & plans to finally finish my patreon page it sprung the first chapter of my novel form of fallen. (duhn duhn duhhhhhhhhhhnn)
so, yeah. i really need to shower more often. also, i will update you on the patreon page.
image is a throwback thursday done in ink & pastels
as i drink my tea forsaking the coffee (which taunts me yumminess paired with addiction & achy kidneys) i eat my toast with jam and referee squabbles while considering my own scribbles an itch at the back of my mind something undiscovered something untapped i can feel something wonderful if i can just get my pen & brain to work as one.
i was watching flowers on netflix, a delightfully dark british sitcom. the patriarch of the family flowers writes dark children’s books about trolls. the illustrations immediately drew me in. so i started doodling some trolls of my own to see if i could. today i found this other doodle on the brown paper that i use in between sheets of my journal to keep the ink from leaking onto blank pages. i doodle on it sometimes, but hadn’t looked at it in awhile. i found this drawing appealing in the same way as the troll illustrations. however, i am not sure where to go with either one of them. so i guess i will just keep messing around until i figure it out.
meanwhile, i have become misha’s artist on demand for coloring pages. she had me do two more this morning and has requested a mom & dad dragon with baby dragons after i do a picture of myself & her dad riding a swan. i asked if the swan could be flying while i am pushing her dad off of the swan, and she began pretend crying & ran from the room. sigh. the things i do for my minions (i don’t want to be near that motherfucker even in illustration. i can barely look at the illustration for “absolution” from a few days back. ack! but now i have to ride a goddamn swan with him….)
ps. unlike her brothers, misha is not colorblind. just to be sure, i asked her about her colored page, “what color is the grass?” she replied, “orange.” & i said, “awesome.” my girl.
would you believe me if i told you i dreamed you into reality? would you believe me if i told you i don’t know you but somehow i need you? after all you are next in line to occupy my heart… would you believe me if i told you i have avoided you hidden myself away all my life because i am afraid of your greatness? instead i seek out diminished versions of you… would you believe me if i told you i am ready for dreams to come true?
i dreamed the other night of my tall, dark, & handsome. in my dream his name was dan–not david, which i kept forgetting & calling him. the dream caused me to start thinking about love & about inviting love into my life. this ties in a bit with my thinking about my needs and wanting to learn to need someone–as much as that terrifies me.
i wanted to do something beautiful for this post inviting love into my life. i had once before done gustav klimt’s the kiss for a love i have since let go.
i felt his painting of ecstasy might be a good way to look forward to a love i have yet to embrace.
i am hoping to study klimt more. especially seeing as he seems to like curly-qs as much as i do.
maybe i should not have but i drowned all the fairies in a glass of beer with a drip of soap drunken little bastards they never returned the pen they stole but now i find myself crossing my fingers & waiting for the little voices to whisper again telling me what to write guiding my pen in stories they pull from somewhere deep dark inside me as i watch & wonder “where the fuck did they find that?”
he saw my damage
he loved my damage
he wanted me to
stay
damaged…
i
i wanted
i wanted to heal
i wanted to fly
i wanted
to
be
free
he clipped
my wings
he built
my cage
he told me i should
stay
damaged
he did all he could
so i would stay
damaged
because
if i was damaged
i would
stay
his.
another take, i guess, on people in relationships trying to create the reality that works best for them–regardless of what is best for their partner.
i have been having a bunch of realizations (epiphanies if you will) about my relationship with the father of my children. lots of lots of stuff to dig through there.
