There's a good reason as to why I haven't been posting lately. Sorry for the absence. I'm actually not 100% sure I'm coming back to post to this blog regularly just yet. Probably soon as soon as I figure out a few things; I really enjoyed posting here, but I've kinda disappeared from a lot of things recently.
One of the things I backed away from was the music scene I had put myself into. After the whole kerfuffle with the successful/touring band my wedding band went through a bit of turmoil and I was just completely turned off of music. I also have not been writing as much as I should and may have lost my part-sponsorship because of it, but it's fine, I will get it back, I'm sure. I just couldn't handle it.
What I have been doing a lot of is fine art and horse training. So I'm alright in those areas and will continue to grow in those two jobs. I've met a lot of big names at both of these jobs and they've gotten me some serious "in"s in the industries. Actually, an art decision I made got me into an area of horse competition that I never thought I'd see. I've actually, luckily, made what would really be seen as "smart" business decisions in these past months, though I promise it wasn't on purpose or because I'm a business guru or anything. It was pure luck and I'm holding my breath right now to see if all goes well.
The reason why I disappeared from here and other places is entirely mental-based. I have not been in a good place lately, and I will go into more detail later, perhaps. But right now I can't because I'm sitting in an airport in the USA going back to Canada and it would take me waaay too long to type it out/it's a stressful thing to talk about. It is mostly having to do with my chronic anxiety and depression problems, but I'm addressing them quite thoroughly right now and am slowly moving into a better place.
I can see you reading over my shoulder, computer screens are reflective you genius.
I'ma just leave that there. So everyone on my blog will know you're a text eaves-dropper. Cool.
Anyways. Sorry. I hate public places. The look on their face was priceless though. Biggest pet peeve: people reading over my shoulder. I'm going to get off my computer now, though. My flight leaves soon and I'm anxious about flying.
Peace out, everyone. Thanks for checking in and I'm sorry I've been so absent.
12/17/12
10/5/12
A rant on health.
There's this thing going on right now with a news reporter who got called obese in an e-mail and publicly outed the douche that did it. And then the douche that did it came back and defended himself and was basically a big dink. It's a pretty cool story and I applaud the woman for standing up for herself in some way other than crying and shouting "I'm NOT fat!" between mouthfuls of ice cream. She actually handed it with lots of dignity and was very composed and said some extremely well-chosen words.
What followed is what got my gears grinding. A few woman were talking to me about this. All of them were overweight, none MORBIDLY obese, but still. The things they said made my head spin, one in particular. All of them had the same complaint; losing weight is impossible, they're happy with themselves as is and there's nothing wrong with being their weight.
Well, no, it's not... and if you are happy with your body, awesome! I don't judge because I am still a bit bigger than average and I used to be very obese. Also I don't judge because judging people is wrong.
The thing that got me going was one woman in particular. She went on this rant about how it's impossible for her to lose weight and how clearly I understand because I seem like I keep a healthy lifestyle and I've still got some extra pounds.
That's what stopped me. She's only known me for a few months. I know from what she's said that her daily life consists of sitting at a computer and eating takeout. Not even because she has no time, simply because she "doesn't feel like doing stuff."
She knows from what I've said about my life that I run long distance races, work out every day, eat healthier than your average person, and go for regular physicals at the doctor's. I don't understand where she thinks that we sit in the same boat. She was also under the impression that the only reason to lose weight was to look pretty.
That is NOT why I lost weight.
Before I get into this, I want to show you a picture of me from when I was in high school and a picture I took tonight. I used to be 265lbs. It was awful.
Before:
Now:
I've come a long way. And it's not because it's the North American standard or because I felt bad in my own body. Actually, if it was just how much I cared about how I looked I would probably be even heavier now. Did you see how I dressed? Seriously? It wasn't about image.
So this is my rant on health.
I am bigger than normal. I am still seen as a bit fat. I am above average weight for women, still. I couldn't care less about that. Honestly, if I had to put my feelings about my weight and my image into words, it would be "I don't give a shit."
Honestly, truly. I could still be as wide as I was up there, but if I was as healthy as I am now it wouldn't matter much. But I don't think that's possible. Whatever. Point being, it's not about weight, it's about health. And weight is deceptive in the world of health. This woman saying that we're on the same page is insulting, not because she's heavier than me or whatever, but because she is incredibly unhealthy and not doing anything about it. She has uneven, heavy breathing suggesting an unhealthy heart, and gets out of breath just walking.
Losing weight and being healthy is not impossible or even hard. You don't need to be on a huge exercise program with a personal trainer and eat like a rabbit to start losing weight. Once you start it kinda cascades into a world of health. But you start slow. Like... switch to milk in your coffee one week. Stop eating fast food but every once in a while, have a burger. Whatever. Just do it slowly. Maybe you start going for walks every day. Then sometimes you jog a teeny bit. Maybe sometimes you lift a bit of weights. Not much.
Sometimes you'll have to take a break from health and divulge and then you go back to it.
At this point I go for a 3 1/2 mile run every other day and I eat almost vegetarian but I didn't get there overnight. I took small steps and a few times got frustrated and tried to do it all at once and then fell off the bandwagon because I pushed myself too hard.
I did this stuff because my blood pressure was awful, I didn't want diabetes, and I wanted to ride horses competitively and you have to be in shape to do that. I wanted to be able to climb the stairs and breathe afterwards. I wanted to feel good and boost my immune system because I was sick of being SICK.
I had debilitating tendinitis in my knees. Some days it was so bad I needed crutches to walk. The seizing tendons were becoming so bad that they were slowly working my bones out out of their sockets and caused a dislocation. My doctor told me that unless I wanted to be in a wheel chair from 30yo on, I needed to take better care of my body.
I also have a slow metabolism (it runs in the family - both of my parents are overweight) so it wasn't easy and it's tedious and slow-going. But it's been 7 years since I made the choice to change. I was told by my tendon specialist that I couldn't run, walk too hard, climb stairs, battle snow, or do high-level biking to start out. I needed to swim, horseback ride, and do craptonnes of yard work in order to start it.
So I don't want to hear ANY bullshit about how it's too hard to lose weight. I did it with all of those restrictions and chronic pain in my legs and back from my effed-up knees.
When someone complains about how hard it is to lose weight because they have a cookie addiction or something and just don't have the willpower to introduce exercise, it just rubs me the wrong way. I was told I could end up in a wheel chair by age 30 AND I was told that I would not ever be able to run. I went for a year without running. A whole year, didn't run a step because I was so terrified.
Now I've run in long-distance races and I regularly run a 3 1/2 mile route.
Don't complain to me about overcoming your stupid Oreo addiction. Grow a pair and deal with it if it bothers you that much! Don't get pissed at society for telling you it's bad to eat a WHOLE BOX OF OREOS. Guess what? IT IS BAD. In so many ways. That stuff will KILL you. Literally.
Do not group me in the same area as yourself if you're unhappy with yourself but unwilling to change it.
Healthy saves lives, people! I'm not trashing anyone who looks any way, I'm just asking for people to not bitch about their health/weight if they aren't willing to work out how to deal with it.
Also, here's a picture of me and a friend of mine after the last 5k we ran together! I'm on the right =)
What followed is what got my gears grinding. A few woman were talking to me about this. All of them were overweight, none MORBIDLY obese, but still. The things they said made my head spin, one in particular. All of them had the same complaint; losing weight is impossible, they're happy with themselves as is and there's nothing wrong with being their weight.
Well, no, it's not... and if you are happy with your body, awesome! I don't judge because I am still a bit bigger than average and I used to be very obese. Also I don't judge because judging people is wrong.
The thing that got me going was one woman in particular. She went on this rant about how it's impossible for her to lose weight and how clearly I understand because I seem like I keep a healthy lifestyle and I've still got some extra pounds.
That's what stopped me. She's only known me for a few months. I know from what she's said that her daily life consists of sitting at a computer and eating takeout. Not even because she has no time, simply because she "doesn't feel like doing stuff."
She knows from what I've said about my life that I run long distance races, work out every day, eat healthier than your average person, and go for regular physicals at the doctor's. I don't understand where she thinks that we sit in the same boat. She was also under the impression that the only reason to lose weight was to look pretty.
That is NOT why I lost weight.
Before I get into this, I want to show you a picture of me from when I was in high school and a picture I took tonight. I used to be 265lbs. It was awful.
Before:
Now:
I've come a long way. And it's not because it's the North American standard or because I felt bad in my own body. Actually, if it was just how much I cared about how I looked I would probably be even heavier now. Did you see how I dressed? Seriously? It wasn't about image.
So this is my rant on health.
I am bigger than normal. I am still seen as a bit fat. I am above average weight for women, still. I couldn't care less about that. Honestly, if I had to put my feelings about my weight and my image into words, it would be "I don't give a shit."
Honestly, truly. I could still be as wide as I was up there, but if I was as healthy as I am now it wouldn't matter much. But I don't think that's possible. Whatever. Point being, it's not about weight, it's about health. And weight is deceptive in the world of health. This woman saying that we're on the same page is insulting, not because she's heavier than me or whatever, but because she is incredibly unhealthy and not doing anything about it. She has uneven, heavy breathing suggesting an unhealthy heart, and gets out of breath just walking.
Losing weight and being healthy is not impossible or even hard. You don't need to be on a huge exercise program with a personal trainer and eat like a rabbit to start losing weight. Once you start it kinda cascades into a world of health. But you start slow. Like... switch to milk in your coffee one week. Stop eating fast food but every once in a while, have a burger. Whatever. Just do it slowly. Maybe you start going for walks every day. Then sometimes you jog a teeny bit. Maybe sometimes you lift a bit of weights. Not much.
Sometimes you'll have to take a break from health and divulge and then you go back to it.
At this point I go for a 3 1/2 mile run every other day and I eat almost vegetarian but I didn't get there overnight. I took small steps and a few times got frustrated and tried to do it all at once and then fell off the bandwagon because I pushed myself too hard.
I did this stuff because my blood pressure was awful, I didn't want diabetes, and I wanted to ride horses competitively and you have to be in shape to do that. I wanted to be able to climb the stairs and breathe afterwards. I wanted to feel good and boost my immune system because I was sick of being SICK.
I had debilitating tendinitis in my knees. Some days it was so bad I needed crutches to walk. The seizing tendons were becoming so bad that they were slowly working my bones out out of their sockets and caused a dislocation. My doctor told me that unless I wanted to be in a wheel chair from 30yo on, I needed to take better care of my body.
I also have a slow metabolism (it runs in the family - both of my parents are overweight) so it wasn't easy and it's tedious and slow-going. But it's been 7 years since I made the choice to change. I was told by my tendon specialist that I couldn't run, walk too hard, climb stairs, battle snow, or do high-level biking to start out. I needed to swim, horseback ride, and do craptonnes of yard work in order to start it.
So I don't want to hear ANY bullshit about how it's too hard to lose weight. I did it with all of those restrictions and chronic pain in my legs and back from my effed-up knees.
When someone complains about how hard it is to lose weight because they have a cookie addiction or something and just don't have the willpower to introduce exercise, it just rubs me the wrong way. I was told I could end up in a wheel chair by age 30 AND I was told that I would not ever be able to run. I went for a year without running. A whole year, didn't run a step because I was so terrified.
Now I've run in long-distance races and I regularly run a 3 1/2 mile route.
Don't complain to me about overcoming your stupid Oreo addiction. Grow a pair and deal with it if it bothers you that much! Don't get pissed at society for telling you it's bad to eat a WHOLE BOX OF OREOS. Guess what? IT IS BAD. In so many ways. That stuff will KILL you. Literally.
Do not group me in the same area as yourself if you're unhappy with yourself but unwilling to change it.
Healthy saves lives, people! I'm not trashing anyone who looks any way, I'm just asking for people to not bitch about their health/weight if they aren't willing to work out how to deal with it.
Also, here's a picture of me and a friend of mine after the last 5k we ran together! I'm on the right =)
10/4/12
"SHUT UP" girl.
When I was in my last year of high school I somehow gathered a following of overenthusiastic teenage girls who were for some reason in love with me (not in the romantic sense). As girls tend to frighten and annoy me I can assure you that the feeling was not reciprocated. These were the girls who lived in expensive houses, had loving parents, but slacked off in school and alternated between complaining about how awful their lives were and acting like annoying overly-excited/happy 5-year-olds. And not in a humorous way.
And they would hang around me when I worked (I started my art career in high school and would do commissions in my free time/on breaks because I worked 2 jobs outside of high school) and practiced music. I would do or say something that they found hilarious and they would split their sides laughing and tell me I'm awesome.
Okay. Sounds not bad. But it would be something like:
"Man I need a coffee" to a friend of mine and they would just fricking explode out of nowhere! It gave me a bit of a nervous twitch for a while.
They were the kind of girls that you could hear clearly from across the room because they only had two vocal presets: crying and screaming at the top of their lungs.
They added me on Facebook and followed all of my posts and liked my art website and page and blog and followed my band around like tame sorts of groupies. They wanted to be our roadies. Or some BS that we didn't need because we were an out-of-high-school-rock-band playing for at best 200 people and at worst 5. As soon as HS ended, I blocked most of them from my FB page and blocked their updates and wanted nothing to do with them.
However, one girl in particular just somehow weeded her way into my Facebooking experience. I now know her as "shut up" girl because every single thing I see her post makes me want to tell her to shut up and grow up. Because by this time she's got to be at least 22 years old and she still talks like she did when we were in high school. Which was already immature for her age. But I never say anything because I did a couple of times and she would cry to me about how mean I was and how I used to be her role model.
It was really stupid things that I called her on, too, like her publicly bitching out her father on Facebook for never being around or being in her life.
Her father is a FREAKING SOLDIER. He's never around because he spends most of his time deployed.
So after the 8-millionth time I finally deleted her. It takes a lot to get me to delete you from Facebook, mostly because I really couldn't care less who's around, so you have to blatantly annoy me to the point of me blocking you from appearing in anything, and then somehow worm your way back onto my page and continue the annoyance. It takes skill!
Anyways. So she requested a billion times (probably once a month) to be my friend on Facebook again and I kept declining. Finally it stopped until a couple of years later when she asked again. I thought, "hey, she HAS to have grown up a BIT since I last saw her... right?!"
Nope.
It's the same whiny crap, and she still lives with her parents. Except NOW she has a "photography business" that has been around for a couple of years and has never had a paid photoshoot because her pictures are AWFUL. But she's always talking about how she's going to make her living off of it and as soon as she does she's going to move out of her parents' house because they're mean to her and they suck.
She's going far, man.
Anyways. Here's some stuff from shut up girl. I will post more as time goes on and more happen.
Seriously. Every single post. This is the only person for whom I feel NO pity when they are sad. And I have like Christian guilt over it too because I'm supposed to love everyone but I can't like someone who refuses to do anything with themselves.
Remember this is coming from a highly privileged 22yo who's lived rent-free in her family's half-million-dollar homes all her life.
