How have you been?

Hello everyone.

I wanted to know how you have all been?

And, I’ll share with you what I have been doing! Mostly, I have been making a huge complicated mess of things! I’ve often tried having a blog dedicated to a single thing; like art or book reviews or wargaming (never video gaming though) and while I’ve been able to keep at it for a month or so, I never seem to be able to hack longer than that before I flip-change and want to write about something else.

It’s a mistake I keep making with the end and inevitable result being I come crawling back here with regret all over my face.

Which is what I am doing again now.

I’m facing it with that same resolve as ever though; I’ll just stick to things over here from now on. I honestly just need to repeat a mantra that I am a person of different levels and interests and trying to compartmentalise my life and thoughts is exhausting and far, far too time consuming.

So, if you’ll forgive the mess that I keep making, I’ll carry on here and pretend nothing happened and just blog everything under one roof because there is to much to my life and thoughts that just a single aspect.

❤
Jenn

Love don’t live here anymore

I put something on my twitter yesterday.

Tweet

And I feel like I should talk about it a bit more.

You see, art has been one of the biggest things in my life. I love looking at artwork and encouraging others; I love how art can light up the most dull of rooms and I love how art used to make me feel.

It was after I’d worked on my paintings that the same afterward feeling of art hit me. That sadness that ‘everything I do looks terrible and makes me feel like shit’ feeling that I have spoken about before.

I was watching my son playing in his sandpit when this feeling hit me. And it was at that moment I felt like I couldn’t put myself through this anymore. I couldn’t carry on feeling like a fraud, calling myself an artist when in fact everything about art no makes me feel stressed, anxious and pretty much awful about myself.

In fine art, I am using the techniques that I have been taught or shown by other people. In my character art, I use reference pictures for poses. I used to feel that art lit up my soul, but I can’t get in deep enough anymore to find that light. I once drew my characters everyday, but now I barely think about them. And as for artistic heroes; I found more inspiration in my friends artwork than any other source. I used to dread the ‘Who is your biggest influence?‘ Question at University, cause it’s not exactly credible to shrug your shoulders and say, “My friend Gwen.”

It was a horrible realisation to come across.

It hurts me that I had this ‘thing’ that I used to enjoy, but feel so withdrawn from in every way possible. I have faced art block before and been able to drag myself through it. So I know it’s nothing as simple as that. I have faced burn out before and I can’t say it’s that either.

I want to enjoy art and I want to love her again, but right now I just feel completely and utterly dejected with her; like she is this great thing that everyone loves and feels a passion for, but mine is completely gone.

New paintings? 

I managed to get out in the garden this morning and do some painting. It’s been a fair while since I did anything creative like this, so it was good fun again.

It involves a lot of water and making a mess, so the husband will probably be mortified when I tell him what I have been up too! 

What I enjoy about this process is the fact that it can be so quick and still produce some good results. It can be a bit hit and miss because it involves spraying water over paint and then waiting to see what happens! Sometimes a canvas turns out brilliantly and looks really good and well blended. Other times it turns into a horrible mess and you just end up either having to white wash the canvas or throwing it away.

A couple of these are looking rather promising already – but I’ll have to see what happens when nature takes its course during the drying phase! It’s a big part of why I paint outside; other than to avoid the mess of paint on the carpets, but seeing what that days weather does to the drying paint. It only takes the smallest breeze to push the paint in a way that wasn’t expected. Which is why the wet WIP pictures can look so different to the finished pieces.


I think the darker of the pictures will need some reworking and probably another layer or two to cover the canvas texture, but the other two are looking rather promising so far.

What do you all think? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

A passing comment

I had someone ask me a question over on DeviantArt today – I no longer use dA to share art, but I use it to comment on others works and run Aliens-Fans – and they asked if I did any writing professionally; I shared a chapter of one of my more recent Aliens fanfictions on there which has had some nice feedback on both dA and Fanfiction.net.

It’s not something that I have ever considered before, mostly because I don’t have any formal education for writing beyond Secondary School and even that wasn’t exactly a high-flying, let’s shout it from the rooftops, grade. Maybe because I spent all my time writing dodgy fanfictions rather than pay any attention to what was being taught! I don’t have any burning desires to go back to education right now either, at least not in an established location where I could be surrounded by people! Yet it has planted the seed of writing something original rather than just more dodgy fanfiction.

There is something else too. I was sent an article from the newspaper in the post today – I am still investigating who sent it – about a parent watching their child growing up and where the first year of their sons life has gone and all the things that have changed. The article really resonated with me; to the point it made me cry. It’s made me have a bit of a think about the future and really how I would like to be seen by my son when he is a bit older. Which I don’t ever see myself as being a career driven person, I would like to be some sort of role-model for him. Feel like I can give him something to be proud of.

Yet, I feel like it could be a double edged sword. I have found with art, the further I delve into it from an education point of view the less I have enjoyed doing it. I think there is a certain enjoyment in doing something from a completely naive point of view, at least it doesn’t overload you with meanings or complications. It can be enjoyed rather than sought after with a perfectionists eye.

