baked daily

in this thing

Sometimes nothing feels better than to put on some music and just wait for the images to fall out.

These pages were doodled to an Old Crow Medicine Show on repeat. No plan involved, just going to where it takes me and letting the pencil move.

Sort of makes me lonely for weeds and wildflowers and porches.

Well, at least this way I get to visit.

the new kitchen

Watching this vid by Milliande inspired the hell out of me this week. Sure, we use different materials and themes and such, but I am really starting to fall in love with grid style journaling. I've done similar things before... but just, you know CLICK!

Yeah, I figured the writing blog illustration shit would eventually start sliding over into the art journal. I didn't so much count on the art journal/writing stuff just not fitting so well on the writing blog. Not yet, anyway, but it's all still in the pre-dating phase. I'm just glad to have pencils, to be honest.

I'm not even screaming with frustration over the fact that the journal is just too lumpy to get good scans anymore. See? Calm.

So many thanks to Milliande. My brain has been busy.

And here's Janie and Charlene in the new kitchen.

They're just glad that Michael does all of the cooking.

I just can’t seem to find my blue sky today. Feeling dulled down, and like I can’t even work up a tear for it. I have hope, though, that this is just one of my days. I have a few excuses that might even be reasons, but they’re just too tired to tell.

Hope comes from knowing how often I absorb inspiration without even realizing it. I hope my brain and my heart are just taking a little sponge break.

Sick of drawing your little orange slice flowers, are you?

At times, but I find myself drawing them by the dozen. Sick of you too, SLB. Don’t even try to get me worked up today because it ain’t even happening.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve completed three 8x10 canvas panels, three small wood pieces, and three journal pages. This is incredibly productive for me.

I am currently trying to ignore SLB. She has a bucket of anxiety and wants to use it to shut me down. Sitting here writing this is taking more energy than I have.

I have a blank 16x20 stretched canvas propped up on the chair beside me, waiting for me to face my fear that I can’t make enough to cover large surfaces anymore. The fact that I am going to cover the shit out of that big white surface just made me grin a little bit.

I should run. Orange slice flowers refuse to draw themselves.

accidents...

Ever have something accidentally turn out better than you thought it would?

I didn't like working on these canvas panels at all at first... then it sort of just clicked.

And then I ran out of everything. Well, I ran out of everything besides pencils, so I'm okay.

candy

friends, SLB, and humpbacks...

Wherein I shrug and hem and haw and explain SLB again…

Yesterday a friend of mine was reading my last blog post, and he turned to me with fire in his eyes and a fighting look on his face. “Who is this saying these things?” He was even in a determined posture when he asked this. He was ready to TCB.

I love my friends.

I think I shrugged and bit my lip and tried to look all nonchalant. “Oh, that’s just the ball of self loathing that lives inside me. She’s always orange.” See, no big.

His shoulders relaxed, and he gave me one of those looks that only a real friend will give you. “Okay,” he said, then went back to reading.

Have I mentioned that I love my friends?

The ones who get it in one or two bizarre sentences, who manage to slip in a little look that says they’re always keeping watch. You know, the ones who give you big buckets of freedom to be, but who will also sit you down with a coffee and a chat and call your ass out if they think you might harm yourself by just being the you that is some scary times you.

Anyway, I think he realized that writing SLB is just my current way of trying not to internalize so much. I mean, I can’t speak for him, but he did let it go.

Aside from reminding me how amazing my friend is, this little moment also made me think that perhaps not everyone who stumbles across this blog understands immediately that SLB is just me confronting, well, me. I’ve been letting her speak for the past couple of months, and have just become accustomed to allowing her out. I put a few words about her in the sidebar, but not everyone sees that stuff.

SLB is short for self loathing ball. Some people call it the inner critic. When she pops up here, her words are in this color and usually italicized, so she reads like this. Sometimes she doesn’t even show up, but some posts are pretty orange.

This way, I sort of feel like I’m putting up a flag for most of the negative stuff.

Having gone on for so long about the hostile bitch in my gut, I figure that now would be as good a time as any to share a page that managed to sneak up and surprise me a couple of days ago. Turns out this page is about love. It isn’t so much about romantic love, but more about the love that is still there when romantic love is absent. How odd is it to find that I still believe in that, and that it can sometimes pat back the anxiety? It is reassuring to me that I can honestly express this sort of love with art.

Who knew?

No, not at you so much. More to one side.

I had a panic attack last night because I ran out of mechanical pencils. Really. Tore the house a new househole, but finally found one.

i don't even... *sigh*

where are we, exactly?

Very scattered this week. More so than usual. I haven’t made a mark on a page since last Sunday. I know that things have happened since then, but my mind only wants to make a few hours out of them. How do a few hours make a week? Have I spent so much time sleeping or trying to sleep?

I’m trying pretty hard not to get paranoid about my mind, my screwy memory.

But you probably should be paranoid about that shit. Folks have always known what a flaky mess you are, but it’s getting to the point where even you can’t miss it, right?

I’ve always known. What’s the use of paranoia?

Anyway, I have a couple of backgrounds done, waiting for me to turn off the computer and hide from the tv. This might be a good day for a bout of free writing. Something is pulling at me, and this feels like the closest I can guess as to what it might be.

It’s stormy out. I like it, but I’m a little unsettled by it.

This is the last art journal page I finished. I loved being in the lines while it was happening.

But it looks like something you would have drawn in high school.

Yes it does.

and then the next day...

Be Free...

I never really got the hang of zentangles. I mean, I’m all for them. I just never really got the hang of them, and never like the way mine turn out. My attention span is short… I lose the thread and get bored about halfway through most of the time.

What I do like is art journaling using a circle as my base. I’ve done this for years. Picked it up in art therapy, and never felt the desire to shake it. If you’ve seen any of the journal pages I’ve posted, you’ll have noticed the circle. I love the circle. The circle pulls stuff out of me.

Earlier this week I was feeling a bit stuck. I made simple backgrounds in my journal. I drew my circles. I sat there thinking about zentangles, and the zentangles, as always, eluded me.

Then something happened. I made a mark. I followed the mark.

And she fell out.

She is not at all perfect, but I sort of love her because she just arrived unannounced out of… me. Following the lines. No plan.

I’ve come to think of her as C’thusan. She is angry and female.

Free drawing. Who knew?