And they would hang around me when I worked (I started my art career in high school and would do commissions in my free time/on breaks because I worked 2 jobs outside of high school) and practiced music. I would do or say something that they found hilarious and they would split their sides laughing and tell me I'm awesome.
Okay. Sounds not bad. But it would be something like:
"Man I need a coffee" to a friend of mine and they would just fricking explode out of nowhere! It gave me a bit of a nervous twitch for a while.
They were the kind of girls that you could hear clearly from across the room because they only had two vocal presets: crying and screaming at the top of their lungs.
They added me on Facebook and followed all of my posts and liked my art website and page and blog and followed my band around like tame sorts of groupies. They wanted to be our roadies. Or some BS that we didn't need because we were an out-of-high-school-rock-band playing for at best 200 people and at worst 5. As soon as HS ended, I blocked most of them from my FB page and blocked their updates and wanted nothing to do with them.
However, one girl in particular just somehow weeded her way into my Facebooking experience. I now know her as "shut up" girl because every single thing I see her post makes me want to tell her to shut up and grow up. Because by this time she's got to be at least 22 years old and she still talks like she did when we were in high school. Which was already immature for her age. But I never say anything because I did a couple of times and she would cry to me about how mean I was and how I used to be her role model.
It was really stupid things that I called her on, too, like her publicly bitching out her father on Facebook for never being around or being in her life.
Her father is a FREAKING SOLDIER. He's never around because he spends most of his time deployed.
So after the 8-millionth time I finally deleted her. It takes a lot to get me to delete you from Facebook, mostly because I really couldn't care less who's around, so you have to blatantly annoy me to the point of me blocking you from appearing in anything, and then somehow worm your way back onto my page and continue the annoyance. It takes skill!
Anyways. So she requested a billion times (probably once a month) to be my friend on Facebook again and I kept declining. Finally it stopped until a couple of years later when she asked again. I thought, "hey, she HAS to have grown up a BIT since I last saw her... right?!"
Nope.
It's the same whiny crap, and she still lives with her parents. Except NOW she has a "photography business" that has been around for a couple of years and has never had a paid photoshoot because her pictures are AWFUL. But she's always talking about how she's going to make her living off of it and as soon as she does she's going to move out of her parents' house because they're mean to her and they suck.
She's going far, man.
Anyways. Here's some stuff from shut up girl. I will post more as time goes on and more happen.
Seriously. Every single post. This is the only person for whom I feel NO pity when they are sad. And I have like Christian guilt over it too because I'm supposed to love everyone but I can't like someone who refuses to do anything with themselves.
Remember this is coming from a highly privileged 22yo who's lived rent-free in her family's half-million-dollar homes all her life.
I'm too tired to write about my day.
So I drew a picture to describe it. Here's a brief explanation. First a man on a pink bike drove by me screaming weird things then I had coffee with my ex whom I'm still friends with and he had a surprise for me then my pet snake escaped into our storage room and hell if I can get him out then a customer asked me out and I said no. Then I realized my writing was awful today, so I took a break to set heat/food traps for my snake and then I had a slight mental meltdown.
I'm fine, just tired. I need to wake up before everyone and remove the traps before my roommates see them. And then just keep setting them at night (snakes are nocturnal) until I catch him without them knowing he's out. Anyways. Picture.
And as an added bonus here's a picture of the pants.
Good night.
I'm fine, just tired. I need to wake up before everyone and remove the traps before my roommates see them. And then just keep setting them at night (snakes are nocturnal) until I catch him without them knowing he's out. Anyways. Picture.
And as an added bonus here's a picture of the pants.
10/1/12
Business day!
Things are sorting out. I've been in contact with some well-known professionals in the horse business and am currently discussing doing artwork for their farms. I've also hidden the advertising for authors to kind of keep my sanity but still offer character design. This morning, I ended up going out to a wellness studio that's hanging a series of paintings that they commissioned me to do.
I recently bought a bunch of English tack so I can practice and keep in riding shape while I'm not training out at the farm, and so I can use it (it's old/beat up) to work with the younger horses so I don't have to wreck the barn's $6000 saddles if a young horse gets away from me.
Working on some other paintings. Found some time this weekend to write and outline a bunch and shut my editor up/calmed them down enough to stop harassing me all the time.
Had an interesting conversation via Facebook with my mom yesterday. I showed her a video of me working on conditioning a Grand Prix jumper and she goes "why are you riding ENGLISH?" like it was a dirty thing to do or something. She's always mocked the English tack, saying it was prissy or something, I don't know, I didn't pay close enough attention because it was always BS.
It was just humorous because for the past 8 years I've ridden nothing BUT English. The first time I've been in a Western saddles since I was 17 was last weekend when I went out to a friend's ranch to work with some of her youngsters. I told her that and she kind of goes "well this family never rode English."
"This family" rides casually at best, so it's not like I'm insulting some family honor. I DO have an uncle who is a professional rodeo rider but he's not actually related to me so he doesn't count.
I kindly explained that you CAN'T ride jumpers without riding English, and she just has no clue.
I missed being in the horse world. I really really did. I can't believe I bowed out for a whole 2 years.
I recently bought a bunch of English tack so I can practice and keep in riding shape while I'm not training out at the farm, and so I can use it (it's old/beat up) to work with the younger horses so I don't have to wreck the barn's $6000 saddles if a young horse gets away from me.
Working on some other paintings. Found some time this weekend to write and outline a bunch and shut my editor up/calmed them down enough to stop harassing me all the time.
Had an interesting conversation via Facebook with my mom yesterday. I showed her a video of me working on conditioning a Grand Prix jumper and she goes "why are you riding ENGLISH?" like it was a dirty thing to do or something. She's always mocked the English tack, saying it was prissy or something, I don't know, I didn't pay close enough attention because it was always BS.
It was just humorous because for the past 8 years I've ridden nothing BUT English. The first time I've been in a Western saddles since I was 17 was last weekend when I went out to a friend's ranch to work with some of her youngsters. I told her that and she kind of goes "well this family never rode English."
"This family" rides casually at best, so it's not like I'm insulting some family honor. I DO have an uncle who is a professional rodeo rider but he's not actually related to me so he doesn't count.
I kindly explained that you CAN'T ride jumpers without riding English, and she just has no clue.
I missed being in the horse world. I really really did. I can't believe I bowed out for a whole 2 years.
9/27/12
I'm sorry I broke my promise. Here's why I did it.
Things got very stressful this week. I'm pretty run into the ground. In fact, I think the stress and anxiety is making me very sick, if my achy body is any indication.
And just now my roommate John got extremely passive-aggressive which is a trigger to my anxiety attacks. As soon as I notice it I don't know how to handle it or work through it and John is one of those guys who can't be reasoned with once his mind is made up.
So I'm having a bit of a pissy night so I'm ranting on my blog because I don't talk to anyone anymore.
I've been reviewing training and show videos for the barn I'm training at, taking care of all feed, equipment, and med orders, payment transfers, repair requests, etc, along with dictating the training schedules for over 50 horses. And planning my own training schedule.
I am also dealing with about 16 art customers at the moment which are circulating through "wait" schedules now that the other job has started, which they were ALL warned about and "okay with." However, there are two specific ones that have been giving me a very rough time with daily e-mails demanding impossible updates.
My editor is threatening to drop my sponsorship if I can't provide some more portions of manuscript for critique and review.
And my music career might be ending before it properly starts, as I certainly don't have time to commit to my band and we've lost a couple of shows because of my schedule. Which I've tried to sub out to other drummers but have only been successful a couple of times. And as it's MY band, it's kind of essential I have time for it.
So yeah. Great that I'm making some money, but not so great that it's this stressful. And each and every job is high-pressure and comes with complainy people.
I just don't have time to really think anymore. I barely make time to eat and only keep up with proper meals by packing "day packs" at the start of the week of fruit, veggies, nuts, and pita bread that I grab and carry around with me all day every day and set alarms every 2 hours to remind me to eat a couple of bites. So that way eating only takes a few seconds.
After my work day wraps up I usually pitch into the housework and take care of my animals.
I'm not sleeping much. And my family is not good. And my life is changing very fast.
Tonight is just not a good night. The day started alright enough but the night just got bad. Some plans fell through. Got a few bad e-mails. Had a bad allergic reaction, and spent two hours cleaning up a room I haven't been in for more than two weeks. But it needed to be cleaned because the boys and their friends made it so gross it was starting to grow mildew and mold on some of the things left in there, and mold can send me into anaphylactic shock. And I don't want to die, so...
But I do this at least one or two times a week. I clean up after everyone's mess. It's what I've always done. Because I'm obsessive/compulsive and I can't help it and I refuse to hold others to my extreme idea of cleanliness because I respect them and their lack of OCD.
So yesterday I did something which was hard, but I did it. I ignored the dishwasher. Problem is, John runs the dishwasher through all the time, and has emptied it a couple of times this month while we do dishes probably once every 2 days because we have 4 people and a small dishwasher. But the 2 times a month have given John a sense of "I do all the work," and he's refusing to empty it.
What a stupid thing, right? Like what a stupid, small, insignificant, selfish, childish thing. It's a fucking dishwasher, get over it.
He runs it through, we all load it up as we dirty dishes, and the couple of times John doesn't empty it I do it the rest of the time.
But I've left it for others lately because I simply don't have time. I don't even have time to eat. And there are three other people to do dishes. I don't even use dishes. I'm so tired, I need to somehow let others do some things.
But it was the wrong choice because John had emptied a few days ago and thus is naturally off the hook for the next two weeks and has gained the special privilege of deciding whose turn it is to do the dishes and being an asshole when they don't do them.
So he decided it was "my turn" solely based on the fact that he thinks Laura won't do it ever because he thinks she's useless and lazy and Ian helped him rake up some leaves like a week and a half ago so therefore he's done his workload and thus it is my turn despite my cleaning both bathrooms, spending hours vacuuming the basement and hallway (it took two and a half hours to do a tiny hallway and a small basement because some people insist on wearing gross shoes in the house and not wiping their feet so I had to be meticulous), cleaning up the gross and moldy basement, handling the flooded laundry room by myself because everyone else was worried it was septic (... it was rain water), and taking care of fixing up our utility payments... along with working, what, four jobs? Clearly, I need to unload the fucking dishwasher.
Because some people can't grow the hell up and stop being selfish.
I should probably mention that I've been playing councilor to Laura about a guy she can't get over, along with another girl with the same problem which might be alright if I wasn't sick of hearing about these boys and the girls' inabilities to talk to them.
So anyways.
Tonight was the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, which is my favorite TV show and used to be the ONLY one I followed every week until I discovered Doctor Who and Community and Game of Thrones. As Community and Game of Thrones are not currently running, Doctor Who has been my only. And Grey's Anatomy left a HUGE cliffhanger at the end of their last season so I was excited about today because today was the day I get an hour-long break in this screwed up work schedule to just enjoy some TV. I planned it weeks ago. I haven't had a day off of work in over a month and a half.
I sometimes just want to be a girl and enjoy some girly drama. I hardly ever get to be a girl. I'm awful at being a girl. I'm emotionally stunted, I hate talking about girl things, and I would rather wander around in paddock boots and jeans and a t-shirt and get covered in mud and horse poop and dirt than go shopping.
Sometimes, I want to be a girl and watch Grey's Anatomy!
So yesterday I sent everyone who lives here a text saying that I would be using the basement for a certain hour because that's where our TV with cable is. Everyone said it was okay and I was free to enjoy my show.
This morning, during making breakfast, I realize John is being a bit of an ass and very not talking to me, which is weird because usually I can't shut him up when I'm making breakfast. He always wants to talk about shit he's doing and what he's doing that day, and what people have pissed him off lately.
I knew exactly what pissed him off. The stupid effing dishes. I decided to brush it off on the grounds that he would get over it and do them himself like an adult.
Tonight, John gets together with his ex-girlfriend and plan to use the basement for the night. When I learned of this, Ian, Laura and I were in a car with a friend coming home from dinner because they dragged me out for Subway because I was overworked and couldn't walk/talk straight so they made me stop for real food before my hour-long break. So I asked Ian to text John reminding him that I needed the TV for an hour as I did not have my cell phone with me because I'm absent-minded and always forget it at home.
When he did, he received a text that at first he tried to avoid showing to me before reading it out.
"Well if she does the dishes she can have the basement lol."
Which might sound not that bad, but I have heard him outright mock Laura in the same way, in person. Once she left me a couple of bananas when she left for a week, telling me to finish them off so they didn't go bad. I laughed when I received the note and told John, and he said "haha too bad she didn't tell you to do her dishes too!" which later turned into an evening of seething about Laura and her - ahem - one cup and one spoon she forgot to toss in the dishwasher before she left.
So yes. It was malicious. Ian thought it was a joke, but I turned and looked at Laura and she mouthed that she knows exactly what I was thinking.
Nonetheless, John and his ex left me the tv and have been shooting me dirty looks all night. And falling silent every time I enter the room.
So I've had a panic attack. I'm so tired of humans.
And just now my roommate John got extremely passive-aggressive which is a trigger to my anxiety attacks. As soon as I notice it I don't know how to handle it or work through it and John is one of those guys who can't be reasoned with once his mind is made up.
So I'm having a bit of a pissy night so I'm ranting on my blog because I don't talk to anyone anymore.
I've been reviewing training and show videos for the barn I'm training at, taking care of all feed, equipment, and med orders, payment transfers, repair requests, etc, along with dictating the training schedules for over 50 horses. And planning my own training schedule.
I am also dealing with about 16 art customers at the moment which are circulating through "wait" schedules now that the other job has started, which they were ALL warned about and "okay with." However, there are two specific ones that have been giving me a very rough time with daily e-mails demanding impossible updates.
My editor is threatening to drop my sponsorship if I can't provide some more portions of manuscript for critique and review.
And my music career might be ending before it properly starts, as I certainly don't have time to commit to my band and we've lost a couple of shows because of my schedule. Which I've tried to sub out to other drummers but have only been successful a couple of times. And as it's MY band, it's kind of essential I have time for it.
So yeah. Great that I'm making some money, but not so great that it's this stressful. And each and every job is high-pressure and comes with complainy people.
I just don't have time to really think anymore. I barely make time to eat and only keep up with proper meals by packing "day packs" at the start of the week of fruit, veggies, nuts, and pita bread that I grab and carry around with me all day every day and set alarms every 2 hours to remind me to eat a couple of bites. So that way eating only takes a few seconds.
After my work day wraps up I usually pitch into the housework and take care of my animals.
I'm not sleeping much. And my family is not good. And my life is changing very fast.
Tonight is just not a good night. The day started alright enough but the night just got bad. Some plans fell through. Got a few bad e-mails. Had a bad allergic reaction, and spent two hours cleaning up a room I haven't been in for more than two weeks. But it needed to be cleaned because the boys and their friends made it so gross it was starting to grow mildew and mold on some of the things left in there, and mold can send me into anaphylactic shock. And I don't want to die, so...
