Good morning, Readers!

​I'm back over at my art blog, talking about a new drawing I did in service to a new painting.

Good morning, Readers!

I'm over at Black Gate Magazine today (technically, Tuesday), still obsession about Inuyasha​. This time, though, I'm gushing about my favourite character in the series.

It’s no good. I’m still obsessing about the anime adaptation of Inuysasha. Specifically, about Sesshomaru as a character. He’s just so interesting. I’ve had some time to think about why I find Lord Shesshomaru such an interesting character to me, and I think it comes down to one thing.

Lord Sesshomaru is full of contradictions.
​
The elder to two brothers, and the only full-blooded demon of the pair, Sesshomaru appears to despise his younger half-brother, Inuyasha. Throughout the show, he stands opposed to Inuyasha, competing against him to acquire his father’s heirloom sword; Tessaiga. In their first battle over the sword, they exchange serious blows. Sesshomaru doesn’t hold back. The fight ends when Inuyasha cleaves his left arm off. He is, strangely, not particularly peeved about that, and seems to accept the outcome of that fight (even going so far as to reject his arm when it’s offered to him to reattach). The brothers clash frequently throughout the series, mostly over the sword. Several times, he mentions he does not consider Inuyasha his brother. Yet, he will go on to save Inuyasha from harm more than once, as big brothers sometimes do. He even seems to be quietly rooting for Inuysasha to prove himself worthy, while simultaneously trying to stop his little brother from advancing. This is never quite so apparent than when Inuyasha’s sword absorbs the power Sesshomaru himself had spent considerable time honing. Sesshomaru’s internal desire seems to be a powerful will to see Inuyasha prove himself as the rightful master of their father’s sword, while his external actions are by all accounts, designed to stop him from doing so. This contradiction – the brother who both disdains but loves his young brother — makes him fascinating.

Good morning, Readers!

Image by Big_Heart from Pixabay ​

I did more painting yesterday. I still don't hate the piece.

This is a huge departure from the first time I tried working in oils. I was in my early teens. I tried to paint the rock feature that was in our yard. It ended up looking like a blobby, muddy mess, and I was so heartbroken at my own ineptitude that I swore of the medium altogether. I appear to have acquired some skill since then.

Granted, the way the painting looked in my head and the way it looks now are quite different; not so much in composition, but absolutely in style. I'm trying to accept the differences between what I see in my mind and what I see on the canvas, and to not be such a terrible perfectionist about it all. Because what I see on the canvas is not perfect, but as I'm sitting here looking at it, it's not actually bad.

I believe we call this personal growth.

Art has been really good at helping me shed my crippling perfectionism.

That has not been achieved without work, mind you. I have to fight against my destructive impulses when things I'm creating look like they're not turning out the way I wanted. I have to wrest the will to continue despite everything that's going wrong with the piece. Some people seem to manage these things effortlessly. I cannot. It's a battle for me. It's what stopped me pursuing fine art as either a hobby or a career for most of my life.

There's a silver lining to this awful pandemic and my stressful joblessness. It's made me confront my perfectionist demons and start creating art once more. I'm actually really glad for that, because I'm really enjoying stretching these metaphorical muscles again. Art was one of my favourite classes in high school. I shouldn't have ever stopped.

Ah well. Time and money, eh?

I think I'll be finished the piece in the next couple of weeks. If you're interested in how it turned out, check out my art blog, or follow me on Instagram or Twitter, or like the Facebook page I created dedicated to my art and crafting projects.

Okay, I must fly. I have editing, French and then painting to do.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Image by Susanne Stöckli from Pixabay ​

Isn't the photo here beautiful? I feel like I could live in that place quite happily. *dreamy sigh*

Right, on to today's blog post, which is really just an update on how I'm getting along.  Well enough, thank you. Not great. I don't think I'll be that until I have a steady source of liveable income. But well enough.

I'm almost halfway through editing the manuscript for a friend. I am thinking that I'll offer editing services... which might be an uphill battle, marketing-wise, since I make so many typos and silly errors in my blog posts. To be fair, it is proof of why a second set of eyes is so damned necessary....  Anyway, I'll offer it and see what can be seen. Maybe it'll work out. Probably won't, but there's no real harm in trying, I suppose.

I've yet to place that order for more leather, so I"m working mostly on my fine art currently. My current painting is going better than I expected. I can see all the faults, and I'm not especially in love with the painting, but it's also not the worst thing I've ever produced. Thus far. I'm thinking that maybe I can pull this one off. Ish. I mean, it won't be a masterpiece, but it'll be decent. Probably. It's so hard to tell this early in the process.

I think I want to start working on sculpture. My plan was to sculpt if I had time between my editing/writing, leather craft and painting, but there's a pretty persistent series of sculptures that keep floating around in my mind, and I think I should maybe devote some time for that. I will need some oven-bake polymer clay, and then all the things needed to make a reusable cast.  I can't really afford any of those things right now, so I'm currently trying to figure out how to arrange things so I can get them. I do have to make the trip up to my local art supply shop soon to acquire more canvases.

I need four little-ish square ones and three fairly large long ones for the next few paintings I would like to do. And some more white paint, because I go through that like a mofo.

Also, I was talking to my mother the other day, and I'm thinking that maybe I should try my hand at watercolour painting. With winter approaching, there will be at least three or four months this year when I will not be able to paint in oils. Lack of ventilation is a terrible thing when working in oil, even if you're using less toxic solvents (as I am). As much as I love winter, I have no intention of inviting it inside by opening the doors and windows while I paint. I had planned to work in acrylics for those months, but a dearth of canvases might make that a little tricky. Perhaps watercolour is the way to go until I can afford canvases and paints again.