(hey…if you are typing too fast & fuck up, “lots” turns into “lost”…which also makes me spin with epiphanies…just that word…lost….)
when last we left off with our hero, she was slaying zombies in the forest while foraging for supplies….
actually, i started a new episode after this called “the return of dusty.” but it puttered out.
i have been trying to get it re-started…but i really don’t think i want dusty in my story anymore. i think it is time to write dusty out of the script.
which i did, last night. i have yet to draw it though.
meanwhile, the real dusty is threatening to come visit. i am torn. while i wish i lived in a world where i never had to see him or his hell-spawn of a mother again…i also hate the idea of my minions going away to wisconsin again to spend a week with him & his hell-spawn of a mother again.
it is one of those things i have severe anxiety/control issues about. i mean i became a stay-at-home mom when i realized i could not leave my child at home. instead i was taking baby fidgit with me when i went out to pick up stray animals. he was sitting in on dog evaluations with me at the humane society where i was employed when he was born.
realizing i could not leave him, i quit my job.
i know i cannot control their lives. it just seems dumb to let him take them to wisconsin when he doesn’t even know what the fuck he is doing with his life.
he is taking my minions to live in his limbo.
it just seems dumb.
so my choices are to let them go…or deal with dusty in my space.
fuck a duck.
so i am currently trying to figure out which hurts less….
in other news. i am having a crisis of faith with my art.
i guess that’s not really news….
today i tried to read a comic book & found i could not. comic books seem dumb to me now. maybe not all of them, but definitely the mainstream ones.
i tried to post my page that i made yesterday (archangel carl) on a facebook group called “women creating comics” along with my lament about my crisis of faith…but as soon as someone started suggesting things i could do to make my art more “acceptable” to the comic world, i deleted my post & almost quit the group.
what would van gogh do?
hmmmm.
oh! i almost forgot! (thank goodness for blog titles)
so we recently entered year of the dog. i was born in the year of the dog. i looked back, and other than my 12th year, i could remember having a life changing event in every year of the dog since my birth. maybe there was one when i was 12 too–i just can’t remember for sure. in retrospect, every decision i made in my years of the dog were the wrong ones.
so this year
this year
i am determined to get it right.
to be true to myself and to stay true to my path.
whatever it may be.
so with the first full moon of this lunar year…i am struggling to find the path that i have determined i should stick to….
wish me luck.
but here’s the thing
you aren’t
the only one
i’ve loved
however
you are
the only one
i still love
the only one.
everyone
everyone else
i flush away
seemingly
without a second thought
but you
you stay
if i look in my heart
you are always
always there.
my drawing style is kind of bugging me right now.
i feel like my ocd figures in too much
i want to be looser…hmmm
as picasso said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
i have no interest in painting like raphael, but i would love to be able to be more childlike in my art.
yesterday a drawing done by my friend usama alshaibi inspired me (after making me jealous) to play around with my style.
i also leafed through my journal and saw that not all of my drawings bug the fuck out of me. some of them i would even call good. but i think it is still good to play with style & to keep evolving my art….
before i got annoyed with my style, i was working on a new comic story. instead of paneling a page ahead of time, i am now just paneling as i go. it is more fun & much easier. however, now i am not sure i want to use this style of drawing for the story. so progress is paused….
when i was a girl
i started writing books
books about girls on adventures
girls escaping from their evil mothers
(my father–a violent alcoholic
never appeared
in my stories…
i simply erased him.)
when i was a girl
i started taking long walks
walks through fields
& woods
just thinking
& feeling
the world around me
trying to make sense of it
when i was a girl
i would sit & stare
stare at the horizon
imagine breaching
the walls of the valley
surrounding me
escaping
the warm sun on my face
the massive clouds
eluding me
& i would wish i were
braver….
this is the second version of this i did. i don’t usually re-do these; they are quick sketches done in ink with no revisions. that’s me. that’s my technique.
however!
yuck. i did a representative picture of myself as a girl. bleah. it just was awful. i’m not even going to show it to you. in fact i burned it in my kitchen sink, saying a spell for my art to listen to the whispers in my head rather than depending on what my eyes see….
recently someone was nice enough to compare some of my journal pages to the pages of william blake. so i checked out some books from the library so i could see what he manifested. when my first drawing failed, i cracked open one of the books and looked at a few of his drawings. this second one was inspired by what i saw there–and the feelings of my heart rather than the what may or may not have been more true.
this is not what i looked like as a girl. i actually had bangs.
but, you know what? fuck bangs.
so this is what i looked like in my heart.
as i rise up over the mackinaw river valley
escaping into the clouds.