But I do this at least one or two times a week. I clean up after everyone's mess. It's what I've always done. Because I'm obsessive/compulsive and I can't help it and I refuse to hold others to my extreme idea of cleanliness because I respect them and their lack of OCD.
So yesterday I did something which was hard, but I did it. I ignored the dishwasher. Problem is, John runs the dishwasher through all the time, and has emptied it a couple of times this month while we do dishes probably once every 2 days because we have 4 people and a small dishwasher. But the 2 times a month have given John a sense of "I do all the work," and he's refusing to empty it.
What a stupid thing, right? Like what a stupid, small, insignificant, selfish, childish thing. It's a fucking dishwasher, get over it.
He runs it through, we all load it up as we dirty dishes, and the couple of times John doesn't empty it I do it the rest of the time.
But I've left it for others lately because I simply don't have time. I don't even have time to eat. And there are three other people to do dishes. I don't even use dishes. I'm so tired, I need to somehow let others do some things.
But it was the wrong choice because John had emptied a few days ago and thus is naturally off the hook for the next two weeks and has gained the special privilege of deciding whose turn it is to do the dishes and being an asshole when they don't do them.
So he decided it was "my turn" solely based on the fact that he thinks Laura won't do it ever because he thinks she's useless and lazy and Ian helped him rake up some leaves like a week and a half ago so therefore he's done his workload and thus it is my turn despite my cleaning both bathrooms, spending hours vacuuming the basement and hallway (it took two and a half hours to do a tiny hallway and a small basement because some people insist on wearing gross shoes in the house and not wiping their feet so I had to be meticulous), cleaning up the gross and moldy basement, handling the flooded laundry room by myself because everyone else was worried it was septic (... it was rain water), and taking care of fixing up our utility payments... along with working, what, four jobs? Clearly, I need to unload the fucking dishwasher.
Because some people can't grow the hell up and stop being selfish.
I should probably mention that I've been playing councilor to Laura about a guy she can't get over, along with another girl with the same problem which might be alright if I wasn't sick of hearing about these boys and the girls' inabilities to talk to them.
So anyways.
Tonight was the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, which is my favorite TV show and used to be the ONLY one I followed every week until I discovered Doctor Who and Community and Game of Thrones. As Community and Game of Thrones are not currently running, Doctor Who has been my only. And Grey's Anatomy left a HUGE cliffhanger at the end of their last season so I was excited about today because today was the day I get an hour-long break in this screwed up work schedule to just enjoy some TV. I planned it weeks ago. I haven't had a day off of work in over a month and a half.
I sometimes just want to be a girl and enjoy some girly drama. I hardly ever get to be a girl. I'm awful at being a girl. I'm emotionally stunted, I hate talking about girl things, and I would rather wander around in paddock boots and jeans and a t-shirt and get covered in mud and horse poop and dirt than go shopping.
Sometimes, I want to be a girl and watch Grey's Anatomy!
So yesterday I sent everyone who lives here a text saying that I would be using the basement for a certain hour because that's where our TV with cable is. Everyone said it was okay and I was free to enjoy my show.
This morning, during making breakfast, I realize John is being a bit of an ass and very not talking to me, which is weird because usually I can't shut him up when I'm making breakfast. He always wants to talk about shit he's doing and what he's doing that day, and what people have pissed him off lately.
I knew exactly what pissed him off. The stupid effing dishes. I decided to brush it off on the grounds that he would get over it and do them himself like an adult.
Tonight, John gets together with his ex-girlfriend and plan to use the basement for the night. When I learned of this, Ian, Laura and I were in a car with a friend coming home from dinner because they dragged me out for Subway because I was overworked and couldn't walk/talk straight so they made me stop for real food before my hour-long break. So I asked Ian to text John reminding him that I needed the TV for an hour as I did not have my cell phone with me because I'm absent-minded and always forget it at home.
When he did, he received a text that at first he tried to avoid showing to me before reading it out.
"Well if she does the dishes she can have the basement lol."
Which might sound not that bad, but I have heard him outright mock Laura in the same way, in person. Once she left me a couple of bananas when she left for a week, telling me to finish them off so they didn't go bad. I laughed when I received the note and told John, and he said "haha too bad she didn't tell you to do her dishes too!" which later turned into an evening of seething about Laura and her - ahem - one cup and one spoon she forgot to toss in the dishwasher before she left.
So yes. It was malicious. Ian thought it was a joke, but I turned and looked at Laura and she mouthed that she knows exactly what I was thinking.
Nonetheless, John and his ex left me the tv and have been shooting me dirty looks all night. And falling silent every time I enter the room.
So I've had a panic attack. I'm so tired of humans.
9/21/12
Another quick update, I promise I'll post more on Sunday
So I'm on a bit of a time crunch here but I wanted to give a quick update.
I've scheduled a hole in my fine arts commissions to write. I realized a few days ago that I was going crazy when I sat down to write for the first time in weeks and got so emotional over a scene I was writing that there were actual tears for my MC. Which rarely happens and usually only when I'm over-tired. So I realized that I really have to keep at these stories, so I made a spot where I can take a couple of hours every day just to write.
Right now I'm packing up to leave for the weekend. I will be going out to the barn I work at and giving some of the show jumpers some trial runs to see where they're at, and then on Sunday I'm skipping over to an Appy farm (spotty horses) to do some training work on 3 of their 5yos who are starting competition training in Western sports.
I'm at a conflict with one of my art customers right now who is annoyed that her pieces are "taking so long" despite their being larger-than-life oil paintings that require a minimum of about 30 hours of work each. So I will keep you all up to date on THAT drama.
But I'm really pressed for time right now (so sorry!!) so I have to go and do my job. I will come back on Sunday and actually do a useful update!
Thanks so much for your patience, 5 readers. You rock!
I've scheduled a hole in my fine arts commissions to write. I realized a few days ago that I was going crazy when I sat down to write for the first time in weeks and got so emotional over a scene I was writing that there were actual tears for my MC. Which rarely happens and usually only when I'm over-tired. So I realized that I really have to keep at these stories, so I made a spot where I can take a couple of hours every day just to write.
Right now I'm packing up to leave for the weekend. I will be going out to the barn I work at and giving some of the show jumpers some trial runs to see where they're at, and then on Sunday I'm skipping over to an Appy farm (spotty horses) to do some training work on 3 of their 5yos who are starting competition training in Western sports.
I'm at a conflict with one of my art customers right now who is annoyed that her pieces are "taking so long" despite their being larger-than-life oil paintings that require a minimum of about 30 hours of work each. So I will keep you all up to date on THAT drama.
But I'm really pressed for time right now (so sorry!!) so I have to go and do my job. I will come back on Sunday and actually do a useful update!
Thanks so much for your patience, 5 readers. You rock!
9/15/12
What do busy art days look like? Why is everything about to get busier? Let me tell you over this morning's coffee.
Over these past couple of weeks, I haven't had much down time. I have a bit now, but only for about half an hour, so I'm going to think fast and type fast.
I don't know if I've mentioned this on my blog, but I've definitely been alluding to it on Twitter, but I have a real life job now. I recently got hired at a big showjumping barn in Alberta as a full-time trainer and barn manager, and will be working with both mini prix and grand prix competitors. I will also, in the next year, be sponsored as one of their riders. I know it's not art but it's a solid job and, in the end, what I want as a career, so I'm going to do with it for now and see where it gets me.
On the other hand, my fine arts business has exploded all over everywhere with awesomeness and popularity and I'm not 100% sure how it happened.
I was not going through a good time, two-three weeks ago. Art was happening, but not fast enough (I was barely making enough to cover bills), the writing won't pay off on a monetary basis for another few months, and my music tanked with one band bowing out and the other sans bass player. We got a couple of shows this month and a few next, but it's still only $150 for me per show, and $300/mo from music is nice but not enough to pay rent.
So an old customer of mine came back a couple of weeks ago and laid down three commissions after I had just picked up commissions from about 5 different authors. And then there were my two corporate customers that were paying off every couple of weeks but being extremely frustrating about it/horrible to work with but still paying well.
Well, when this customer came back and started showing off the new pieces I did for her, another couple of farms stepped up and wanted some done too. A major showjumping competitor (I cant's say who but he was in the Olympics and isn't Canadian...) caught wind of the horse-related designs from my ex-boyfriend (who is still a very good friend of mine and competes in grand prix showjumping) and he and I are currently e-mailing back and forth talking money and commissions and timelines, along with contacting professional photographers to get the rights to their photos so I can legally copy them.
So all in all, it's suddenly very busy. I have three farms, five authors, two businesses, and a freaking Olympian on the go right now. Which is too much, in short. I actually can't do them all at once, so a few are circulating through wait lists, especially seeing how they're ALL for multiple commissions.
Which is cool, if it keeps up. If I am always this successful in art, then I probably won't do anything but horse training and art for the rest of my life. Which is fine. I would like that.
So I just want to talk, really quick in the next couple of minutes here, what a day in the life of a busy artist looks like.
This morning is a pretty typical day. It's a weekend, so I'm taking it a little easy, but I'm going to run down my typical day.
First, I get up. I look at my ragged self in the mirror across from my bed and have a 10-minute silent argument with myself assuring myself that, in fact, if I do not un-lazy and take a shower, I will scare all of my customers with my poofy, poofy mane.
So I take a shower and then grab my laptop and sit over my breakfast and coffee, scrolling through e-mails and making a list on a word document of things that have to get done today and filtering through the big list of things I have on the go to see if there's anything else I can take on.
After the coffee, I head to my "studio." A lot of artists have a separate room for their studio, mine is now my bedroom. I have a table set up and a paper-sized space laid out on it, while every other surface in my room is piled with art paper, pencil boxes, art tools, concept sketches, paint tubes, and other various art supplies.
Before I used to put them away every day on a nice tall and thin Ikea shelf I have, but lately there's been too much daily art to be able to do that, so it's chaos time.
I work on one piece for a few hours, then take a couple hours to reply to e-mails and dig up some references. I then head back to working on a piece for another few hours. Then I re-check my e-mails, reply to any new ones, make any phone calls that need to be made in relation to art, and if there's digital work to do, I do it. This includes photo re-touching to showcase on my website, cleaning up line art to send to people, and creating some time lapses for the people who are interested in them. This usually takes me to the early evening, in which my productive gear kicks in and I art for about 6-7 hours straight. This takes me to late at night where I will get back into any digital work and comb out the list of things to do again. If there's any feedback from anyone I've e-mailed progress to, I will fix what they need fixed, and by the time I wrap up I've worked straight all day and it's usually the early hours of the morning.
I sleep for about 6-7 hours and then do it all again.
I've been doing this for two weeks.
It's crazy. Seriously.
Today I have to meet in person with two customers and then go art supply shopping because I'm out of fixative and HB/3B/3H pencils. And THEN I have to go buy super glue because in 5 days I'm going out to the show jumping barn and giving some of the competition horses test runs and strutting my stuff once more for the owners so they can feel okay about letting me work unsupervised with $20k-$35k horses.
EDIT: ALSO LAST SUNDAY I SAW ERIC LAMAZE LIVE. I'm not lying. Seriously. I almost died. I did cry. Because he gave a very moving speech and I was so excited that I was shaking so moving speech just tipped me over the edge.
Here's a picture I took. That's him. I am such a creeper.
He didn't ride because his horse is young/inexperienced, but I DID see Ian Miller, Rich Fellers, Robert Whitaker, and many many more phenomenal riders ride the course. I learned a lot and got that much more excited to start my show jumping job.
I don't know if I've mentioned this on my blog, but I've definitely been alluding to it on Twitter, but I have a real life job now. I recently got hired at a big showjumping barn in Alberta as a full-time trainer and barn manager, and will be working with both mini prix and grand prix competitors. I will also, in the next year, be sponsored as one of their riders. I know it's not art but it's a solid job and, in the end, what I want as a career, so I'm going to do with it for now and see where it gets me.
On the other hand, my fine arts business has exploded all over everywhere with awesomeness and popularity and I'm not 100% sure how it happened.
I was not going through a good time, two-three weeks ago. Art was happening, but not fast enough (I was barely making enough to cover bills), the writing won't pay off on a monetary basis for another few months, and my music tanked with one band bowing out and the other sans bass player. We got a couple of shows this month and a few next, but it's still only $150 for me per show, and $300/mo from music is nice but not enough to pay rent.
So an old customer of mine came back a couple of weeks ago and laid down three commissions after I had just picked up commissions from about 5 different authors. And then there were my two corporate customers that were paying off every couple of weeks but being extremely frustrating about it/horrible to work with but still paying well.
Well, when this customer came back and started showing off the new pieces I did for her, another couple of farms stepped up and wanted some done too. A major showjumping competitor (I cant's say who but he was in the Olympics and isn't Canadian...) caught wind of the horse-related designs from my ex-boyfriend (who is still a very good friend of mine and competes in grand prix showjumping) and he and I are currently e-mailing back and forth talking money and commissions and timelines, along with contacting professional photographers to get the rights to their photos so I can legally copy them.
So all in all, it's suddenly very busy. I have three farms, five authors, two businesses, and a freaking Olympian on the go right now. Which is too much, in short. I actually can't do them all at once, so a few are circulating through wait lists, especially seeing how they're ALL for multiple commissions.
Which is cool, if it keeps up. If I am always this successful in art, then I probably won't do anything but horse training and art for the rest of my life. Which is fine. I would like that.
So I just want to talk, really quick in the next couple of minutes here, what a day in the life of a busy artist looks like.
This morning is a pretty typical day. It's a weekend, so I'm taking it a little easy, but I'm going to run down my typical day.
First, I get up. I look at my ragged self in the mirror across from my bed and have a 10-minute silent argument with myself assuring myself that, in fact, if I do not un-lazy and take a shower, I will scare all of my customers with my poofy, poofy mane.
So I take a shower and then grab my laptop and sit over my breakfast and coffee, scrolling through e-mails and making a list on a word document of things that have to get done today and filtering through the big list of things I have on the go to see if there's anything else I can take on.
After the coffee, I head to my "studio." A lot of artists have a separate room for their studio, mine is now my bedroom. I have a table set up and a paper-sized space laid out on it, while every other surface in my room is piled with art paper, pencil boxes, art tools, concept sketches, paint tubes, and other various art supplies.
Before I used to put them away every day on a nice tall and thin Ikea shelf I have, but lately there's been too much daily art to be able to do that, so it's chaos time.
I work on one piece for a few hours, then take a couple hours to reply to e-mails and dig up some references. I then head back to working on a piece for another few hours. Then I re-check my e-mails, reply to any new ones, make any phone calls that need to be made in relation to art, and if there's digital work to do, I do it. This includes photo re-touching to showcase on my website, cleaning up line art to send to people, and creating some time lapses for the people who are interested in them. This usually takes me to the early evening, in which my productive gear kicks in and I art for about 6-7 hours straight. This takes me to late at night where I will get back into any digital work and comb out the list of things to do again. If there's any feedback from anyone I've e-mailed progress to, I will fix what they need fixed, and by the time I wrap up I've worked straight all day and it's usually the early hours of the morning.
