I’m trying to be gentle with myself, as I find myself slowing down creatively. Not for lack of ideas or desire, but because of the huge schedule upheaval — which was also a total upheaval mentally and emotionally — and the resulting lack of energy and just general burnout. I still count the return to work as a net-positive for me and my mental health, but it definitely has had it’s drawbacks.
I have been working on two digital pieces — one is a redraw of my “C” entry for A-to-Z 2021, and one is just an original piece, and I did two pencil drawings to practice males figures/faces. That has, sadly, been the extent of my output in May.
These last few sketches has made me realize that I think I might be cycling back to wanting to do more traditional art — graphite, Prismacolor, pen. I’ve been focusing primarily — I mean, in a practical sense, almost solely — on digital art, which has been a lot of fun, but it shouldn’t be surprising that, like most of my interests, I cycle through phases when it comes to preferred art mediums. I started this year very interested in acrylic painting, then moved almost entirely digital. Seems like pen/pencil is well overdue for a resurgence.
I can feel myself fading fast, and it’s only 5 pm. Hopefully I can get a little bit of sketching or inking time in before I fully collapse.
Trying hard to be less of a stranger. I’m hopeful that this summer will be a creative oasis.
Surprisingly happy with this one; I love the rays of light filtering down!! And the beading on her tunic!! And the highlights on Aldwyn’s wing!
I love far more about this than what I hate. I don’t even think I hate, to be honest; there are things I could have done better, but I hate none of it.
How refreshing is that??
I am working on wrapping up some stuff I started prior to A-to-Z — some of it from long before A-to-Z, to the point where it’s noticeably stylistically rougher, but I’m still fond of it, I’ve put in quite a few hours on it, and it’s a goal of mine to not abandon projects anymore, so I will likely still wrap and post it at some point.
Related to art and projects, a big project that I was an artist on recently, The Fat Folks Tarot Deck, is live for pre-orders! The art is stunning, and includes the work of 77 artists in just as many styles. This is a body-positive, fat-positive, queer-positive, trans-positive Tarot Deck, and all the proceeds go towards Trans Lifeline! Please, if you are someone who is into Tarot, consider picking up a deck! This is my piece for my card, the Nine of Pentacles:
I finally have a second to stop and say — @fatfolkstarot is available for pre-order! I designed the nine of pentacles and learned a ton about digital painting in the process. This was a great experience as a novice artist, and the final deck (and all the art!) is stunning. pic.twitter.com/iJSRdwkai3
Things are moving along. I’m going to be working on my next A-to-Z revision, which I think is going to be my “C” entry. I’ll be honest, the more I look back and start to more fully conceptualize, the more I think I am ultimately going to be doing more than five works.
Come on, how much do you love my conceptualization of the mom? It’s great, right? Art at it’s finest.
“These are the best we could do?” Arianna murmured doubtfully as yet another potential suitor — smug and dark-haired, just like all the others — left the dining hall. “These are our best and brightest? This parade of arrogance and swagger?”
“They have every right to be proud,” her mother chastised sharply. “Pride is not the same as arrogance if it’s earned, Arianna. These you men are high born and highly skilled.”
“So their parents have money and they’re good with a sword,” Arianna said dismissively. “I don’t see how that sets them apart from me in anyway, and yet I’m constantly being told to be humble.” She side-eyed her mother, boredly.
“I can only assume that humility is to be the ‘lady-like’ counterpoint to my husband-to-be’s arrogance. Oh, apologies — pride. What a quaint arrangement.”
Her mother let out a long suffering sigh as Kiara, one of the servant girls, entered the room with an elaborate tray piled high with pastries and a gilded teapot. She waved the young woman in, rubbing at her temples.
“What would you have me say, Arianna?” she asked. “We have traditions, we have expectations and social mores. You are expected to find a husband, to be taken care of, to have children. Do you not want a secure life?”
“I don’t want that life,” Arianna sniffed. Her mother shook her head in frustration as Kiara poured her tea in a delicate china cup. Her mother took a long sip.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” her mother huffed, placing the cup back in it’s saucer with a little more force than strictly necessary. “You’ve not lived long enough to know. Your life will be long, God-willing, and what a horrid thing it would be if you were to live it alone.”