And I think the truth is, I’m not out to impress anyone. I’ve always written from a purely enjoyment side of things, like with this blog. It’s about me, my life and the steps that I have taken so far. Do I feel the need to be ‘internet famous’ with it? No. It’s a pressure free place right now. Yet, I can feel myself feeling slightly defensive already, guarded against those that would try and bring me down. The inner voice that tells me, “You won’t finish anything, so why try!”

Then again, I guess I could be writing a story about someone teaching an Alien how to take a shit in a toilet and everything somehow feels better again! Even though it’s not nice to slate other people in order to make yourself feel better.

Thoughts

The nice weather has got me thinking that I should be outside painting and enjoying the sun – but whenever I think about doing anything remotely art related I just think of all the canvas’ I’ve already got finished upstairs and how they’re gathering dust because I have absolutely no business knowledge or any ideas what to do with them.

The truth is, I enjoy painting, I enjoy doodle artwork, I enjoy furry fandom artwork and I enjoy writing. I don’t have the ability to focus on just one thing and stick with it for any real length of time without facing burnout and ending up unable to do any of these things for a length of time.

I think burnout is fine (or as fine as it can be) when you’re an established artist (or writer, or blogger or any other thing that can be established) But when you face it after a short length of time and you’re a noboby facing eviction from nowhere land, then it impacts you more. It hurts and damages you, knocks your confidence maybe?

Imagine, you’re just trying to get off the ground with a new venture. You put everything into it and then whollop, you’ve been burning the candle at both ends and just can’t seem to do anything anymore. It’s especially difficult when there is little to encourage you to keep going. Sure, you’ve got your cheerleaders behind you; your friends and family, that’ll support you, but other than that, reaching out feels like it’s next to impossible.

I’d love to have an art career, I’d love to be able to tell people that as well as a full-time Mum I am an artist, because right now I honstly just feel like a failure. I’ve no income and completely relying on my Husband for everything and despite is having the talk of ‘Thats what we agreed on’ I sometimes feel like it isn’t fair on him to provide for us on his own.

But… as with everything, it seems like art and selling is more of a popularity contest than anything else. You get popular on sites like Society6, more people see your work, you sell more. Your not popular. You’ve had it! You’re popular among the Furry Art Community, you get support and commissioned (Seemingly regardless of artistic merit) You don’t have the right friends, you’ve had it! To the point where I joked with someone that you need an ‘Art Sugar Daddy’

I know, I know, it’s mostly my own fault because I have asolutely no sticking power or dedication to keep something going. I don’t know why but I shoot myself in my own foot because as soon as I am ‘getting somewhere’ and talk to people I completely clam up and run for the hills as though getting close to people is a problem – which it really is, but thats a story for another time.

Hi guys,

Been a bit again. It seems whenever I resolved to update the blog more often I forget about it and have to do some sort of grovelling whenever I do come to post here. So maybe I should just stop trying to make that dedicated effort and just post whenever inspiration hits!

After a good while of feeling a bit empty on the fangirling front, I got myself back into my oldest fandom; Aliens.

It’s not a fandom that I tend to do much visual stuff over, mostly becuase I am intimidated by the metric fuck-ton of good artists out there that can do the series justice.

Instead, I write bad fanfiction for it. Haha.

I’ve recently started something called the ‘My 500 words’ challenge. Which is exactly that. You write 500 words a day, at the very least. This is to help me try and get back into the habit of writing again. Fanfiction used to be the thing that kept me going and I’ve been pretty neglectful over it in favour of drawing in recent years. But I felt like picking the hobby up again; especially after the last bout of drama and honestly, I just get a bit pissed off with everything furry. This isn’t anything new. I’ll go back to it at some point, I usually do. I’m just fed up of the imature mentality behind the vasy majority of the furry fandom so I’ll just… leave it be.

So, because of the 500 word challenge, I’ve been doing pretty well at getting things churned out. I’ve written the first of many flash fictions with Lucreace; we’ve got a prompt list and are writing some short stories to go with them. She for 40k Space Marines and I for Aliens. Giving ourselves a 2500 word limit and a week (more or less) to get something done. I’ve only done one, but it’s been a good challenge so far and I am enjoying it greatly – I now have an idea for this weeks challenge so I’m going to get right on it after this blog post.

I’m working on Hudsons Escape again. I’ll write more about this fiction in another post, cause I have a lot to say about it!

Also in the works is another Aliens fiction; Unchartered World, it started off as just an exersize in free writing but I got a belter of a review on it, so I feel like I should do some more with it! But I honestly have no idea where to take it! Whoops!!

I’ve also stepped up as moderator for the Aliens Fans group on dA. Hoping to get a few contests going there soon. Hurrah!

Scan 35

 

This is the last thing I drew, it’s a picture of Ripley. I’d love to have more time to draw and write, but being a Mum time is one precious comodity. Right now I am enjoying this Aliens high and am intending on keeping it going for a long, long time. When I do more stuff I’ll share it with you here, but it’ll probably be in the form of links to fanfiction.

I tried 3D stuff, but my laptop cried itself into oblivion over the rendering this time around. Not sure why! I might have to try it on the husbands PC at some point, see if I can get something going there instead.

Until next time.