10.04.25
it's really really starting to feel like fall outside this week, it's still hot during the day but there's a distinct shift that you can feel now that it's october and things have started to cool off some. this past week has been busy, there's been a lot of stuff to prep for at work and i've been trying my hardest to keep up with not only my homework demands but my own personal art stuff as well. it's hard trying to balance everything, especially when it already feels like i dont have any energy to start with. also it feels like the weeks are going by SO fast, i can hardly keep up... it feels like the semeseter Just started and i'm already having to prep for midterm stuff.
well... in terms of interesting stuff i've been doing, there's not really much. i keep meaning to go hiking one last time before it gets too cold out, but theres no time during the week and by the time the weekend rolls around all i want to do is take it slow, which is exactly what i'm doing today. i woke up early to take slater to work since its car broke down (fuel pump issue), got a few groceries and came back home to work on a series of potential prints that i'm interested in making. i'll let you know if i decide to go through on that, i'm at a strange place in my artistic journey where my inability to accept myself is starting to come and bite me in the ass, but i'll elaborate on that more another time.
fridays are my studio days where i go in and try to spend a few hours either doing something new or get better at something i'm already used to doing. yesterday i tried doing emulsion lifts for the first time, and i think they turned out pretty good
it was definitely a little bit of a learning process, and i'm glad that i had the foresight to use the photos that i was less attached to for my first few lifts. the first one i had the water Way too hot and it completely curled in on itself to where it was impossible to unfurl it. by the second try though i had gotten it down, the two that i shared here were the ones that i liked the most out of the 5 or 6 that i did. come wednesday i think i'll make a few more, but i want to find more interesting places to photograph. this was at the same church that i used for my short film that i made in the spring, it's completely black and so strange looking for a church in this area.
after that i was going to go antiquing, but i just didn't have any energy and came on back home. right now it feels like my art exists in 2-3 different, separate realms. there's the stuff that i make for school and the stuff i make for myself, and now i feel like there's this 3rd compartment emerging as i start to explore making prints/stickers to sell locally to try and be able to make some kind of living off of my art. obviously, i won't be able to survive off of that alone, but i want to still have some connection to the artistic community here.
i have always preached that honesty is best policy, and there is no path to real success (being you are fulfilled in every aspect including spiritually) other than being your own authentic self. i say real success because regardless of how much money you make off of doing something, if it's not true to you then you will always be lacking true completion and will feel like something's missing/burnt out/to be desired for. so i am in limbo right now trying to figure out what the hell it is that i'm doing with my art. am i really being authentic? i feel like with my work here, i am authentic. the work i make for school also feels authentic, but in a different way, and same with this new avenue that i'm exploring.
but at the same time, it feels like everything has to be separated. when i think of presenting any of the art that i present here in an academic setting, i think i would be humiliated and i'm not really sure why. it's not that i don't like my art, but it just feels like it's something that i have to 'hide' in a sense? but if i do that, then it just violates everything that i've been saying in the last paragraph. it's not required that i marry all aspects of my work together (in fact i think that would be detrimental and really crazy lmao) but i want to find a way to at least connect some aspects. i like the narrative work that i do here, but i don't feel like it would work with the art that i do 'out there' if that makes sense. then vice versa, it feels like the art that i make 'out there' that i feel really passionate about doesn't do very well 'in here'.
but then we reach an even deeper question of what it means for art to 'do well'. is it reception from others? is it the feedback you get on those pieces? the numbers you get? i think a lot of people like to pat themselves on the back and say that the numbers don't matter, but it's totally fair to take that into consideration since as an artist, you want your work to be seen by people. there's not really an answer outside of "do what makes you actually feel fulfilled", because in the end that's what actually matters and the rest will naturally fall into place.
sorry, i went on a huge tangent right after i said that i would elaborate later. oh well =P i'm off to clean up my desktop and organize my files, i feel like that's my go-to whenever i don't know what to do next in life. it's like if my PC is organized, i can do anything lmao... i'll leave you with this rust that i drew, slater and i recently watched true detective and it was just as good as i remembered. see ya
09.13.25
it's been weird not being able to write as much on here, and i hate being so quiet on my neocities. truth is that i've actually had to work on a whole other site the last few weeks for a class of mine that i'm in, all the art seniors have to develop a personal website for their portfolio so i've been sinking a huge amount of time into that. i just recycled most of the stuff that i have on this site, but cleaned it up a bit and made it a little more polished/tailored for a portfolio. maybe i'll share it eventually, but it's nothing that you haven't already seen.