I sleep for about 6-7 hours and then do it all again.
I've been doing this for two weeks.
It's crazy. Seriously.
Today I have to meet in person with two customers and then go art supply shopping because I'm out of fixative and HB/3B/3H pencils. And THEN I have to go buy super glue because in 5 days I'm going out to the show jumping barn and giving some of the competition horses test runs and strutting my stuff once more for the owners so they can feel okay about letting me work unsupervised with $20k-$35k horses.
EDIT: ALSO LAST SUNDAY I SAW ERIC LAMAZE LIVE. I'm not lying. Seriously. I almost died. I did cry. Because he gave a very moving speech and I was so excited that I was shaking so moving speech just tipped me over the edge.
Here's a picture I took. That's him. I am such a creeper.
He didn't ride because his horse is young/inexperienced, but I DID see Ian Miller, Rich Fellers, Robert Whitaker, and many many more phenomenal riders ride the course. I learned a lot and got that much more excited to start my show jumping job.
9/14/12
I'm so sorry. I'm still busy. But I will come back.
I feel bad for my 5 readers. I mean, here's this sub-par blog about someone's life that I'm not sure why ANYONE (never mind 5 people) would care about and I just walked away from it for almost a week. My readers are never coming back, I'm sure of it.
I've never been this art-busy in my life. With all the character designs, I'm also designing an album cover for a local band, I have two HUGE paintings on the go, and four graphite portraits in the wings to do in my spare time. And of course, EVERYONE needs them done ASAP.
Seriously.
I haven't written a word in the novels this week, and it's driving me crazy. I haven't touched a drum kit in who knows how many days.
I don't sleep, I forget to eat because I'm busy, and let's not even mention the fact that the first human interaction I've had in three days was an hour ago when Laura started singing "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" loudly in the hallway of our bedrooms, and Ian and I burst out of our rooms to join in. Humorous, but after it happened, I realized I hadn't seen anyone the prior two days.
I've been drinking a full pot of coffee a day.
A full pot.
Like, not half full, brimming.
I'm probably going to have a heart attack. That and the lack of food. My pants are loose-fitting, as of about three days ago. And most girls would be ecstatic, but it's not healthy.
FINE ART IS KILLING ME. I should have turned some of these guys down but the thought of having a comfortable financial bed at the end of this is driving me on.
In between working on people's art, I've been doing promotional videos and such, trying to grab as much attention as possible, because due to some recent musical failure it looks like music will not be a career that I am looking at anywhere in the near future. Art, on the other hand, is. And if my books are successful, maybe those too.
The positive thing about all of this artwork is that I do very much enjoy drawing, despite my continual complaining about it, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if it ended up being my career.
I've never been this art-busy in my life. With all the character designs, I'm also designing an album cover for a local band, I have two HUGE paintings on the go, and four graphite portraits in the wings to do in my spare time. And of course, EVERYONE needs them done ASAP.
Seriously.
I haven't written a word in the novels this week, and it's driving me crazy. I haven't touched a drum kit in who knows how many days.
I don't sleep, I forget to eat because I'm busy, and let's not even mention the fact that the first human interaction I've had in three days was an hour ago when Laura started singing "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" loudly in the hallway of our bedrooms, and Ian and I burst out of our rooms to join in. Humorous, but after it happened, I realized I hadn't seen anyone the prior two days.
I've been drinking a full pot of coffee a day.
A full pot.
Like, not half full, brimming.
I'm probably going to have a heart attack. That and the lack of food. My pants are loose-fitting, as of about three days ago. And most girls would be ecstatic, but it's not healthy.
FINE ART IS KILLING ME. I should have turned some of these guys down but the thought of having a comfortable financial bed at the end of this is driving me on.
In between working on people's art, I've been doing promotional videos and such, trying to grab as much attention as possible, because due to some recent musical failure it looks like music will not be a career that I am looking at anywhere in the near future. Art, on the other hand, is. And if my books are successful, maybe those too.
The positive thing about all of this artwork is that I do very much enjoy drawing, despite my continual complaining about it, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if it ended up being my career.
9/6/12
I've been busy.
Seriously, seriously busy. I've been going constantly working on expanding, solidifying, and making five separate authors AND an editor happy, along with two farm owners and business e-mails out the you-know-where.
Hello, I'm The Artist and I have established myself into some stupidly complicated careers.
Just kind of trying to keep up with this blog because I feel like I've let all of my five readers down skipping out on postings. It still amazes me that a small handful of random people actually read this stuff, and I'm really sorry that I've skipped days!
I just have NOT found the time to do personal stuff. I haven't slept in three days because I've been so busy. I'm about to go to bed, but I just wanted to hop on here and write.
So, just to fill you in on the life of a 3x artist.
In the fine arts field, things are crazy. I'm expanding my business into the digital realm. I've been experimenting and goofing around in Photoshop paintings since I was a teenager, but I've never offered it professionally. Now that I've inserted myself into the world of character design and concepts, it would actually be better for me to do them in Photoshop instead of on paper, just because of the industry right now. Some authors have been asking me why I DON'T do that, and have acted interested, so I've been readying myself to offer the PS paintings professionally.
But that means lots of research, lots of practice pictures in all of my spare time, and lots of tutorial reading to be sure I'm not doing anything stupid due to a self-taught background.
Which is the PITA for every medium I've ever worked with. I've never taken art lessons, and every time I do something I haven't done in a while I get paranoid that I'm going to miss something or skip over important stages out of ignorance. Which really doesn't happen, but hey! I'm super anxious.
So aside from the Photoshop, I've had a huge stack of designs and concepts to work and research, and then a "rush" portrait to do. All in all, in the span of three days I've had to sort through about 17 drawings in some way, shape, or form, and I've done 3 practice paintings in PS along with 2 studies. I've also had to do a few anatomy studies because in the stack of character designs I've stumbled across some shady areas of my knowledge of the human body in motion. Which is extremely frustrating for someone who's been professionally drawing humans for the past 7 years.
Due to my sudden rise in fine art demand, I've had to bench my novels for a bit. I just can't keep up with them. I just sent that e-mail off today, but before then I was struggling to write a couple thousand words a day along with everything else just to shut the editor up (he keeps demanding to know why I haven't sent anything off to the critical analysis lady who is the MOST USELESS CRITIC EVER). But I can't, I need sleep, so I probably won't get ANYTHING written until next Monday.
Which is sad, I like writing, but art is making me money so I have to side-track for a bit.
Then, because it's September, there's a bunch of BBQs and parties and picnics and the like, along with some weddings gearing up for the "pretty week" in Alberta where all the leaves are bright red and orange, so my band just got an onslaught of "play for my party" e-mails, and I've been juggling those and booking with my band mates to make sure they can make the shows and THEN explaining exactly why some clients are not able to pay us $50 for the whole band for two hours of music, because our flat fee for two hours is $750 and that is a considerable difference. And because I'm over-tired, these e-mails take FOREVER to type because I have to make sure I don't say something along the lines of "YOU IDIOT, YOU NEED TO PAY YOUR MUSICIANS PROPERLY. WE ARE PEOPLE TOO."
Because that wouldn't be professional.
On top of this all, normal life is still a thing and I still have to do thing like grocery shopping, cooking meals, showering, meeting customers, some semblance of housework, and acknowledging the existence of other humans in my presence. There's just not enough hours in the day.
With that, I'm going to bed.
If any of this post is incoherent, I apologize. I'm too tired to proof-read or properly function, which is a dangerous combination.
Also it took me a couple of hard-thinking minutes to realize that the word I was looking for in the above sentence was "incoherent." You know I'm tired when my vocab tanks.
Hello, I'm The Artist and I have established myself into some stupidly complicated careers.
Just kind of trying to keep up with this blog because I feel like I've let all of my five readers down skipping out on postings. It still amazes me that a small handful of random people actually read this stuff, and I'm really sorry that I've skipped days!
I just have NOT found the time to do personal stuff. I haven't slept in three days because I've been so busy. I'm about to go to bed, but I just wanted to hop on here and write.
So, just to fill you in on the life of a 3x artist.
In the fine arts field, things are crazy. I'm expanding my business into the digital realm. I've been experimenting and goofing around in Photoshop paintings since I was a teenager, but I've never offered it professionally. Now that I've inserted myself into the world of character design and concepts, it would actually be better for me to do them in Photoshop instead of on paper, just because of the industry right now. Some authors have been asking me why I DON'T do that, and have acted interested, so I've been readying myself to offer the PS paintings professionally.
But that means lots of research, lots of practice pictures in all of my spare time, and lots of tutorial reading to be sure I'm not doing anything stupid due to a self-taught background.
Which is the PITA for every medium I've ever worked with. I've never taken art lessons, and every time I do something I haven't done in a while I get paranoid that I'm going to miss something or skip over important stages out of ignorance. Which really doesn't happen, but hey! I'm super anxious.
So aside from the Photoshop, I've had a huge stack of designs and concepts to work and research, and then a "rush" portrait to do. All in all, in the span of three days I've had to sort through about 17 drawings in some way, shape, or form, and I've done 3 practice paintings in PS along with 2 studies. I've also had to do a few anatomy studies because in the stack of character designs I've stumbled across some shady areas of my knowledge of the human body in motion. Which is extremely frustrating for someone who's been professionally drawing humans for the past 7 years.
Due to my sudden rise in fine art demand, I've had to bench my novels for a bit. I just can't keep up with them. I just sent that e-mail off today, but before then I was struggling to write a couple thousand words a day along with everything else just to shut the editor up (he keeps demanding to know why I haven't sent anything off to the critical analysis lady who is the MOST USELESS CRITIC EVER). But I can't, I need sleep, so I probably won't get ANYTHING written until next Monday.
Which is sad, I like writing, but art is making me money so I have to side-track for a bit.
Then, because it's September, there's a bunch of BBQs and parties and picnics and the like, along with some weddings gearing up for the "pretty week" in Alberta where all the leaves are bright red and orange, so my band just got an onslaught of "play for my party" e-mails, and I've been juggling those and booking with my band mates to make sure they can make the shows and THEN explaining exactly why some clients are not able to pay us $50 for the whole band for two hours of music, because our flat fee for two hours is $750 and that is a considerable difference. And because I'm over-tired, these e-mails take FOREVER to type because I have to make sure I don't say something along the lines of "YOU IDIOT, YOU NEED TO PAY YOUR MUSICIANS PROPERLY. WE ARE PEOPLE TOO."
Because that wouldn't be professional.
On top of this all, normal life is still a thing and I still have to do thing like grocery shopping, cooking meals, showering, meeting customers, some semblance of housework, and acknowledging the existence of other humans in my presence. There's just not enough hours in the day.
With that, I'm going to bed.
If any of this post is incoherent, I apologize. I'm too tired to proof-read or properly function, which is a dangerous combination.
Also it took me a couple of hard-thinking minutes to realize that the word I was looking for in the above sentence was "incoherent." You know I'm tired when my vocab tanks.
9/2/12
Winters in Alberta, rating on fun-meter: absolute zero.
I hate winter.
But in all honesty, in Canada, no one likes winter. And those that actually like winter only like it because of the snow and how pretty it looks, but no one likes the way snow looks in the city because it's all dirty and been walked all over and sprayed with road debris. So no one in Canadian cities like winters.
Unless they live in BC. Because winters there don't count.
I live in central Alberta. Winters here are mother nature's attempt to see just how miserable a place can get. First the snow happens, and then it melts a bit, just to give the ground this slippery, crunchy, lumpy, slip-on-it-and-your-legs-will-probably-break footing. Then it snows again and you're walking across this snow-covered, half-slush surface with a slippery under layer. Then it snows again and you're like alright, good, now I can walk without DYING.
But you also have to wade through knee-high powder, the bottom of which is a crunchy/uneven bed so it's a constant struggle and the OPPOSITE OF FUN. If you look up the antonym of fun, it's "walkingthroughAlbertasnowdrifts."
Then there's the wind. There's always wind in the winter. And it makes it that much colder. And then on top of the cold and the wind you have days where you never see the sun because it's only light out for maybe 7 hours a day or so. 10am-5pm, ish, is a mid-winter daylight schedule. You get some sort of half-light from like 8-10am and 5-7pm but it's grey and gross and miserable and cloudy anyways, so it doesn't count.
So basically going outside is a compilation of trying your best not to slip and fall, trying your best not to blink because if you too much or too hard do your eyelashes will freeze together, trying to find a compromise between covering your face with a scarf and having a cold, wet piece of cloth against your mouth or having no scarf and having your face ripped off by frost bite, navigating through miserable half-light or darkness, and probably not warm even a little bit. Also, when you first step outside, the air is so cold that it chokes you for the first few breaths if you aren't careful; you have to take a very slow breath so the air has a chance to warm up/your lungs can slowly adjust, or breathe through a scarf or your hand.
What part of this sounds like fun? Seriously.
Oh, and I almost forgot one of my least favorite parts. Before you CAN go outside, you have to put on boots (annoying for a person who has spent the summer in flip flops and fall/spring in slip-on shoes), a big freaking coat (and if you're a wuss like me, a sweater first), gloves, a scarf, a hat, probably pull up a hood, and if you're going to be outside for a LONG TIME you'll want some warm pants over that too.
So basically whenever you want to pop across the street for a coffee, it takes 5 minutes of prep before you can even go outside.
Then before you touch anything/do anything you have to take your gloves off because who can do ANYTHING well with gloves on?!
People who have vehicles have to take a stake with a plastic blade on the end of it and hack at their windows to get the ice and snow and frost off of them before sitting in their disgustingly cold boxes of sadness and woe and quake uncontrollably, praying for their car to heat up faster, because it's been 10 minutes and you can still see your breath.
And while we're on the subject of cars, people in Edmonton and its surrounding cities SUCK AT DRIVING in the summer. You add ice and snow and wind and gross to that and you have a million HUGE, high-powered, high-speed WEAPONS flying around everywhere. If you're IN another car, your life is at risk. If you're outside of a building and outside of a car, may God help you.
The only colors in winter are grey, white, and brown. And in the intermittent not-cloudy days, the blue sky is not a nice blue. It's the coldest-looking blue you can imagine.
But you think, hey, if it's nice and sunny out at least it will be a bit warmer?
NOPE.
Clouds act as insulators. The cloudless days are the coldest of the season. That, and no heat is absorbed by the earth because it's covered in ice, so it just reflects back. AND guaranteed if there's no clouds, it's because it's windy-as-all-hell and they've all been blown away so it's minus freeze-your-ass-off with a minus holy-crap-I'm-going-to-die wind chill.