That, or find a wealthy patron who will happily buy me all the art supplies I could ever want.

Oh, aside from my art stuff, I've made some progress in Beat Sabre. Sorry, American spelling. Beat Saber. As of late last week, I finally bit farewell to the last song on my playlist that was still on normal. It took a shocking amount of time for me to be able to play through that song without making a stupid mistake. It now joins the majority of songs on that list which are played at the hard level. I also managed to level up two hard songs to expert. One I levelled up quite a while ago, and have yet to be able to get all the way through that song on expert. One I levelled up at the end of last week. I played that one on expert for the first time yesterday and nearly made it all the way through. I expect to have finished it (though not without mistakes) soon. That first one though... it's been weeks of trying.

(I give myself three attempts before moving onto the next song.)

Playing this game has become my daily workout routine. I strap on my wrist weights, fire up the game, and dual-wield my way through virtual trials for roughly an hour a day. It's more fun than it should be, to be honest. It's also excellently motivational, as I can see and track the improvement I'm making.

While I cringe at the amount of money I spent on my VR rig for the Playstation, I can't really say I regret it at all. It's been pretty damned fun.

And that's me, currently. How about you? What are you doing to keep yourself from going crazy with all this crazy in the world? Let me know in the comments.

Right, I have editing, French lessons and painting on my list today. Off I pop.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

I'm over on my other blog yet again, this time talking about working with oil paints for the very first time.

Good morning, Readers!

Image by Tim Hill from Pixabay ​

I got done everything I needed to yesterday. I edited that chapter for a friend, did my daily French stuff on Duolingo, prepared my canvas, and sketched the basic composition of the painting I want to do. The painting is extremely ambitious. I don't think I'll be able to pull it off in a month, but I'm going to try.

First, though, I'm going to complete the drawing, so that it looks decent enough to share, instead of just a pile of scribbles.

That will be after I do my other chores; the editing, French lesson, exercise. That should leave me the rest of the day to draw.

I'm finding the drawing difficult. It's a motivation thing, rather than a technical thing. I can draw. I'm just struggling to find the motivation to. I'm not sure why. The weather of late is perfect for me to draw in. I usually draw when it's cool and rainy, because that's where my brain goes in weather like that. Well, to images of all kinds. It still moments like that in which I also get my story ideas. It's good weather for dreaming, is what I'm saying. Usually.

Of course, the lack of motivation can be put down to a number of physical reasons. I've been quite exhausted these past few days... for no real reason, though I do think that stress is a huge factor. As a teen, I slept more than most because depression, aggravated by stress, sent me to bed. I'm sure something similar is happening. There's a lot to be stressed about, and the news cycle isn't helping.

Many of you may have noticed that I've not been as active on social media as I might have been in the past. This is a deliberate decision on my part. I needed to withdraw from the world a little in order to cope with, well... all this. I've never been very good at social media, to be honest.

I'm not witty or pithy enough to be effective on Twitter. Facebook is, well, a seaming pile of garbage headed by a horrid human, but I feel that I will miss out more than I already do on important matters if I was not on it. So, I stick to my various pages and don't engage there on a personal level at all; except for in my group, where I can keep up with folks who care to keep up with me.

Of all the social pages I've signed up for, Discord is by far the one I like the most. Not only can I curate who is part of my server, and therefore controlling the tone and civility of the place, but it feels like my own little online cave, where I can accept visitors that pop by; my digital neighbours - folks I know and trust. My personal servers is one of the few places in the digital realm where I don't feel continually pummelled and stressed out.

My ineptitude with social media is a large part of why, I think, I'm not selling many books. If you whisper in a vast crowd clamouring for attention, you're going to be overlooked.

If I were a frog competing for a mate, I'd never, ever find one.

Well, this blog post went in an unexpected direction. I'm off to get some work done.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Image by Phuc Nguyen from Pixabay ​

It's grey and cool and rainy this morning. The living room smells of paint and leather and honestly, today feels a little like heaven to me. My own workshop/studio would be the only thing that makes it better. I've been dreaming a lot about what my life would look like if I had funds enough. It's a house in the woods, with a workshop and studio, where I can spend all my time in creative pursuits... that would also somehow make me enough money to continue to live in that fashion. Like I said, dreaming.

There's a lot of stuff going on on my other blog, with my leather craft, painting and so forth, and not so much with my writing. Granted, I've been editing manuscripts for friends, so that has eaten up my writing  time. I'm pondering whether or not I should make a go of doing that for freelance work. Maybe I'll just throw up the option and see if I get any nibbles. I have no idea how to build a client base, but hey, I'll see how far I get.

Struggling, of course, to find a steady source of income is weighing heavily on me. CERB runs out next month, and I'm quite stressed. I don't feel I'm especially qualified for any of the jobs that show up in my searches. I'm hoping - dreaming, really - that maybe I can pull enough together from various sources that I can meet my basic needs.

Speaking of things that aren't basic needs, I have my latest order prepared for my next leather adventures. It's a surprising amount of money. There are a surprising amount of things I realized I will need for my next projects that I don't actually have. I also need to replace the stain that I spilled everywhere. Because I'm cool. I'm excited about the next couple of projects. They're still book jackets, but the designs are, well, if I can pull them off, the designs are fantastic. Anyway, I haven't placed said order, because it's expensive and I'm twitchy about spending the money. I'm mulling it over currently.

Anyway, that's where I am right now. On today's agenda, I'll be editing, doing my French lessons, preparing a canvas for my next painting, and then sketching out the painting concept. There will be no leather working until I can place that order. I've run out of material.

Right, I'm blabbering now. I'll head off and start that editing. I hope you're all doing well.

​Ciao!