school has been a little weird this semester, i have a studio space i can use now but i haven't started working on anything yet. this doesn't mean i dont have any ideas in the works yet though, i'm going to focus a lot on night film photography for my project i think... the only problem is that i have zero experience with that type of thing, so i'm gonna have to do a trial run first. if it works out though i think it'll really be not only really cool, but it'll be a ton of fun to work on too. there will be lots of very long cold nights waiting in the woods, but you already know i don't mind that.
new job has also been going good so far, but i'm not sure if a job indoors in a climate controlled environment is right for me. i really miss working out in the sun and being able to put my hands in the dirt... i do have a really large-scale garden design project on my hands though that i've been working on, i'll show you pictures as i make headway on that. in general i feel like i should be doing a little more, i'm looking at potentially starting my own garden installation business or at the very least trying to find a job with somewhere that specializes in ecological landscaping. i have zero desire to do the traditional mow and blow commercial landscaping, but it's hard finding jobs that aren't that. unfortunately it seems you need specialized degrees to get your foot in the door at a lot of these places, and i'm already too far into this degree to transfer to a school that does landscape architecture. but as you all already know i am a firm believer that you can learn anything from just about anywhere, you don't need a landscape architecture degree to know what plants work well and how to grow them somewhere.
that's really all i got for you guys, just wanted to peek in here and say hi... been watching true detective with slater since it hasn't seen it before and it's making me miss the gulf coast a whole lot. i'll be back soon with some art WIPs both digital and traditional =] got some potential cool print designs in the works too! stay tuned...
08.24.25
today marks the 30th birthday of windows 95! it's also my 27th birthday, which is a little less interesting. i was a scheduled c-section, so i always like to joke that the doctor chose august 24th so that there would be one less leo in the world. (kidding of course, i love my leo friends...) well, it's been a very busy last couple of weeks trying to get everything together at work. friday was my last day at this job, last day tending to the greenhouse and all my little plant friends... i hope that they'll be okay, and i think they'll be just fine but it was difficult to say goodbye. while i'm excited to start this new job and explore this new opportunity, there is something that comes with working with the land that builds some very deep connection with you and the world around you that you just can't get anywhere else. it's something that you find through very early mornings not wanting to be somewhere but forced to be there regardless, in the cold, in the heat... it's there waiting for you to discover it =]
but yes, that's why i've been gone so much. just busy with life, and now summer has flown by and the semester is already starting up again. my biggest goal is to keep drawing despite school, which shouldn't be too hard since i'm in a few studio art classes this year. however, that makes it harder for me to make my own personal art because i spend all my energy on making art for class. for whatever reason i've always really struggled to connect my personal art with my academic art... i'm not really sure why but i find that it's easier for me to paint/draw animals in school, i'm sure there's some weird psychological reason for this but i'm not invested enough to figure it all out.
another goal that i have is to get this first chapter of quinn finally wrapped up and out the door- i think i mentioned in my previous entries that i had finished thumbnailing for it and just needed to do lines etc etc. once quinn is wrapped up i have plans to begin work on a webcomic/webnovel for louis and boyd's story along with their nephew bebe. lots of things lined up... but for now i just wanted to say hi and poke my head in here, write a quick little entry to let you all know what's been going on in my life. take it easy =]
yours truly + some beautiful clouds i saw last night.
07.28.25
hi all =] it's been a minute. to be honest, i had sat down and written a whole blog entry a few times over the last couple of weeks, but i just scrapped them every time cuz i didn't feel like posting. but now i'm starting to kick around and get back into working on things around here. louis' page is in the works right now, i just have some small details about him that i need to flesh out a little further before i go posting anything. in general, i've been a little bit busy lately so the free time that i do have, i try to spend relaxing or drawing. it feels like drawing is coming a little easier to me these days. i'm still not entirely out of my 'funk' that i've been in for the last couple of years but honestly, i think that might just be how things are now. that's not really a bad thing i guess, it just means i have to work harder and try to stay on top of using my mental and physical abilities so they don't degrade. you'll never straight up forget how to draw, but if you go for months without doing anything then yeah things are gonna get pretty rusty.