So it's like "LOL I'm sunny out but SCREW YOU."
There is nothing fun, beautiful, or happy about Alberta winters. And the next one is fast-approaching.
Luckily, this is the first year that I will not be in school during the winter, and because I work from home I MIGHT be okay. I might even get to see the sun on a regular basis!
I still hate winter, though.
But in all honesty, in Canada, no one likes winter. And those that actually like winter only like it because of the snow and how pretty it looks, but no one likes the way snow looks in the city because it's all dirty and been walked all over and sprayed with road debris. So no one in Canadian cities like winters.
Unless they live in BC. Because winters there don't count.
I live in central Alberta. Winters here are mother nature's attempt to see just how miserable a place can get. First the snow happens, and then it melts a bit, just to give the ground this slippery, crunchy, lumpy, slip-on-it-and-your-legs-will-probably-break footing. Then it snows again and you're walking across this snow-covered, half-slush surface with a slippery under layer. Then it snows again and you're like alright, good, now I can walk without DYING.
But you also have to wade through knee-high powder, the bottom of which is a crunchy/uneven bed so it's a constant struggle and the OPPOSITE OF FUN. If you look up the antonym of fun, it's "walkingthroughAlbertasnowdrifts."
Then there's the wind. There's always wind in the winter. And it makes it that much colder. And then on top of the cold and the wind you have days where you never see the sun because it's only light out for maybe 7 hours a day or so. 10am-5pm, ish, is a mid-winter daylight schedule. You get some sort of half-light from like 8-10am and 5-7pm but it's grey and gross and miserable and cloudy anyways, so it doesn't count.
So basically going outside is a compilation of trying your best not to slip and fall, trying your best not to blink because if you too much or too hard do your eyelashes will freeze together, trying to find a compromise between covering your face with a scarf and having a cold, wet piece of cloth against your mouth or having no scarf and having your face ripped off by frost bite, navigating through miserable half-light or darkness, and probably not warm even a little bit. Also, when you first step outside, the air is so cold that it chokes you for the first few breaths if you aren't careful; you have to take a very slow breath so the air has a chance to warm up/your lungs can slowly adjust, or breathe through a scarf or your hand.
What part of this sounds like fun? Seriously.
Oh, and I almost forgot one of my least favorite parts. Before you CAN go outside, you have to put on boots (annoying for a person who has spent the summer in flip flops and fall/spring in slip-on shoes), a big freaking coat (and if you're a wuss like me, a sweater first), gloves, a scarf, a hat, probably pull up a hood, and if you're going to be outside for a LONG TIME you'll want some warm pants over that too.
So basically whenever you want to pop across the street for a coffee, it takes 5 minutes of prep before you can even go outside.
Then before you touch anything/do anything you have to take your gloves off because who can do ANYTHING well with gloves on?!
People who have vehicles have to take a stake with a plastic blade on the end of it and hack at their windows to get the ice and snow and frost off of them before sitting in their disgustingly cold boxes of sadness and woe and quake uncontrollably, praying for their car to heat up faster, because it's been 10 minutes and you can still see your breath.
And while we're on the subject of cars, people in Edmonton and its surrounding cities SUCK AT DRIVING in the summer. You add ice and snow and wind and gross to that and you have a million HUGE, high-powered, high-speed WEAPONS flying around everywhere. If you're IN another car, your life is at risk. If you're outside of a building and outside of a car, may God help you.
The only colors in winter are grey, white, and brown. And in the intermittent not-cloudy days, the blue sky is not a nice blue. It's the coldest-looking blue you can imagine.
But you think, hey, if it's nice and sunny out at least it will be a bit warmer?
NOPE.
Clouds act as insulators. The cloudless days are the coldest of the season. That, and no heat is absorbed by the earth because it's covered in ice, so it just reflects back. AND guaranteed if there's no clouds, it's because it's windy-as-all-hell and they've all been blown away so it's minus freeze-your-ass-off with a minus holy-crap-I'm-going-to-die wind chill.
So it's like "LOL I'm sunny out but SCREW YOU."
There is nothing fun, beautiful, or happy about Alberta winters. And the next one is fast-approaching.
Luckily, this is the first year that I will not be in school during the winter, and because I work from home I MIGHT be okay. I might even get to see the sun on a regular basis!
I still hate winter, though.
9/1/12
Coffeeshop writing session, take 3.
Alright, so I guess my 5 readers all know that the last attempt at coffeeshop writing went horridly. I didn't get any work done and it was a huge mass of bad luck and bad experiences. So this time I am back up in the first shop that I attempted this in, and it's going well. I've actually gotten quite a big chunk written and things are going good so far. It helps that it is very much writing weather outside; it's cold and rainy and windy and the kind of weather even rainy day enthusiasts hate.
I had to meet with an author earlier and discuss a series of new character sketches because he's changed his mind about the book he's writing. Which is good money, I guess, for me, but bad luck for him because now he has five useless designs. I don't understand why people would pay me so much money to do this stuff if they're not sure about it, it just doesn't make sense.
I guess they've got real jobs on the side and have money to spare.
So now I am waiting on a friend I am supposed to meet here for a coffee. I went to high school with him and we spent a lot of time together before I moved out and took off to a different city for University. However, he's now moving out of the country so we're doing a quick coffee before he leaves.
Then I have two more customer meetings before I start up on another realism design for another customer and then that will take me to bed time. But between the customer and the friend I have 3 hours so I thought I'd stick around and write. Turns out it was totally productive.
BUT GUESS WHAT. Tomorrow, my life gets momentarily exciting!
My all-time music hero (that isn't a drummer) Paul Brandt is doing a show in Edmonton tomorrow... for free! And it's quite unexpected. I happened to see the announcement over Twitter (side note, follow me @artineverysense) and so it's come as a complete surprise. I'm reeling. I've never seen him live before and the thought of witnessing that much musical awesomeness on a live stage is enough to make my head spin. I won't be sleeping tonight.
OR FOR THIS WEEK BECAUSE GUESS WHAT AGAIN.
I. GET. TO. SEE. ERIC. LAMAZE. LIVE.
I'm going to die of excitement overload. Seriously. My head is pounding because I'm so excited.
For those of you who missed my Olympic spaz-out week (lucky you if you did), Eric Lamaze is my hero of everything horse. I stayed up all night every night for a week just to watch this guy ride live on TV, and now I'm spending money I probably can't afford to to pay for gas so my friend will drive me down to Calgary to see him in at Spruce Meadows next Sunday, where they will be doing a Hickstead tribute in the morning.
Amazing. I will probably cry.
So I'm not sleeping this week. I have enough excited energy to last me years. It's not going to be pretty.
My ex-boyfriend/still-good-friend/horse trainer/Grand Prix competitor keeps bugging me about he's already met the guy/competed alongside him a few years back. He will never let me live it down.
Though I wouldn't get the same opportunity anyways because I don't showjump at Grand Prix level anyways. Pfft.
Anyways, that's my life right now. I have 20 minutes to finish up my writing session before my friend gets here. Ciao.
... side-note, I asked a guy to momentarily watch my possessions about an hour ago so I could run to the bathroom and he's been awkwardly glancing in my direction ever since. Every time I look up he's watching me and then he smiles and gives a wave.
I think he's flirting with me but I'm socially inept and thus have no idea. Sometimes I really really curse my social anxiety. He's pretty good-looking. Grrr.
Makes up for the fact that I got asked out by a 40yo man via napkin yesterday. I should post pictures of it. Holy. Yes. I will when I get home.
ANYWAYS. WRITING TIME.
I had to meet with an author earlier and discuss a series of new character sketches because he's changed his mind about the book he's writing. Which is good money, I guess, for me, but bad luck for him because now he has five useless designs. I don't understand why people would pay me so much money to do this stuff if they're not sure about it, it just doesn't make sense.
I guess they've got real jobs on the side and have money to spare.
So now I am waiting on a friend I am supposed to meet here for a coffee. I went to high school with him and we spent a lot of time together before I moved out and took off to a different city for University. However, he's now moving out of the country so we're doing a quick coffee before he leaves.
Then I have two more customer meetings before I start up on another realism design for another customer and then that will take me to bed time. But between the customer and the friend I have 3 hours so I thought I'd stick around and write. Turns out it was totally productive.
BUT GUESS WHAT. Tomorrow, my life gets momentarily exciting!
My all-time music hero (that isn't a drummer) Paul Brandt is doing a show in Edmonton tomorrow... for free! And it's quite unexpected. I happened to see the announcement over Twitter (side note, follow me @artineverysense) and so it's come as a complete surprise. I'm reeling. I've never seen him live before and the thought of witnessing that much musical awesomeness on a live stage is enough to make my head spin. I won't be sleeping tonight.
OR FOR THIS WEEK BECAUSE GUESS WHAT AGAIN.
I. GET. TO. SEE. ERIC. LAMAZE. LIVE.
I'm going to die of excitement overload. Seriously. My head is pounding because I'm so excited.
For those of you who missed my Olympic spaz-out week (lucky you if you did), Eric Lamaze is my hero of everything horse. I stayed up all night every night for a week just to watch this guy ride live on TV, and now I'm spending money I probably can't afford to to pay for gas so my friend will drive me down to Calgary to see him in at Spruce Meadows next Sunday, where they will be doing a Hickstead tribute in the morning.
Amazing. I will probably cry.
So I'm not sleeping this week. I have enough excited energy to last me years. It's not going to be pretty.
My ex-boyfriend/still-good-friend/horse trainer/Grand Prix competitor keeps bugging me about he's already met the guy/competed alongside him a few years back. He will never let me live it down.
Though I wouldn't get the same opportunity anyways because I don't showjump at Grand Prix level anyways. Pfft.
Anyways, that's my life right now. I have 20 minutes to finish up my writing session before my friend gets here. Ciao.
... side-note, I asked a guy to momentarily watch my possessions about an hour ago so I could run to the bathroom and he's been awkwardly glancing in my direction ever since. Every time I look up he's watching me and then he smiles and gives a wave.
I think he's flirting with me but I'm socially inept and thus have no idea. Sometimes I really really curse my social anxiety. He's pretty good-looking. Grrr.
Makes up for the fact that I got asked out by a 40yo man via napkin yesterday. I should post pictures of it. Holy. Yes. I will when I get home.
ANYWAYS. WRITING TIME.
8/31/12
An actually useful character outline.
Two helpful posts in one day? You know what that means; I have writer's block. And I'm too pantsless to go for a walk right now.
Here's an outline that I use for my characters that I actually find useful. I find a lot of "character profile forms" out there on the webbernets give you the MOST useless facts about your character. You spend three hours filling out fields that don't even apply to your story such as "favorite color." It's very rare that that's useful to the story. Also, why do you need to enter the sex of the character? If you don't know that offhand, you probably aren't writing very well. So here's what I think are the most important things to know about your own character.
Appearance
Hair:
Eyes:
Height: short/average/tall
Visible marks/scars:
Tattoos/piercings:
Brief clothing description:
Personal
Full name:
Family (seen on a regular basis):
Significant other:
Job:
Favorite hobby:
Story
Goal:
Why (one sentence):
Goal accomplished?:
Lessons learned:
Marital status change:
Job change:
Location change:
What else do you need to know? You can add it in yourself. Here's an example of mine (with important info redacted):
Appearance
Hair: Black
Eyes: Grey
Height: short/average/(tall)
Visible marks/scars: N/A
Tattoos/piercings: Ribcage tattoo, black-colored hawk
Brief clothing description: Standard issue military uniform.
Personal
Full name: Charles [middle name] [last name]
Family (seen on a regular basis): Sister ([name])
Significant other: Anita [last name]
Job: Soldier
Favorite hobby: Carving
Story
Goal: You don't get to know my story. But it would be like "to win against _______."
Why (one sentence): "Because they're trying to kill him." (example)
Goal accomplished?: Yes
Lessons learned: "meaningful lesson taught to my MC. Example. Learning to work with others. Yes. It can be that simple."
Marital status change: Yes. (relationship - married)
Job change: No
Location change: Yes ([city name redacted] - [city #2 name redacted])
Boom. Nice solid structure to follow.
Here's an outline that I use for my characters that I actually find useful. I find a lot of "character profile forms" out there on the webbernets give you the MOST useless facts about your character. You spend three hours filling out fields that don't even apply to your story such as "favorite color." It's very rare that that's useful to the story. Also, why do you need to enter the sex of the character? If you don't know that offhand, you probably aren't writing very well. So here's what I think are the most important things to know about your own character.
Appearance
Hair:
Eyes:
Height: short/average/tall
Visible marks/scars:
Tattoos/piercings:
Brief clothing description:
Personal
Full name:
Family (seen on a regular basis):
Significant other:
Job:
Favorite hobby:
Story
Goal:
Why (one sentence):
Goal accomplished?:
Lessons learned:
Marital status change:
Job change:
Location change:
What else do you need to know? You can add it in yourself. Here's an example of mine (with important info redacted):
Appearance
Hair: Black
Eyes: Grey
Height: short/average/(tall)
Visible marks/scars: N/A
Tattoos/piercings: Ribcage tattoo, black-colored hawk
Brief clothing description: Standard issue military uniform.
Personal
Full name: Charles [middle name] [last name]
Family (seen on a regular basis): Sister ([name])
Significant other: Anita [last name]
Job: Soldier
Favorite hobby: Carving
Story
Goal: You don't get to know my story. But it would be like "to win against _______."
Why (one sentence): "Because they're trying to kill him." (example)
Goal accomplished?: Yes
Lessons learned: "meaningful lesson taught to my MC. Example. Learning to work with others. Yes. It can be that simple."
Marital status change: Yes. (relationship - married)
Job change: No
Location change: Yes ([city name redacted] - [city #2 name redacted])
Boom. Nice solid structure to follow.
Why I think character designs are important to your writing.
If I showed you these two pictures, what do you think you could a write better creative prose on?
Okay. Let's be honest here.You can make up some BS abstract minimalism higher-than-thou crap about how the one of NOTHING expresses more about your soul or something, but you would REALLY just be doing it to try really hard to prove me wrong. It's not what you actually think.
Of course you can write more on the first one. Even if you were just doing the most simple thing prose does - describing it.
Picture #1 you can talk about setting, subject, action... textures, you can guess sounds and imagine others in the picture. In fact, it's hard not to. You can talk about time of day, time in history, location, etc, and it's pretty easy to come up with a hundred different scenarios that lead to this image. Okay. Maybe not a hundred. But you get the point.
Picture #2 you can talk about... how maybe there was a ghost and... stuff. You have to stare it for a while to try and figure out and come up with images in your head without anything visual to go on. There's nothing more than your memory to refer back to for consistent details and such.
So basically the point I'm trying to make is that character designs are stupid amounts of helpful to creating believable, CONSISTENT characters. They give you a face to write for, and they actually help you sympathize with your characters better which makes your writing more emotionally appealing. The same effect is explained here by our friend Jeff from Community:
Gives you some emotional attachment so that when something good or bad happens to them, it flows through you and you can write more realistically.