“I never said I wished to be alone,” Arianna aid airly. Kiara set a pile of sweet cakes on a plate before her. Arianna winked at her surreptitiously. Kiara’s face turned bright pink as she turned away, grinning.
Five a.m., and they pulled off the highway to eat, not a leisurely breakfast but a desperate devouring of the last remnants of the meal from the previous night; ham and cheese sandwiches kept cold in the front pocket of Erin’s Jansport with a sweaty dollar store ice pack. They rinsed their mouths with flat coke, tore into packets of Little Debbie swiss rolls with their teeth, and leaned themselves and their old bike against the guardrails on the highway as the turned their faces east.
“How much further to go?” Kelly asked, her voice hoarse from disuse and the road. Erin took the last swig of Coke and shrugged.
“Miles or time,” she said, tossing the bottle over the guard rail. Kelly clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “Which is more helpful?”
Kelly shrugged. “Time, I guess.”
“Probably another five or six hours.”
Kelly chewed her lip thoughtfully, scuffing the road with her well-worn leather boats. Dry puffs of dust rose from the pavement in diaphonous clouds.
“That’s not so bad,” she muttered.
“No,” Erin agreed. “Not after everything else.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
The sat in silence for a moment, Kelly picking absently at the blood stains crusted on her jeans, the flesh still tender under the bulk of the bandages. She forced herself to stop worrying the injury, sat on her hands to keep her promise. The cold pavement against her hands, and the pressure of her weight was comforting, in a way. She turned to Erin and chanced a smile.
“At least we get sun today,” she said. Erin glanced over at her, her face unreadable. The corner of her mouth quirked, and she dipped her head in agreement.
She felt the gentle swish of her shirt in the path of approaching footfalls, but was still startled when she felt a hand on her back
“Naomi!” she signed. “Don’t sneak up!”
“Sorr-” Naomi started before catching herself.
“Sorry,” she signed. She pushed a stack of books out of the way with her foot and sat facing Zara. “I thought you had your hearing aids.”
Zara pushed her hair back to show her the buds in her ears.
“Turned them off,” she signed. “People never respect the silence of a library and I am beside myself trying to get shit together for my thesis.“
Not going to lie; this might be my last year doing A-to-Z. I might take on some other monthly challenges, or seriously rethink how I handle this challenge, but I feel more and more — and I felt it a little bit last year, but hooo boy, is it full force this year — I feel more and more that it’s actually hindering my creativity more than helping me.
Actually, no; let me rephrase. I’m actually happy with what it’s doing for my creativity, because I was running out of ideas and also because I tend to stick with very similarly themed and similarly composed drawings, so this has been good in helping my generate scenes I normally wouldn’t consider drawing/painting. It’s hindering my productivity, because despite how rough the sketches are — and yeah, I know, they are rapidly degenerating before our eyes — it takes time and effort to conceptualize what I want to do for the sketch and what the story behind it is.
I already have a few front runners for what I might want to work on next month — and that’s exciting! — but I’m not getting much else done right now, and while I was a-ok with that at the start of the month, I’m regretting it a little now.
Because I hadn’t banked on the fact that, hey — ideas generate naturally, as well. They develop organically.
I have non-A-to-Z art ideas now, but I really can’t devote the time and energy to them that I’d like to, because I have to shift gears and conceptualize something new every day.
Next month when I’m not on a timeline, I can work on multiple projects at once and can easily do some of my own ideas alongside those generated by A-to-Z, but right now, my fingers are just itchy, man, ya know?
Hope all is going well for all other participants. Stay safe and sane.
He sat on the dock and caught his breath; off in the distance, he could see the silhouette of a solitary fisherman out on a dinghie. He was an impossibly small shadow against the setting sun, and Denny considered, briefly, if he could chance a quick binder break. He looked around surreptitiously, fingers worrying the bottom edge of his binder before thinking better of it. He breathed in, as deeply as he could, , slicked his wet hair back, and stretched his back until it cracked. Just a few weeks until top surgery. Just a few weeks more until swim team tryouts. He could keep it under wraps (literally and figuratively, he mused) until then. He was sure he’d be a top pick. He was abso-fucking-lutely sure of it.
It would be so good — so so fucking good — to breathe easy for once.
I will be honest; I’ve not got the energy to write out the vignette for the first of these, but the second of these has no vignette attached to it at all. There was no story or scenario in my head for the second one; the words generated, and automatically I thought about a couple of days last week, where the temperature far exceeded what we were expecting and we were sorely unprepared for it.
