whimsy – Quixotic Mama

inktober 10th & 11th…ish

there’s a story behind this. but i don’t know what it is.

that was the 11th. for the 10th i phoned it in once more with a half done inking.

and it is still not finished.
my life is overwhelming.
i am very angry about being alone. about doing this alone. so angry. and depressed. and feeling like this is it. this is the rest of my life. i am essentially alone–but! i am also stuck with dusty in my life. i am stuck with raising four kids mostly by myself while their dad complains that he wants to be more involved and i have to remind myself that it is a trick. their dad is an angler fish dangling “normal family” in front of me and hoping i will take a nibble. because he never actually gets involved even when he can be involved. he doesn’t. and i have to keep reminding myself of that.
which is a lot of fun.

fuck.

so i’m grumpy and moody and do not feel like doing anything even though i know that doing something would help me to feel better.

just putting pen to paper makes me feel better.

pages 18 & 19 AND INKtober 1st

i am pretty happy with the last two pages.
and they were a lot of fun.

i’m not sure about my first INKtober contribution. it was a doodle. no plans. that’s just what came out.
hmmm.
whimsy.
i am hoping to do some experimenting with just using a brush. it might be difficult for me. i do love my pen lines….
i am in a group of INKtoberists on facebook. it is awesome seeing all the different ideas and uses of ink. i have to keep reminding myself that it is not a competition–and that i am not the other artists.
i am me.
and this is what i do….

pages 10 & 11 and a do-over

two new pages…and then i had to do another version of this page:

for a laundry list of reasons that i put already in another blog.

and i like the new version better. i do. but i wish i could stop hating my work. i try really really hard to look at it like someone would who isn’t noticing every little mistake. i try to look at it like i would if it weren’t mine.

that’s the trick, isn’t it?

this has been a difficult project for me for that reason. knowing that it is for someone else and that i can’t just squirrel it away and say, “well nevermind” is difficult for me. if it is a picture only the artist can love–fine. but since i am going to be putting this out in the world, i have that added vulnerability of knowing someone else is going to be looking at it–judging it.

moses jones once received a review from some comic blog. it was not a good review. but i was able to brush it off because i didn’t care what the review said and moses is my baby so who cares what other people think?

do i sometimes care what other people think?
no. i really really don’t.
i mean, i want people to like it…but if they don’t, it’s no big deal.
just like i want people to like me
but i really don’t care what people think of me.
however, i’m still aware of what people might be thinking….
i mean, i don’t live in a vacuum
no matter how hard my shell is
or how tall my walls are
criticism still hurts…

and compliments still confuse me….

my mom liked to tell me, “no man is an island.”
and i would answer her that i was a peninsula.

bunny moon

part of my process
when i am getting familiar with a character
is to draw that character over & over
until i have gotten to know her.

i really like this character
i am excited about being part of her story

i also started another ink stain drawing

it’s kind of chaotic, but i think i can pull it off
that’s part of the fun for me
making cohesion
out of chaos
that is actually my life
gluing together the good bits
arranging the parts that work
filling in the blanks and drawing out the whimsy
to make a perfect picture…
or something like that.

i mustache you…

does this make me look silly?

i also thought of naming this one “matti-rex” because of a family joke. we know this man named matti who is somewhat flamboyant in his appearance, and one time we hadn’t seen him in awhile and when we did see him, he had a very impressive handlebar mustache. after we left him again, my minions started grabbing anything they could find to use as a mustache and proclaiming, “i am matti!”

it has, of course, become a running joke. even my three year old does it–not having any idea why he does it–just knowing it will get a laugh.

so, matti-rex.

this is one of the inkings i have done–like quite a few others–where overall i am not sure i like it, but certain elements of it really appeal to me. it’s kind of a goof-off drawing. but i did have fun with it. i mean i decided, laying in bed this morning, that the ink stain most looked like a mustache (after a few days of wondering what it was.) then i looked for the face and found a t-rex.

okay…i am going to name it matti-rex. because, why the fuck not?

swan princess

to say i loved fairy tales as a little girl would be a gross understatement.
i lived in my own private fairy tale.
a changeling waiting to be discovered and rescued from the trolls who were trying to raise me as one of their own.
rescue me from the evil stepmother who murdered my real & devoted mother…
fairy tales were my escape from a frightening real life.

of course, i blame my fairy tale escape route for my love of kissing frogs and marrying beasts in hopes that i can release the prince that is surely trapped inside.
oh what a horrible thing to do to our daughters, right? teaching them that that awful asshole is probably just under a curse but will one day realize what a treasure she is and love her like no one ever has.

still, i loved my fairy tale escape. and maybe it helped part of me to flower despite its setting me up for disastrous relationships….

ah fuck.

i am a fairy changeling in a troll’s world.
i am an abandoned witchling among misunderstanding mortals.
i am a princess trapped inside a snarky, nippy swan.

ha!

so i sit alone in my castle as my children have been taken to the mortal world of wisconsin to live for 10 days with a family of trolls.
but they will return to me, my magic children. and we will continue our real fairy tale of homesteading in rural illinois free from tormented princes.

10 days.
i hold my breath and wish on every star in the sky for their safe return.

blooming

okay. no wait, this one’s my favorite. wow. i really like this inking that i did. right? green. and weird. i mean, why is a monkey wearing a hummingbird outfit?
i love this one.
it’s in the top three if not my very most favorite.

blooming, i called it.

i am blooming. look at me bloom.
i mean, i still have buckets & buckets of issues, but i no longer feel like a complete mess. an incomplete mess? ha!

tomorrow is the winter solstice. the shortest day of the year followed by the longest night. our ancestors would light fires and pray for the sun to return. and it would. every year, without fail. and i bet it will this year as well…despite an impending trump presidency. the light will return.

and with the light, hope.

hope.

i have buckets and buckets of that as well.