Of course you can always use yourself as your MC but that doesn't usually end well. Like whatsherface who wrote Twilight. The MC looks exactly like the author and it turned into her wild crazy fantasy land where everything was empty and childish and waaaay too over-excited over-fantasized and started a freaking CULT.
So personally I think it helps you keep better track of what's going on in your character and gives them some solidity and consistency. Of course not everyone needs this, but I think it can make a world of difference.
Details-wise, it's easier to look back on this:
Instead of this:
Which is supposed to be a comparison to characters in a drawing or design vs in your head. By the way.
Okay. Let's be honest here.You can make up some BS abstract minimalism higher-than-thou crap about how the one of NOTHING expresses more about your soul or something, but you would REALLY just be doing it to try really hard to prove me wrong. It's not what you actually think.
Of course you can write more on the first one. Even if you were just doing the most simple thing prose does - describing it.
Picture #1 you can talk about setting, subject, action... textures, you can guess sounds and imagine others in the picture. In fact, it's hard not to. You can talk about time of day, time in history, location, etc, and it's pretty easy to come up with a hundred different scenarios that lead to this image. Okay. Maybe not a hundred. But you get the point.
Picture #2 you can talk about... how maybe there was a ghost and... stuff. You have to stare it for a while to try and figure out and come up with images in your head without anything visual to go on. There's nothing more than your memory to refer back to for consistent details and such.
So basically the point I'm trying to make is that character designs are stupid amounts of helpful to creating believable, CONSISTENT characters. They give you a face to write for, and they actually help you sympathize with your characters better which makes your writing more emotionally appealing. The same effect is explained here by our friend Jeff from Community:
Gives you some emotional attachment so that when something good or bad happens to them, it flows through you and you can write more realistically.
Of course you can always use yourself as your MC but that doesn't usually end well. Like whatsherface who wrote Twilight. The MC looks exactly like the author and it turned into her wild crazy fantasy land where everything was empty and childish and waaaay too over-excited over-fantasized and started a freaking CULT.
So personally I think it helps you keep better track of what's going on in your character and gives them some solidity and consistency. Of course not everyone needs this, but I think it can make a world of difference.
Details-wise, it's easier to look back on this:
Instead of this:
Which is supposed to be a comparison to characters in a drawing or design vs in your head. By the way.
8/30/12
I've done some mental acrobats to the point where this is okay.
I'm lying in bed right now. It's a little awkward to type with your laptop on your belly, but whatever.
It's currently 9:30am, which is a little later than I usually sleep in, I'm struggling to get up, and it is FREAKING COLD IN THIS ROOM. I went to bed and it was super hot and then as the night wore on I slowly layered another three blankets on top of myself, and I'm still wrapped up in them and I don't want to move, but I have to get some stuff done today. So I've justified updating my blog so I can wake myself up and simultaneously get the courage to battle the cold.
Here's why I think blogging instead of getting up right now is okay.
Blogging is supposed to help me, not only get my thoughts out of my head and make way for important things, but also get the creative wheels turning. Every writer should blog because the more you blog, the more you write. And the more you write, the better you write.
And the more the tendons in your wrists hate you.
So I've convinced myself it's going to give me a mental jump start to the day. really I'm just taking the time to enjoy the warm. I do have to send out a few business e-mails this morning too... hmmmmm...
But I also need breakfast. Grrr. Okay. I'm getting up now.
EDIT: NOPE. SENDING E-MAILS.
It's currently 9:30am, which is a little later than I usually sleep in, I'm struggling to get up, and it is FREAKING COLD IN THIS ROOM. I went to bed and it was super hot and then as the night wore on I slowly layered another three blankets on top of myself, and I'm still wrapped up in them and I don't want to move, but I have to get some stuff done today. So I've justified updating my blog so I can wake myself up and simultaneously get the courage to battle the cold.
Here's why I think blogging instead of getting up right now is okay.
Blogging is supposed to help me, not only get my thoughts out of my head and make way for important things, but also get the creative wheels turning. Every writer should blog because the more you blog, the more you write. And the more you write, the better you write.
And the more the tendons in your wrists hate you.
So I've convinced myself it's going to give me a mental jump start to the day. really I'm just taking the time to enjoy the warm. I do have to send out a few business e-mails this morning too... hmmmmm...
But I also need breakfast. Grrr. Okay. I'm getting up now.
EDIT: NOPE. SENDING E-MAILS.
8/29/12
First-hand experience for the sake of a novel.
A lot of serious authors do it. A lot of other serious authors watch us do it and view us in league with idiots. But some people truly believe (and I, among them) that experiencing what your characters are experiencing firsthand helps you be more convincing and thorough in your writing.
Some authors go to some scary extremes. I would never go down the line of self-harm like some more hardcore writers do, but I've gone through some great lengths to recreate some scenarios to help me think better and put myself in my MC's position.
Example. Once I asked my swordfighting class (oh yeah, I took sword fighting lessons for six years...) to help me recreate some fight scenarios so I could record them and write from the results. Once I had a friend a dozen times quicker than me to chase me down in a field and tackle me to the ground so I could feel the impact and how it happened. I've gone running through thunder storms, sliding down wet hills barefoot, swimming across lakes, and once laid in a bed all day without moving with my limbs "bandaged up" to figure out what being horridly injured would feel like for a day. I've put weights on belts and strapped on a heavy backpack and gone hiking through a city's river valley for a few hours, and gone for midnight walks in the country by my family's lakeside cabin all in the name of proper feeling.
So I tried to do some tonight and I regret it. Thoroughly. Sometimes you have to be smart, and tonight I was very not smart.
I've gone running this time of night all summer, in the same general area that I was in tonight, completely without incident. So I figured, what's a walk in the park in the middle of the night? I get nervous in the city in the dark, as any woman should, but for whatever reason it doesn't bother me when I'm running because I'm always near busy roads and I'm going faster than other people. Tonight I armed myself with a pocket knife strapped to my arm (seriously), dressed in the same clothing my MC might (or very near to it), and headed out for a night in the park. A little armed with overconfidence, extensive combat and martial arts training, and the ability to practically sprint the distance from the park to my house, I was pretty okay until I got into the middle of the park and noticed a man.
I'd seen him upon entering the park, and he'd been going in the other direction. Now he was walking in my direction. So I turned course and headed for the middle of a field, on a small hill where a group of three trees were. When I got there, I stood behind the trees so he couldn't see me in the dark (I was dressed in all black and they were evergreens, so their branches touched the ground) and watched him through the branches. He stopped and was staring in the direction I'd gone in. After a few moments, he walked straight for me.
I was swearing at myself and kicking myself for being an idiot. One man isn't a huge threat to me, but who knows if he had friends or weapons or what.
So I looped around behind the hill and cut across the field again, keeping an ear out for him as I went back to the main path and headed for the road. He went to where I'd been waiting, stayed there for a moment, then followed me out. Still angry at myself, I headed in the opposite direction of my house to gain enough ground to lose him so he didn't know where I freaking lived. He followed me at a distance for almost 5 blocks around two turns before I randomly turned a corner and, once out of sight, began running down the road and cut down a side path (another not-so-safe route but at least this one was lit by street lights), through a network of condos, and back onto a road a few blocks from my house. I jogged to my house, cut into the back yard, and got inside, locked all of my doors, and slapped myself (not really) for being so dumb.
Uh, of course a freaking dark park in the middle of a city isn't safe, idiot.
That being said, one man is hardly a threat to me, regardless of whatever weapon he might have had (even learned how to beat a gun in a fist fight...) but first rule of all martial arts is run. Run, and if they catch you, break them enough so that they can't follow you.
So yeah, a bit heart-pounding. Gave me some GREAT stuff to write on, though!
Also, my getup was pretty badass. What you can't see in this picture is that I'm wearing black knee-height boots and black tights in addition to this. And a black hood. But you can kinda see that. I felt like the badass female action character that you see in movies and shit.
Some authors go to some scary extremes. I would never go down the line of self-harm like some more hardcore writers do, but I've gone through some great lengths to recreate some scenarios to help me think better and put myself in my MC's position.
Example. Once I asked my swordfighting class (oh yeah, I took sword fighting lessons for six years...) to help me recreate some fight scenarios so I could record them and write from the results. Once I had a friend a dozen times quicker than me to chase me down in a field and tackle me to the ground so I could feel the impact and how it happened. I've gone running through thunder storms, sliding down wet hills barefoot, swimming across lakes, and once laid in a bed all day without moving with my limbs "bandaged up" to figure out what being horridly injured would feel like for a day. I've put weights on belts and strapped on a heavy backpack and gone hiking through a city's river valley for a few hours, and gone for midnight walks in the country by my family's lakeside cabin all in the name of proper feeling.
So I tried to do some tonight and I regret it. Thoroughly. Sometimes you have to be smart, and tonight I was very not smart.
I've gone running this time of night all summer, in the same general area that I was in tonight, completely without incident. So I figured, what's a walk in the park in the middle of the night? I get nervous in the city in the dark, as any woman should, but for whatever reason it doesn't bother me when I'm running because I'm always near busy roads and I'm going faster than other people. Tonight I armed myself with a pocket knife strapped to my arm (seriously), dressed in the same clothing my MC might (or very near to it), and headed out for a night in the park. A little armed with overconfidence, extensive combat and martial arts training, and the ability to practically sprint the distance from the park to my house, I was pretty okay until I got into the middle of the park and noticed a man.
I'd seen him upon entering the park, and he'd been going in the other direction. Now he was walking in my direction. So I turned course and headed for the middle of a field, on a small hill where a group of three trees were. When I got there, I stood behind the trees so he couldn't see me in the dark (I was dressed in all black and they were evergreens, so their branches touched the ground) and watched him through the branches. He stopped and was staring in the direction I'd gone in. After a few moments, he walked straight for me.
I was swearing at myself and kicking myself for being an idiot. One man isn't a huge threat to me, but who knows if he had friends or weapons or what.
So I looped around behind the hill and cut across the field again, keeping an ear out for him as I went back to the main path and headed for the road. He went to where I'd been waiting, stayed there for a moment, then followed me out. Still angry at myself, I headed in the opposite direction of my house to gain enough ground to lose him so he didn't know where I freaking lived. He followed me at a distance for almost 5 blocks around two turns before I randomly turned a corner and, once out of sight, began running down the road and cut down a side path (another not-so-safe route but at least this one was lit by street lights), through a network of condos, and back onto a road a few blocks from my house. I jogged to my house, cut into the back yard, and got inside, locked all of my doors, and slapped myself (not really) for being so dumb.
Uh, of course a freaking dark park in the middle of a city isn't safe, idiot.
That being said, one man is hardly a threat to me, regardless of whatever weapon he might have had (even learned how to beat a gun in a fist fight...) but first rule of all martial arts is run. Run, and if they catch you, break them enough so that they can't follow you.
So yeah, a bit heart-pounding. Gave me some GREAT stuff to write on, though!
Also, my getup was pretty badass. What you can't see in this picture is that I'm wearing black knee-height boots and black tights in addition to this. And a black hood. But you can kinda see that. I felt like the badass female action character that you see in movies and shit.
Today's episode of WHAT THE HELL AM I LOOKING AT?!
Right. So, girls sit weird. Like... a guy sits around, he's either knees apart or ankle on thigh leg cross or "girly" leg cross if he's a skinny/classy guy. Girls are like LET'S SEE HOW MANY WAYS OUR KNEES CAN ROTATE. And I TRIED explaining this to my friend once and he just gave me a very unconvincing "... uhuh..." and went back to his ignorant life of not knowing what normal sitting is. So I was just working on my novel and I came up on a blank spot and so I curled up into my "I'm thinking" pose which I will get to in a moment, and happened to glance at myself in the mirror across from me, which I usually NEVER do because I never look like someone I'd like to see at the moment because I've never done anything more than throw my hair into a messy ponytail and shove glasses onto my face.
Holy run-on sentence.
So my version of a thinking pose is pulling my feet onto the thing I'm sitting on (in this case, my bed), crossing my ankles, and shoving my knees into the insides of my elbows, then locking my wrists together. It's crazy amounts of comfortable.
What I saw in the mirror made me think about my conversation about girls sitting stupidly.
It's true. Look at what I look like when I'm thinking:
Sorry for the bad makeup job.
Anyways, I made this post to prove a point to a friend who will never read it. Yeah. I'm in a writer's block.
Holy run-on sentence.
So my version of a thinking pose is pulling my feet onto the thing I'm sitting on (in this case, my bed), crossing my ankles, and shoving my knees into the insides of my elbows, then locking my wrists together. It's crazy amounts of comfortable.
What I saw in the mirror made me think about my conversation about girls sitting stupidly.
It's true. Look at what I look like when I'm thinking:
Sorry for the bad makeup job.
Anyways, I made this post to prove a point to a friend who will never read it. Yeah. I'm in a writer's block.
8/28/12
Mental backflips of an active brain.
I'm going to warn you all right now that this post is going to LOOK like it's going to be depressing, but it's really not, I PROMISE.
Okay, onto the post.
I'm half convinced my color-matching, story-making, sound-differing brain is what's gotten me into this mental mess. Artists of all walks are weird. I went to music school in a purely arts building. Everyone was weird. The musicians were all crazy/screwed up, the theatre students obnoxious and overly dramatic, the writers were secluded and a bit creepy at times, the fine artists were purposeful and colorful and had their eyes half-glazed over all the time because they were trying to picture everything under their pencil. It all fits. None of it is unexpected, and somehow they shoved thousands of weirdos and oddballs into one big building and nothing burned to the ground.
Except the one time that the cafeteria's deep frier exploded one morning. No worries, everyone was fine but the entire building reeked of smoke and oil for days after.
I guess I just have to reiterate my point here. Artists are screwed up people.
So it's okay that I'm no exception. I've come to terms with it a long time ago, but there's a roller coaster involved. Also, just learned roller coaster is not one word; if you type it, spell check thinks you're trying to say "cholesterol." Anyways.
I break super easy. In every way except for physical. Okay. physical too, I'm pathetically uncoordinated which, surprisingly enough, is pretty common for drummers. Except mentally is a bit harder to explain. I break every which way incredibly easily, and it takes some getting used to.
There's extremes of being "broken" and not-so-extremes. The first one that happens is kinda like what you might witness from Abed on the show Community:
You mess too much with my brain and I just kinda have a system failure and curl up in a ball and stare back at you awkwardly and wait for the thing that scared me to go away. I have no coping mechanism for life-changing things that might happen, or things that I might find life-changing and everyone else is just okay with.
I call it terrifying, others call it funny. I don't see what's so funny about having your life flipped over unexpectedly, at the time, but I can usually come to terms with it.