The first one was a little bit drawn from vague memories of my own Catholic schooling, but also somewhat inspired by a scene in The House on Mango Street. I imagine a young girl — disheveled, embarrassed — wearing shoddy, falling-apart clothing to school and being made fun of my her peers. One of the sisters sits with her in the classroom while the other kids are at recess, offering comfort and mending some of the more egregious rips and tears in her clothing. I like the idea of the scene quite a bit. I feel like I’ve said that about a fair few — which is not a bad thing! I would rather an excess of project ideas rather than a dearth — so I’m not going to say this is in the running just yet, but don’t be surprised if you see it again next month is all I’m saying.
I am on Spring Break! I spent yesterday and today getting my house in order so that I could throw myself into projects, both personal and creative, over the next seven days. I have activities to do with my son, I have four library books checked out on digital loan, I have three new podcasts I’m ready to check out, and I have two shiny art projects — not including the A-to-Z — that I’m working on. All in all, I’m incredibly glad for break.
In another bit of news that reminds me me both that I want to start writing new poetry again, but also that I need to bring over and archive my collection of sestinas (some of which are over a decade old at this point) — I was a finalist for the 2021 Robert Frost Foundation Poetry Prize with a sestina a wrote bordering on ten years ago (holy shit) called “Noise.” I miss writing poetry, particularly sestinas (they’re like a little puzzle to me; it’s such a thrill and a joy, figuring out how to piece it all together), and that is definitely something I should make room in my life for this summer.
I am breathing a deep sigh of relief and am eager to have a productive and relaxing break. Hope you all, whether you are working or not, have a lovely week.
Stay safe and sane.
This month, I’m using a random word generator to generate three words around which I will then craft a sketch and a literary vignette. I will chose my five favorites to fully flesh out (as full digital paintings and short-short stories) in May and beyond.
I don’t have a vignette written for this one; I just wanted a young mother-to-be coming in off the streets, out of a bad situation. It’s been raining, and her hair and clothing is plastered to her skin; she sits in the final row of pews to be less obtrusive, but the church isn’t currently holding mass. There are a few people scattered here and there, kneeling in prayer and rising only to light a devotional candle before they leave.
Can people even do that anymore? The churches in my city used to be perpetually unlocked, open to anyone who wanted to come in at any time. I’m pretty sure they lock the doors now, when not in active use. It’s still an image I love, though, and one — now that I think about it — I’ve used before, ages ago, in a NaNoWriMo novel that I lost after the laptop I’d saved it on was stolen (note: back up your work, kids!) I’m not a religious person by any stretch or by any means, but I grew up immersed in a lot of Catholic “stuff” and for every religious “trauma,” I also have a good or pleasant nostalgic memory — I spent a lot of spring feast days and special occassions in grammar school in church for the morning session, and celebrating in the afternoon. As much as I don’t miss the religion, I miss some of the rituals, and some of the memories of my youth.
I’m exhausted. I’ve been exhausted for days, and maybe the reason it’s coming to a head today is because I finally got my period, or maybe because this is the first day I feel like I can really breathe a little bit — my parents and brother got the first dose of the vaccine today, and it was the last day of work before April break. I feel like a lot of pent up tension is released today, but the result of that is this weird emotional let down — like I’ve been holding myself together with duct tape and safety pins and now that everything is done, that whole scaffolding is just crumbling.
So I will have to catch up on A-to-Z tomorrow and Sunday. That’s fine. I also have chores tomorrow, but I got a hell of a lot down yesterday and today and I am trying extremely hard to give myself the due credit for my progress instead of berating myself for not having completely finished.
And I think I’m going to kick off the first night of Spring Break with some mindless YouTubing, a chat with my mom, some Annie’s Organic Peanut Butter Snack Bars, and our new Rosé All Day candle.
Cheers to you all. Stay safe and sane.
This month, I’m using a random word generator to generate three words around which I will then craft a sketch and a literary vignette. I will chose my five favorites to fully flesh out (as full digital paintings and short-short stories) in May and beyond.
I have no accompanying vignette for this one, at least not at the moment; this one stumped me, honestly. I had generated a couple of sets for J that just yielded nothing. Like, I generated most of these prompt clusters a few weeks ago and most of them weren’t a ton of work. J just tripped me up, though.
