Odds and ends

Well met, readers!

It seems I'm doing the exact same thing at the exact same time at a very similar place as I did last Sunday. Funny how that works! (I think this means I need to actually plan my Artist Dates better... my sort of go-to is to sit in a coffee shop and write a rambling, incoherent blog post, which is always fun, but one should diversify oneself a bit. Next week I have three days off (!), which took a little wrangling but I felt like it was necessary, as I'm in the middle of a 6-day week right now. So, perhaps I will take an entire day just for myself and go out into the wilderness or something. That sounds nice.

This is good for now. I'm at a bit of a hipster coffee shop on Main Street, drinking an iced tea because it's so hot out and I walked a few blocks in my black work pants. Phew.

So, let's see... I've been doing well with the Morning Pages, not sure how much they're helping, still. But I'm sticking with it! A little behind on the rest of the course work, but I'll catch up today with any luck.

I actually had a fun day at work today; felt a lot better physically than I have the past few days. I've had another cold (whee) but I think it's about gone. Hopefully I can stay healthy for more than a few days now. I discovered today that another of my co-workers, who works in the wellness department, is also an artist. I knew that J was (I'll just refer to them as letters, in case they don't want to be written about), but I haven't really talked to V much. But anyway, that's pretty cool. And there is yet another one in the produce department who actually just had an art show the other night (which I didn't attend because I had to go and collect some cardboard boxes to help my old friend out, as she is moving in September). So many artists, so much inspiration for me! My competitive side comes out when I meet other artists, which is good because it's motivating.

I've been thinking about my art a lot lately, probably because I'm doing this Artist's Way course and also because my friend K is trying to improve her art skills as fast as possible so she can get into animation and/or professional art of some sort. Her and I have been attending life drawing together whenever we can, which is approximately once a week (though I've missed the last two weeks due to weird work schedule and/or illness), and that also warms up my art muscles again. I realized it's been two entire years since I've really done any sort of regular productive art. (That's about when I stopped volunteering my skills for WWF... my lack of motivation was such that I couldn't even get excited about that, even though it's a cause I support. Plus they wanted more design stuff than art, and I'm not so into that part.)

Two years is a long time to go without doing my main passion in life, eh? But it's not the longest artist's block I've ever heard of. The Fox told me about this one video game programmer guy who had a ten-year artist's block resulting from some kind of burnout. Inspiration can be so delicate! At least for some. I think I have a good chance of getting my mojo back in order soonish though. I have high hopes for this Artist's Way thing.

As for the spiritual side of things these days... it's going well. I heard about this pagan group that's going to be starting up at the local Unitarian Church in September, and I'm really excited to go. The timing is perfect; I think it will be better to join a new group where people don't really know one another that well, rather than trying to become part of an already-existing group that already has established friendships and things like that. I'm hoping that it will have some sort of experienced leader-type person to kind of give the group focus. I'm still very new at all this paganism stuff, and I haven't really done any practical application of it yet (rituals and things).

My view on ritual, by the way, is that it is a form of meditation or prayer. Just to be clear. I don't want anyone thinking I'm going to be sacrificing goats over a fire or anything like that. In my eyes, it's pretty much the same as any other religious rite (Catholic communion is a ritual, and so is something as simple as lighting a candle in memory of a loved one). I think my mind would benefit from the meditative nature of ritual. If you consider it a form of meditation, then it could definitely have benefits for body and soul, as I think meditation has been proven to actually alter the cells of the body. Read that somewhere, can't remember where though.

So anyway, I want to get into that stuff more. I think that being in a group of other people doing the same sorts of things will help me to feel more comfortable in doing it myself. They are planning to meet twice a month, which sounds reasonable. I hope it turns out to be a good group! I'd better at least try a couple things on my own before then. I've been doing the tarot cards more lately; the Fox wanted to try it out, so I helped him do a little reading about his current programming project. Which actually turned out to be pretty accurate, so... there you go! I'll try again soon for myself.

I am getting a bit of a clearer picture of where I want to go with my art, come to think of it... I wonder if this is the Artist's Way at work? I've been thinking a lot about fantasy art and artists selling their work independently. I think what I'd like to do eventually is turn my art into greeting cards, prints, and that sort of thing, and try to sell it at different local shops and craft fairs and probably online as well. The thing is, I want to stand out from all the other fantasy art out there, as it can become sort of generic after a while. I think I need to develop my style into something unique, distinctive, and pleasing. Perhaps my "children's book style" is the way I should go... I was very happy with the last drawing I did in that sort of colourful, simple style. I did a picture of a dragon holding a heart-shaped shield for the Fox for Valentine's Day, and I really liked how it came out. I love working with ink, watercolour, and coloured pencils on smooth Bristol paper. It's just so pleasing to work with.

Perhaps I will do some more in that style. I want to just experiment for a while with different styles and techniques, while polishing up my skills, so that when I have a style I like, I can get straight into starting to create planned series. I'd like to do a zodiac series, and one based on the classical elements (earth, fire, water, air), and maybe one based on flowers or gemstones... I wonder if I can just draw a whole bunch of dragons based on those themes? They're basically my favourite thing to draw, so it would be fun. And they're popular in the fantasy circles. I am going to refer back to this list for when I need inspiration... it's funny what can happen when you just type and type and type...

Speaking of which, I should really wrap this up. I wanted to do a bit of work on my weekly tasks before I go home, because I have the tendency to just hang out with the Fox playing Hearthstone or watching House, and not do much in the way of productive things once I get home... heh.

I'm feeling good about the near future. This is good. Maybe I should go get myself another professional tarot reading to see what's in the cards now. Or, I could do it myself and save the money... though it was nice to have Tegan do it for me!

Hope all you non-existent readers are doing great, too! Remember, it would be really nice if you left a comment so I know if I have more than one reader (though my one reader is really great)!

Until next time!