The other side is the humor break. My funny breaks sometimes, if people have been too much funny. The funny breaks both ways; one way I'm in a constant state of eye-watering, unsettling silent giggles, usually once again seen from behind my knees as I'm curled up in a ball. Usually in an upright position, this time. The other side of humor break is the elimination of exterior response. I will genuinely find something hilarious, and laugh on the inside, but on the outside I'm stone-faced and usually only say, "that's funny." It doesn't clue in to me as an inappropriate reaction because inside I'm reacting accordingly. It's not until a friend gives me a sideways glance that I realize that I've done something not normal.
The other break is what I've started to call the British break. I watch too much British television and I become obsessed with filtering my speech because I'm terrified of British inflections making their way into my dialogue. It gives me a look of irregular frustration and my active listening dies. Which is bad, because active listening is the way I follow conversations and social cues, and if that's gone then I become terrified that I've missed something important and my conversational abilities break.
Which leads us to the speech breaks. One is like the above where I forget to actively listen, and the lines of speech that draw themselves out for me disappear and I have nothing, which destroys my ability to contribute. The other is deep active listening. While I'm picking apart the conversation and guessing where it's going, they've stopped talking for a couple of minutes and have to say my name a few times before I realize it.
These go in so many ways. There's every corner of human action and emotion, and at every corner there's an edge that I somehow find very hard to not slip off of.
The final big one is the accidental moral break. Something happens that scares my moral subconscious and I do another "Abed break". Sometimes it's something in a movie; my friends made me watch Zach and Miry Make a Porno and there's one scene near the end with excrement involved that had me, once again, curled in a ball and whining and temporarily unable to function. Sometimes it's in conversation. Someone who's rather crude and doesn't know me well, usually from my University, will say something shocking that shuts down my coping mechanisms. Sometimes it's situational; I see someone making out in public. I break.
My brain does all of these high-speed back flips to try and sort out my life for me, and it works so hard overtime that sometimes it does one too many flips and has to take a few to untangle itself, so I patiently wait for it to get back to normal.
Today I British-broke AND scared-broke, AND moral-broke, all at once, so I ended up walling myself into my bedroom and living here all day trying to be productive and failing.
Okay, onto the post.
I'm half convinced my color-matching, story-making, sound-differing brain is what's gotten me into this mental mess. Artists of all walks are weird. I went to music school in a purely arts building. Everyone was weird. The musicians were all crazy/screwed up, the theatre students obnoxious and overly dramatic, the writers were secluded and a bit creepy at times, the fine artists were purposeful and colorful and had their eyes half-glazed over all the time because they were trying to picture everything under their pencil. It all fits. None of it is unexpected, and somehow they shoved thousands of weirdos and oddballs into one big building and nothing burned to the ground.
Except the one time that the cafeteria's deep frier exploded one morning. No worries, everyone was fine but the entire building reeked of smoke and oil for days after.
I guess I just have to reiterate my point here. Artists are screwed up people.
So it's okay that I'm no exception. I've come to terms with it a long time ago, but there's a roller coaster involved. Also, just learned roller coaster is not one word; if you type it, spell check thinks you're trying to say "cholesterol." Anyways.
I break super easy. In every way except for physical. Okay. physical too, I'm pathetically uncoordinated which, surprisingly enough, is pretty common for drummers. Except mentally is a bit harder to explain. I break every which way incredibly easily, and it takes some getting used to.
There's extremes of being "broken" and not-so-extremes. The first one that happens is kinda like what you might witness from Abed on the show Community:
You mess too much with my brain and I just kinda have a system failure and curl up in a ball and stare back at you awkwardly and wait for the thing that scared me to go away. I have no coping mechanism for life-changing things that might happen, or things that I might find life-changing and everyone else is just okay with.
I call it terrifying, others call it funny. I don't see what's so funny about having your life flipped over unexpectedly, at the time, but I can usually come to terms with it.
The other side is the humor break. My funny breaks sometimes, if people have been too much funny. The funny breaks both ways; one way I'm in a constant state of eye-watering, unsettling silent giggles, usually once again seen from behind my knees as I'm curled up in a ball. Usually in an upright position, this time. The other side of humor break is the elimination of exterior response. I will genuinely find something hilarious, and laugh on the inside, but on the outside I'm stone-faced and usually only say, "that's funny." It doesn't clue in to me as an inappropriate reaction because inside I'm reacting accordingly. It's not until a friend gives me a sideways glance that I realize that I've done something not normal.
The other break is what I've started to call the British break. I watch too much British television and I become obsessed with filtering my speech because I'm terrified of British inflections making their way into my dialogue. It gives me a look of irregular frustration and my active listening dies. Which is bad, because active listening is the way I follow conversations and social cues, and if that's gone then I become terrified that I've missed something important and my conversational abilities break.
Which leads us to the speech breaks. One is like the above where I forget to actively listen, and the lines of speech that draw themselves out for me disappear and I have nothing, which destroys my ability to contribute. The other is deep active listening. While I'm picking apart the conversation and guessing where it's going, they've stopped talking for a couple of minutes and have to say my name a few times before I realize it.
These go in so many ways. There's every corner of human action and emotion, and at every corner there's an edge that I somehow find very hard to not slip off of.
The final big one is the accidental moral break. Something happens that scares my moral subconscious and I do another "Abed break". Sometimes it's something in a movie; my friends made me watch Zach and Miry Make a Porno and there's one scene near the end with excrement involved that had me, once again, curled in a ball and whining and temporarily unable to function. Sometimes it's in conversation. Someone who's rather crude and doesn't know me well, usually from my University, will say something shocking that shuts down my coping mechanisms. Sometimes it's situational; I see someone making out in public. I break.
My brain does all of these high-speed back flips to try and sort out my life for me, and it works so hard overtime that sometimes it does one too many flips and has to take a few to untangle itself, so I patiently wait for it to get back to normal.
Today I British-broke AND scared-broke, AND moral-broke, all at once, so I ended up walling myself into my bedroom and living here all day trying to be productive and failing.
8/26/12
Procrastination and the lazy artist.
I DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING TODAY. Nothing. Not. A. Damn. Thing.
You know what I've done today?
I walked 10 minutes to the pet store to buy a mouse for my snake because he's hungry.
It's 4:30pm.
You know what I NEED to do today? I need to fix a painting that a customer hated, I need to get to work on a commission someone is picking up tomorrow (so I have tonight and tomorrow morning to do it), and I need to put some ink on a character sketch I did for an author.
And speaking of authors!
I WANT TO WRITE SO DAMN BAD. I've been grudgingly sitting around doing nothing because I don't want to paint and I do want to write, but I have to paint and I'm not letting myself write until my damn deadlines for fine arts are met so I'm in a bit of a conflict with myself which I'm sure would send a therapist, should I have one, over the edge. It's sad. I should really just fix this painting... it's only going to take a couple of hours. But I really dislike painting.
Yeah. I dislike it. I became a professional artist because I thought everyone would love my drawings and I could bask in the loving glow of my beloved graphite forever.
But everyone's all OUUU I LOVE YOUR OIL PAINTINGS MAKE ME ONE SO I CAN BE A PICKY PICKY CUSTOMER ABOUT IT BECAUSE I'M RICH AND I PAY YOU STUPID AMOUNTS OF MONEY FOR IT.
Okay, so I do make about $30 an hour for my oil paintings, so they are good money...
But I charge that much because I hate doing them and I hold the hopes up that if they're that expensive less people will want them. But I just think it sends the message that they're super high class instead, and rich people want them.
Really I'm just blogging right now to complain about nothing to avoid doing work. I'm feeling so unmotivated again.
Okay. I'm going to get to work, now.
You know what I've done today?
I walked 10 minutes to the pet store to buy a mouse for my snake because he's hungry.
It's 4:30pm.
You know what I NEED to do today? I need to fix a painting that a customer hated, I need to get to work on a commission someone is picking up tomorrow (so I have tonight and tomorrow morning to do it), and I need to put some ink on a character sketch I did for an author.
And speaking of authors!
I WANT TO WRITE SO DAMN BAD. I've been grudgingly sitting around doing nothing because I don't want to paint and I do want to write, but I have to paint and I'm not letting myself write until my damn deadlines for fine arts are met so I'm in a bit of a conflict with myself which I'm sure would send a therapist, should I have one, over the edge. It's sad. I should really just fix this painting... it's only going to take a couple of hours. But I really dislike painting.
Yeah. I dislike it. I became a professional artist because I thought everyone would love my drawings and I could bask in the loving glow of my beloved graphite forever.
But everyone's all OUUU I LOVE YOUR OIL PAINTINGS MAKE ME ONE SO I CAN BE A PICKY PICKY CUSTOMER ABOUT IT BECAUSE I'M RICH AND I PAY YOU STUPID AMOUNTS OF MONEY FOR IT.
Okay, so I do make about $30 an hour for my oil paintings, so they are good money...
But I charge that much because I hate doing them and I hold the hopes up that if they're that expensive less people will want them. But I just think it sends the message that they're super high class instead, and rich people want them.
Really I'm just blogging right now to complain about nothing to avoid doing work. I'm feeling so unmotivated again.
Okay. I'm going to get to work, now.
8/24/12
This house is so empty!
Ian and I are going to be holding down the fort together for the next few days as John is gallivanting off to the USA somewhere and Laura is gone with her band on tour. So Ian and I are the only ones in this house and it's turning out strangely awesome. I really have nothing else to post about. So I'm watching Community and drinking craptonnes of water and keeping calm.
I tried to be productive today because I have such a soon deadline but my motivation tanked halfway through the day so tomorrow will be busier than I had planned. But I was so tired. And just not motivated. Or interested. It happens sometimes.
Anyways! Yeah!
I tried to be productive today because I have such a soon deadline but my motivation tanked halfway through the day so tomorrow will be busier than I had planned. But I was so tired. And just not motivated. Or interested. It happens sometimes.
Anyways! Yeah!
Sleepy day means sleepy artist.
It's cloudy and slightly damp outside, and cold in this house. And I forced myself to get up a bit earlier than usual because I have a lot of work to get done this weekend and wanted to put a fully day in today. So I dragged myself out of bed after half an hour of hitting the snooze button on my cell phone and wrapped myself in layers of clothing (it's getting cold) and dragged myself downstairs where Ian and Laura and a friend of everyone's were all hanging out. The friend happens to be the guitarist in Laura's band and they were waiting to go on tour.
They all kinda looked at me and were suppressing laughter as I flopped down on the floor and curled up pathetically, wishing everyone a good morning. The rest of Laura's band showed up shortly thereafter and left to go pre-tour shopping. They showed up 5 minutes ago with a HUGE Tim Horton's coffee and a muffin for me. Guess who my favorite people in the world are right now.
I have to put a layout on a canvas, photograph it, send it to my picky picky customer, then paint at least half of it. I have a character design to ink up today and a graphite outline to do. Tomorrow I have to finish the painting or get very very very close, draw up another character outline, and start shading the graphite piece. I'm not getting much sleep this weekend. Sunday I have to finish three character sketches plus the new one, finish the shading on the graphite, and then write a good chunk of novel for my Monday deadline for EVERYTHING.
I have a deadline for writing, a deadline for three character sketches/two ink designs, and a graphite portrait. My deadline for the painting is Friday and it needs at least 5 days to dry, so it has to be done tomorrow or in the very latest, Sunday morning.
Then next week will be one of frantic writing and gallery growing.
I am going to need a lot more coffee...
They all kinda looked at me and were suppressing laughter as I flopped down on the floor and curled up pathetically, wishing everyone a good morning. The rest of Laura's band showed up shortly thereafter and left to go pre-tour shopping. They showed up 5 minutes ago with a HUGE Tim Horton's coffee and a muffin for me. Guess who my favorite people in the world are right now.
I have to put a layout on a canvas, photograph it, send it to my picky picky customer, then paint at least half of it. I have a character design to ink up today and a graphite outline to do. Tomorrow I have to finish the painting or get very very very close, draw up another character outline, and start shading the graphite piece. I'm not getting much sleep this weekend. Sunday I have to finish three character sketches plus the new one, finish the shading on the graphite, and then write a good chunk of novel for my Monday deadline for EVERYTHING.
I have a deadline for writing, a deadline for three character sketches/two ink designs, and a graphite portrait. My deadline for the painting is Friday and it needs at least 5 days to dry, so it has to be done tomorrow or in the very latest, Sunday morning.
Then next week will be one of frantic writing and gallery growing.
I am going to need a lot more coffee...
8/23/12
Tips for becoming a successful fine artist.
I like to think of myself as a pretty successful visual artist. I have pretty steady work in the area and am well-known around the area I live... actually, right across Canada and the USA for the stuff I do for certain organizations, so theoretically I would have some useful information to help young artists starting out. Here's 10 things that I would strongly suggest artists looking to start commissions should do.
10. Studies.
I know they can be boring. I know they aren't going to make you ANY money. But you need to do them... and a LOT of them. You need to do studies of everything you work on, from animals to people to vehicles to buildings to plant. And you need to do one as often as you have time for. The more studies you do, the faster you work, the better your works start to look, the more inclined people will be to trust you to make awesome pieces.
9. Website.
Every business nowadays needs a website. Your website needs to look good (so if you can't code, find a hosting site with templates you can use or ask for help... OR learn how to code via Google) and showcase your art well. Art looks good on red, grey, deep browns, and black. Graphite looks very sharp on white. It should be easy to navigate and include a short bio on a separate page to showcase you as a person as well. Do not have music autoplay in the background.
8. Social media.
It's taking over our lives, but it will also give your business a very strong push into the public eye. Word of mouth travels fast, and when a friend or family member hears someone is looking for an artist, they will give your name and the easiest thing to do is tell them your Facebook page name, or to hop on Facebook and show them your photos. Keeping a blog that shows some of your progess pictures and updates helps as well, and it's also a great thing to give to the customers you do get to show them regular updates as you work on their stuff.
7. Show the customers EVERYTHING.
I mean everything. It fills up your gallery! Put your sketches up in your gallery under a category. Let them know what's up! I have all the studies I do up online under a category called "sketches and studies," just to fill up space and show people some casual work. It actually makes them feel less picky about the concept sketches I show them, because they see that all of my sketches look similar. Showing that you do lots of studies gives an air of practice and professionalism that will give you a more serious feel. The more pictures you have up, the better... just don't mash everything together. Put your serious works up at the top of the page, and then the sketches further down. If there's a couple of serious pieces you aren't too happy about, put them in the middle of your serious works section so that the beginning and end of the customer's browsing is strong and positive and impressive, but the other pieces are still giving a huge number to your gallery. If something looks awful, don't put it up. Seriously. If it's really bad, keep it to yourself. But everything else is game.