When this list generated, I had to look up jemidar, which apparently is “The chief or leader of a band or body of persons; esp., in the native army of India, an officer of a rank corresponding to that of lieutenant in the English army.” That definition was a little too niche for me (and military culture of any strip really ain’t my bag). so I sort of took it to just mean a leader. From there, I sort of conceptualized a group of girls — dancers, maybe — who are sort of the top tier at a local burlesque club. I just started very generally contemplating a particularly wild weekend — after hours at a burlesque expo, or after a show at a particularly raucius festival — and thinking of all manner of trouble they could get up to.
I’m not in love with the idea, but it did get me thinking about how much I miss burlesque — both attending performances and taking classes — and was a nice little reminiscence, which was nice.
Day Ten! My wife is off tomorrow to go get her Covid vax, woo hoo! She’s getting the Janssen vax, which I’ve heard can pack a punch, so I imagine she will be utterly unbearable, ha ha. But she was patient with me post-vaxx, so I will endeavor to be patient with her.
In other nearly as exciting news, I got an art gig offer today! Details still to be worked out, because she’s still doing logistics and budgeting, but a photographer friends wants me to paint a graffiti-style backdrop mural for her photography studio. I am beyond excited. See, these are the moments where I’m like, yes, taking just one more summer off was the right call. Now I have time to do things like this.
Four days until Spring Break.
Stay safe and sane everyone.
This month, I’m using a random word generator to generate three words around which I will then craft a sketch and a literary vignette. I will chose my five favorites to fully flesh out (as full digital paintings and short-short stories) in May and beyond.
I didn’t write a vignette for this one yet, nor is my brain cooperating to write one now (I’m halfway through my second glass of wine, and it was a day that warranted a two-glass-of-wine night, so there you go), but some of the inspiration that words lent was something along the lines of: someone being shot, and the ramifications thereof. Each bullet generates a series of distinct possibilities even before the bullet emerges from the victim’s body — there’s a world where they die, a world where they suffer permanent injury, a world where the bullet narrowly misses a major organ, a world where it barely grazes their arm — and it generates paths and possibilities for their assailant, as well. Will they be haunted for the rest of their life, will they be vindicated, will they repent and seek forgiveness, will they walk away scott free, will they spend the rest of their life behind bars, etc.
I liked that I conceived of this is a slightly more abstract way; I made a few short notes to myself, but I would like to see the moment from two perspectives, the silhouette of the victim getting hit with the bullet, and the bullet itself, barreling through, generating a galaxy of possibility in it’s wake.
Again, to refresh: This month I am generating three words a day using a random word generator, and creating a rough sketch and short prose vignette based off of the words. My five favorite will be turned into fully-fleshed out digital paintings and short stories in May (and likely beyond).
Anyway, Day Seven, woo! One whole week of A-to-Z. In the interim, I’ve been slowly working — off and on — on a digital piece, and I’ve been applying to some zines as interesting ones are popping up via Twitter. Most of my energy has been going towards work– as in, my day job — trying to keep my head above water with regards to chores (failing that pretty hard-core right now) and making some tentative plans with people now that my sister, brother, mom, dad, and wife are all or will all be vaxxed by next Friday! I am beside myself ecstatic. We still have to be careful, because we all have young kids who can’t get vaxxed yet, but as long as no one is taking the kids gallavanting all over town and all the adults are vaxxed and continue to observe safety measures (masks, distance) in crowds, it will be nice to get Bear some socialization again. He is sorely lacking for it, and his behaviors have been skyrocketing again.
Anyway, onwards and upwards. Tomorrow is Friday, and I am thrilled. One more week until Spring Break (which will be spent mostly at home with my newly vaxxed wife (ahhh!!), but I may take a day to induleg myself at my parents house so my mom, brother and I can catch up on the frankly embarrassing backlog of Hunt-a-Killer boxes).
No one seemed to know who she was, if the furrowed brows, and the ill-hidden whispers were any indication. Certainly, in theory, that was part of the point of a masquerade, in theory; mystery, anonymity. But in plain reality, a birthmark, a throaty laugh, the twist of a lip in a familiar smile, the cadence of speech — there was littler mystery as to who anyone behind the paper and silk masks were. David had greeted many of the guests by name, wrapped his arms around them in a familiar embrace.
