I commissioned a brilliant artists called Aly Flock to do a picture of my Druid, Pinkamena, with her Winterspring Cub. She didn’t disappoint!
Isn’t it cute! I highly recommend her to anyone, she is talented, polite and has a very quick turnaround. And very reasonable prices.
When I was a teenager I loved to draw. I spent most of my lunch breaks at school drawing, mostly copying pictures from anime and comics, but that helped me get a basic knowledge of what to do and I did my own stuff too. I also used to write stories, though no one was EVER allowed to read them. Then between the ages of 17 and 20 something happened I’d rather not talk about and I pretty much stopped all that. I guess I got out of practice, and was far too critical of myself and found the antidepressants I was on made my hands tremble, so I stopped drawing all together. And that’s kind of been a theme. Same with the digital photo manipulation, my life went haywire for a while and I’ve found it hard to get started again.
Then I started working behind the bar at work. It’s amazing what serving beer can do for you! For the first time in years I feel creative.
Firstly I have found a new self confidence. I never would have seen myself in a job so closely interacting with people a few years back. I haven’t mastered the art of small talk yet, but I find myself chatting to strangers, something that used to terrify me. Finally people are not scary! Well, yes, they are but I can ignore it and deal with them anyway.
And I’m guessing the new self confidence has awakened the creative part of me again. I have an idea for a story bouncing round my head, that I came up with on a very slow shift whilst washing glasses. It revolves around a pub, and is probably a bit Ashes to Ashes meets Neil Gaiman, but I may just write it. I’d go into details but I’m always worried if it IS a good idea someone will pinch it before I do something with it 🙂
And I want to draw! And photomanip! And oh my gosh I’ve not felt like this in years…
Now I just have to find the time.
… To get my own net connection.
The house we rent at the moment has phone sockets but the line isn’t connected right now. It’s never been a priority: I use my mobile phone to make calls and do simple things online (like blog 😛 ) and I go to my dads to use the Internet there (which I pay for on his line). But the change of hours is making that pretty hard now. I tend not to finish til 6 during the week and that makes getting to dads hard as I don’t drive and the buses are terrible round here.
So I’m going to have to take the plunge. More hours means more money which means I can fork out the £129 connection fee, plus pay the line rental after that. Then I’ll simply shift the my Internet account from dads to mine. I’ll finally be out of the dark ages.
Another benefit would be I can concentrate on my art again as well. I do photomanipulations, taking stock photos and turning them into pictures, usually fantasy based, taking bits from one photo, bits from another and putting it all together. Yeah, you get the idea.
A few examples:
(That is my fiancé btw, G. Posing with my horse bow. Imma Hunter in real life!)
More can be seen on my deviantart page, but I have been slacking, and if I want to get better I must practice. Thing is, no matter how many stock photos I have saved on my laptop, if I can’t find the ‘right’ bit to go in my picture it’s annoying not having access to the net to find the perfect picture.
Anyway, enough insomnia based posting, must try and sleep.
Arsenic and Old Mooncloth 