6. Expand your areas of expertise/never say no.
Got some spare time? Start researching a new medium and try it out. Learn how to draw new things, explore the outer corners of art! The more you can do, the more opportunities you have. If a customer asks you to do something that you aren't quite comfortable with, say yes and then spend a while freaking out and practicing and learning how to do it. Most customers are cool with waiting a couple of weeks for their piece (actually most artists will take a month or more to get a piece done because it's their second job/they don't work at it full time/they work in little pieces) so you have lots of leeway to secretly learn how to do what they asked. Take those risks! If you never say no, you never let an opportunity go!
SIDE NOTE!!!
You have to say no in certain situations. This is extremely important. Do not work for less because a potential customer gets snarky about your price. Do not cave in because some other artist is doing it for half your price. They pay for what they get! Keep your prices professional. If you work for less, you will never get off your feet. You will always work for scraps because they will hear from others that you did it for less, and want that price too.
5. Compete with your pricing.
There's a fine line to walk when pricing your art. You want to sneak in JUST under what similar artists in your area/country are doing, but you still need to keep professional and be sure you aren't working for nothing. A good system I've come up with is to do some research into material costs and figure out an approximate cost for each type of work you do. That includes figuring out how much each sheet of paper costs! Then you should multiply your average work time by an hourly wage (be reasonable... you aren't going to make $30 an hour until you're famous...). The amount you get is your original number to work with. Then go online and Google artists in your country/region/area and pick a competitive price with them in the same area, but just sneak right under them. You're just starting out so you don't have a lot to work off of reputation-wise so what you need is the lowest-price advantage. Do not set it too low, however. Compare this competitive price to the price you've calculated: if it's less, maybe you had too high of an hourly wage, if it's more maybe you didn't set enough. With this system, you can explain to your customers where your pricing comes from when they ask. And they will ask. It also helps when someone tries to argue the price or compromise with you to explain why you set a certain price. You SHOULD be willing to be flexible with prices, and the knowledge of how flexible to be will help your price discussions.
4. When you don't have a commission, make your own pieces.
This goes along with doing studies. It grows your gallery to make your website more impressive/helps show customers more examples of what you can do which will make them more confident in your abilities. It also makes you get better. Every original you do can be priced and posted for sale, so it's not a waste of time to do them along with commissions. Be sure to do a huge variety and show customers what you are capable of with your works.
3. Affiliate.
Talk to your customers, your artist friends, your family members, anyone with a website or business and get a link up on their website. You can offer to put their links up on your website to kinda balance it out. It's not much but it's just another way to get your name out there.
2. Get as public as possible.
Strive for works that will be seen by a tonne of people. Some examples: works that will be in stores, logos, signs, window showcases, book covers, CD covers, business representation, website pictures, etc. Do pieces for someone who will brag about their artwork and throw it up on their blog. I started off doing works for farms that were published in magazines. My logos and drawings showed up to spruce up their ads and showcases in magazines, and I worked for a store doing promotional poster logos and calligraphy in my first couple years as a professional. It helps catch eyes and get your name in people's head.
1. Art shows instead of gallery showcases.
Gallery showcases are hard to get and expensive. Art shows will let you put your stuff up so long as you pay for the booth. Trade shows are also good to go to, or any other craft show or just public sale. Anything that gets you a booth among other people selling their products. I got a three-year deal in one of these. I set up in the middle of a trade show with my logo and a bunch of originals and pamphlets on a big table. Because of the horses I did, a custom horse equipment company that toured the USA and Canada took notice and signed me on for three years. They put my art in their shop as they toured to professional rodeos and put up prints in their stores all over the USA. It got my name out across North America and swamped me with commissions in an area that I love.
Hopefully these tips are helpful! Best of luck to all of you!
10. Studies.
I know they can be boring. I know they aren't going to make you ANY money. But you need to do them... and a LOT of them. You need to do studies of everything you work on, from animals to people to vehicles to buildings to plant. And you need to do one as often as you have time for. The more studies you do, the faster you work, the better your works start to look, the more inclined people will be to trust you to make awesome pieces.
9. Website.
Every business nowadays needs a website. Your website needs to look good (so if you can't code, find a hosting site with templates you can use or ask for help... OR learn how to code via Google) and showcase your art well. Art looks good on red, grey, deep browns, and black. Graphite looks very sharp on white. It should be easy to navigate and include a short bio on a separate page to showcase you as a person as well. Do not have music autoplay in the background.
8. Social media.
It's taking over our lives, but it will also give your business a very strong push into the public eye. Word of mouth travels fast, and when a friend or family member hears someone is looking for an artist, they will give your name and the easiest thing to do is tell them your Facebook page name, or to hop on Facebook and show them your photos. Keeping a blog that shows some of your progess pictures and updates helps as well, and it's also a great thing to give to the customers you do get to show them regular updates as you work on their stuff.
7. Show the customers EVERYTHING.
I mean everything. It fills up your gallery! Put your sketches up in your gallery under a category. Let them know what's up! I have all the studies I do up online under a category called "sketches and studies," just to fill up space and show people some casual work. It actually makes them feel less picky about the concept sketches I show them, because they see that all of my sketches look similar. Showing that you do lots of studies gives an air of practice and professionalism that will give you a more serious feel. The more pictures you have up, the better... just don't mash everything together. Put your serious works up at the top of the page, and then the sketches further down. If there's a couple of serious pieces you aren't too happy about, put them in the middle of your serious works section so that the beginning and end of the customer's browsing is strong and positive and impressive, but the other pieces are still giving a huge number to your gallery. If something looks awful, don't put it up. Seriously. If it's really bad, keep it to yourself. But everything else is game.
6. Expand your areas of expertise/never say no.
Got some spare time? Start researching a new medium and try it out. Learn how to draw new things, explore the outer corners of art! The more you can do, the more opportunities you have. If a customer asks you to do something that you aren't quite comfortable with, say yes and then spend a while freaking out and practicing and learning how to do it. Most customers are cool with waiting a couple of weeks for their piece (actually most artists will take a month or more to get a piece done because it's their second job/they don't work at it full time/they work in little pieces) so you have lots of leeway to secretly learn how to do what they asked. Take those risks! If you never say no, you never let an opportunity go!
SIDE NOTE!!!
You have to say no in certain situations. This is extremely important. Do not work for less because a potential customer gets snarky about your price. Do not cave in because some other artist is doing it for half your price. They pay for what they get! Keep your prices professional. If you work for less, you will never get off your feet. You will always work for scraps because they will hear from others that you did it for less, and want that price too.
5. Compete with your pricing.
There's a fine line to walk when pricing your art. You want to sneak in JUST under what similar artists in your area/country are doing, but you still need to keep professional and be sure you aren't working for nothing. A good system I've come up with is to do some research into material costs and figure out an approximate cost for each type of work you do. That includes figuring out how much each sheet of paper costs! Then you should multiply your average work time by an hourly wage (be reasonable... you aren't going to make $30 an hour until you're famous...). The amount you get is your original number to work with. Then go online and Google artists in your country/region/area and pick a competitive price with them in the same area, but just sneak right under them. You're just starting out so you don't have a lot to work off of reputation-wise so what you need is the lowest-price advantage. Do not set it too low, however. Compare this competitive price to the price you've calculated: if it's less, maybe you had too high of an hourly wage, if it's more maybe you didn't set enough. With this system, you can explain to your customers where your pricing comes from when they ask. And they will ask. It also helps when someone tries to argue the price or compromise with you to explain why you set a certain price. You SHOULD be willing to be flexible with prices, and the knowledge of how flexible to be will help your price discussions.
4. When you don't have a commission, make your own pieces.
This goes along with doing studies. It grows your gallery to make your website more impressive/helps show customers more examples of what you can do which will make them more confident in your abilities. It also makes you get better. Every original you do can be priced and posted for sale, so it's not a waste of time to do them along with commissions. Be sure to do a huge variety and show customers what you are capable of with your works.
3. Affiliate.
Talk to your customers, your artist friends, your family members, anyone with a website or business and get a link up on their website. You can offer to put their links up on your website to kinda balance it out. It's not much but it's just another way to get your name out there.
2. Get as public as possible.
Strive for works that will be seen by a tonne of people. Some examples: works that will be in stores, logos, signs, window showcases, book covers, CD covers, business representation, website pictures, etc. Do pieces for someone who will brag about their artwork and throw it up on their blog. I started off doing works for farms that were published in magazines. My logos and drawings showed up to spruce up their ads and showcases in magazines, and I worked for a store doing promotional poster logos and calligraphy in my first couple years as a professional. It helps catch eyes and get your name in people's head.
1. Art shows instead of gallery showcases.
Gallery showcases are hard to get and expensive. Art shows will let you put your stuff up so long as you pay for the booth. Trade shows are also good to go to, or any other craft show or just public sale. Anything that gets you a booth among other people selling their products. I got a three-year deal in one of these. I set up in the middle of a trade show with my logo and a bunch of originals and pamphlets on a big table. Because of the horses I did, a custom horse equipment company that toured the USA and Canada took notice and signed me on for three years. They put my art in their shop as they toured to professional rodeos and put up prints in their stores all over the USA. It got my name out across North America and swamped me with commissions in an area that I love.
Hopefully these tips are helpful! Best of luck to all of you!
8/22/12
I actually art for real!!
So I don't post very many pictures because, you know, this is all anonymous and stuff and I actually DO have a big customer base, so I just kinda want to hover under the radar here. However, I do want to share a bit of my art and this piece is pretty safe/incomplete, so I'm going to share some of my REAL work with you loyal 5 readers!
It's a couple of horses, mama snuggling her baby. And it's incomplete. It's done IRL but this is the grainy picture I took earlier today to give the customer an update.
It's a couple of horses, mama snuggling her baby. And it's incomplete. It's done IRL but this is the grainy picture I took earlier today to give the customer an update.
So there you are. I actually draw. It is actually a thing!
10 perks of being a full-time artist.
Okay, so being an artist doesn't pay well. Everyone knows that. It's even a stereotype. So what's the upside of being a full-time artist? I pulled together a list of 10 things that are awesome about working as an artist that pretty much make up for being poor.
1. Set your own hours.
What better work schedule could you ask for other than the one you build for yourself? Your shifts are all the most convenient hours, your days off line up where you need them to. If you want to work at 3am, you can.
2. Don't have to worry about appearance.
It cuts a huge chunk out of your morning routine when it doesn't matter if you've got bedhead or not, and you don't need to look presentable half the time. Now, I'm NOT saying it's okay to be a slob, because that's not what I mean. What I mean is that you can fly off of a bare minimum. I climb out of the shower, throw my dripping hair in a haphazard ponytail, roll on some deodorant and get to work.
3. Pants.
I can't say this enough. Being allowed to wander around in boxer shorts all day is epic. That's like, the definition of freedom.
4. Watching TV while you work.
I watch shows, movies, everything when I work. Because I can... with the exception of when I'm drumming of course. Even when I was in drum school, I would watch episodes of shows online while I practiced certain exercises, so I guess that counts. But yeah! I get to watch all sorts of videos and learn new things and stay entertained during my work day. Jealous?
5. Don't have to pay attention to other people.
If I want to put headphones in and rock out to loud music all day, I can. Hell, if I want to put the music on speakers I can because my roommates usually aren't home, unless it's Laura and she doesn't care because she'll just put her own music on.
6. Get all the breaks you want, when you want.
Enough said? I want a three hour break, I'll take one. If I want six breaks throughout my "shift," I'll take them. I am the man!! Or... yeah... something...
7. You're continually surrounded by your own work and it's all awesome.
I love reading my stories, I love looking at the drawings I do, I love listening to my music. I know some artists don't like looking at their work, it stresses them out, but most don't. You make stuff because you love it, right? I sure hope so. It's mentally healthy to surround yourself with stuff you love, and with a career like this you can.
8. Sick days are never challenged.
If you're sick, you're sick. You can lie on the couch all day and take care of yourself, and there's no boss to make angry voices at you or doubt the legitimacy of your needs OR make you work anyways because no one will cover for you or they can't afford to have you in.
9. You're surrounded by inspiration and motivation everywhere you go.
Whether you're a visual, literary, or musical artist, your stuff is EVERYWHERE. Pictures, passages, and music are HUGE in our society. You never go anywhere without music, there are logos and advertisements plastered all over everything, and our culture is driven by books, magazines, news articles, and other dialogues that SOMEONE had to write. People like us drive society, and despite the general outlook towards us, we own the world! I also like that anything can inspire writing, drawing, or music.
10. Working from home.
Get up... you're ready to work. No commute. No grubby office. No general public. Your home is where you can actually LIVE (what a concept!)
1. Set your own hours.
What better work schedule could you ask for other than the one you build for yourself? Your shifts are all the most convenient hours, your days off line up where you need them to. If you want to work at 3am, you can.
2. Don't have to worry about appearance.
It cuts a huge chunk out of your morning routine when it doesn't matter if you've got bedhead or not, and you don't need to look presentable half the time. Now, I'm NOT saying it's okay to be a slob, because that's not what I mean. What I mean is that you can fly off of a bare minimum. I climb out of the shower, throw my dripping hair in a haphazard ponytail, roll on some deodorant and get to work.
3. Pants.
I can't say this enough. Being allowed to wander around in boxer shorts all day is epic. That's like, the definition of freedom.
4. Watching TV while you work.
I watch shows, movies, everything when I work. Because I can... with the exception of when I'm drumming of course. Even when I was in drum school, I would watch episodes of shows online while I practiced certain exercises, so I guess that counts. But yeah! I get to watch all sorts of videos and learn new things and stay entertained during my work day. Jealous?
5. Don't have to pay attention to other people.
If I want to put headphones in and rock out to loud music all day, I can. Hell, if I want to put the music on speakers I can because my roommates usually aren't home, unless it's Laura and she doesn't care because she'll just put her own music on.
6. Get all the breaks you want, when you want.
Enough said? I want a three hour break, I'll take one. If I want six breaks throughout my "shift," I'll take them. I am the man!! Or... yeah... something...
7. You're continually surrounded by your own work and it's all awesome.
I love reading my stories, I love looking at the drawings I do, I love listening to my music. I know some artists don't like looking at their work, it stresses them out, but most don't. You make stuff because you love it, right? I sure hope so. It's mentally healthy to surround yourself with stuff you love, and with a career like this you can.
8. Sick days are never challenged.
If you're sick, you're sick. You can lie on the couch all day and take care of yourself, and there's no boss to make angry voices at you or doubt the legitimacy of your needs OR make you work anyways because no one will cover for you or they can't afford to have you in.
9. You're surrounded by inspiration and motivation everywhere you go.
Whether you're a visual, literary, or musical artist, your stuff is EVERYWHERE. Pictures, passages, and music are HUGE in our society. You never go anywhere without music, there are logos and advertisements plastered all over everything, and our culture is driven by books, magazines, news articles, and other dialogues that SOMEONE had to write. People like us drive society, and despite the general outlook towards us, we own the world! I also like that anything can inspire writing, drawing, or music.
10. Working from home.
Get up... you're ready to work. No commute. No grubby office. No general public. Your home is where you can actually LIVE (what a concept!)
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