But she… she was different.
“So, how do you know the host?” he asked, sipping his wine when he turned to the table they were sharing. She tipped her head to the side, observed him from below the frames of her red and golf-foil mask.
“Intimately,” she said, a smile twisting the corner of her lips.
He choked. She laughed.
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist. But honestly, it’s a long story, and not nearly as interesting as you’d like.”
“Oh? How would you know what I like?”
Her eyes flashed, gold and luminescent in the dim light.
“I have some idea,” she said. The curl of her lip revealed a glint of teeth, ivory white and unnaturally sharp.
He swallowed. She held out a hand, slender-fingered and elegant. Her nails shone crimson and gold like her mask, sharpened to a fine point.
“Come with me and we can see if I’m right,” she said.
Day Six, and one day behind — again. I know, I know, this is a repeat of every year. My brain isn’t working so good right now, guys. I’m in a slump — partly hormone-fueled, I’d wager — and having a hard time getting out. Still, every little step forward is a win. And however unsatisfied I am with any given entry (see the Insta caption for that), I have to keep in mind that it’s all supposed to be conceptual this month. I’m only putting together blueprints in April. Final products will be assembled in May.
That being said, the prose piece here was fully stream of consciousness, and written directly in the text editor as I was assembling this entry, and I’ll be honest — I’m pretty proud of this little bit of writing. It’s been ages since I’ve written anything — let alone prose — but I have been uncharacteristically happy with how the writing for this month has gone so far.
Anyway, in an attempt to get myself out of my mental slump, I think moving around and perhaps some chores are in order, so I will be doing that soon after I hit publish.
It had started with a solitary air plant, the wispy, spidery fronds reaching out towards her like lazy fingers to run along her cheeks unexpectedly as she glanced past to retrieve her keys or her backpack. An unobtrusive little bromeliad, hanging in a homespun macramé pot holder, just above her desk. She thought little of it, though she would find herself idly paging through her notebooks on rainy mornings, before sunrise, her fingers carding through the overgrown leaves as they would through a lover’s hair.
After that it was small clipping left over from store bought herbs; sprigs of rosemary carelessly potted just to see what would spring up, small pewter pots of mint and basil perched on the windowsill overlooking the campus quad. Then, slowly, succulents, robust little creatures that could withstand the days of neglect when exams were in full swing, or the stretches of scatter-brained insomnia when she was assembling the final pieces for her portfolio.
She had barely noticed how far gone she was until Jackie came by one night near the end of term. She looked around, mouth slightly agape, pushing through the wayward striped fronds of a spider plant to enter the living room proper. Callie busied herself with pouring coffee as Jackie slid a collection of old ceramic mugs packed with sprigs of chamomile and sage to make room for herself on the kitchen bench. She sat gingerly, eyes roving around the greenery encroaching on far more of the apartment than Callie seemed aware of.
“So…” she started slowly. “Is this some… like… hedge witchery thing?”
“Some… wait, what?” Callie said, placing a mug of coffee before both of them. She pushed a succulent, it’s fleshy leaves purple tinged, tot he edge of the table to make room. “What do you mean? Hedge witchery??”
“Well,” Jackie said meaningfully, gesturing. “I mean… come on.”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” Callie said honestly. She took a long sip of her coffee, tucking her feet up under her.
“But… I’m intrigued,” she said, reaching out to run her fingertips over the soft edges of a plush plant. “Tell me more.”
Day Five! That write up with literally stream-of-conciousness, though I had the idea for the sketch — or at the very least, wanting to do something with a lot of plants and greenery — since I generated the words, about two weeks ago. I’m not one hundred percent sold on this exact sketch — I think I’d like something with her more “among” the plants, with more a sense of her surroundings and how encroaching the greenery is on the totality of her space — but I like the idea.
Also, it’s really hard not to over-think the sketches and be like, “no, that’s not nearly good enough! I’m not a top-tier artist but I have standards1” I have to be like, “Bitch, chill, it’s literally a sketch, if you even pick this one it’s going to be redrawn completely in May! It does not have to be perfect!”
That being said, onward and upwards. I was definitely in a better place mentally today than I was yesterday, though I am still not at 100%, but I have high hopes for tomorrow and beyond.