take this louis that im working on.. dont think ill post the finished cuz its naughty lol
having friends around me who are also artists is a major source of inspiration for me. lately i've been thinking about fostering more community for artists, especially horror artists or unconventional artists. there's a lot of spaces on the web for fanartists, but i want to make a space for OC artists and people who are writing scary shit! it's just a matter of how i want to go about it... a discord channel seems the most accessible, but the accessibility comes with a whole bunch of issues that i'd rather avoid. discord just sort of naturally breeds drama and i want to avoid all of that because i am too old and i don't care about things like that. tbh, i also just don't like discord as a platform. the second option i've considered is starting a webring, but then that really only opens it up to people who have their own personal websites and it seems like a lot of people are still intimidated by HTML. while i believe everyone should have their own personal site, i also totally understand if people don't want to keep up with maintaining a whole website.
the third option is a collective website. i like this idea because a collective website comes with all of the perks of a personal website like having control over how things are presented, complete freedom to adjust how you want, etc. but i worry that this is almost too exclusive, or would come off like "hey this is just for me and my friends". i don't think that it's a bad thing to have that, but it's just not the goal that i'm trying to accomplish with this. ultimately, i think i need to sit with my ideas for a little bit and decide a. what it is that i actually want to do with this, b. what i'm willing to devote time and effort to and that will naturally answer the question of c. how will i actually go about this.
so yeah, lots and lots of ideas floating around in my head right now. i'll keep you guys in the loop either way.
06.28.25
so far its been a really beautiful summer. it's been pretty mild out here up until this week where there's been a huge heatwave happening. tbh it's not too bad if you're just out and about or sitting out on the porch for a bit, but working out in the heat and humidity has been kicking my ass a little. i normally wear tank tops to work in and while i'm very strict with SPF, i've forgotten to take account for where my shirts ride up in the back and now i have a weird tan line on my lower back. it looks really stupid =P while i love every part of the year and all the different things that each season has to offer, may-june is one of the most energizing times of year for me despite all the heat and bugs, so i've really been enjoying these last few weeks.
the pollinator garden ive been working on for a while has been doing its thing =]
it's not often that i let myself be influenced to buy something, but late last year i fell for the hobonichi videos that i'd been seeing everywhere. i've never been a planner person, but i've also found that reminders on my phone or digital calenders don't work for me either because it's not physically in front of me. when i started school a few years ago i picked up a monthly planner, but i really struggled to use it effectively. but i really liked the layout of the hobonichi weeks and decided to give it a go, despite the price being really outrageous for a planner lmao
but honestly its been SO helpful. a weekly spread is way more efficient for me than a monthly spread, but it's not as nit-picky as a daily planner. I've been consistently using it since december 2024 and it's definitely made a difference for me when it comes to keeping track of things. and there's enough space in the back for me to journal semi-regularly without having to commit to a daily journal style planner so its a real win win for me =]
here's mine, i'll take a picture of my layout some other time. slater drew the little seal on the back a long time ago before we ever met, but it gave it to me a while back and i thought it was so cute i just had to stick it in the cover hee hee... if you've been wanting to try it out, i wont tell you if you should or shouldnt, but i Will Say that it's worked really great for me. even just for tracking day to day habits, and it's also a nice little hobby to prep every week's layout and enter in everything that i have to do for the week on sunday evenings. it's also made meal planning a lot easier too.
i won't lie, it's been kind of a weird week. the vibe's just been kind of off lately, and i've never felt more drained in my life. i try not to vent and complain that much online anymore because a) it makes me feel dumb when i look back on it and b) i want this site to be more about my art and hobbies and other fun things rather than me whining on my blog, which used to be very common on my site. but yeah, it's just been weird!!! that's all i can really describe it as. slater and i have been talking a lot about what will happen once i graduate, my school is the only thing that's really tethering us to this area and it's just so expensive for us here.
before the hurricane, things were pretty bad and unaffordable but post-helene things have just gotten so much harder for everyone. so many people we know have had to relocate themselves (some for the time being, some permanently) because they lost their jobs because of the storm and there's no work to take its place. the work that Is available doesn't pay nearly enough for rent prices here. it also doesn't help that cost of living (including food costs) are higher than the national average here, and wages are below the national average. it's created a really terrible imbalance that's put a lot of strain on people.
but at the same time there's a lot of good here, and i love the south with all my heart and can't imagine ever picking up and leaving it. there's just not a lot of options for us here, unless if we were to move states and even then our options would be bigger cities, which i just cant do at this point. nothing against big cities, but when it comes to living somewhere i need to be somewhere more rural and quiet. well, i've just kind of rambled this whole entry haha i promise next entry i'll have more to show for. it's art fight next week i hope everyones ready!!! i'm team fossil this year B] looking fwd to it. i'll see you guys later!
06.13.25
well, i let almost a whole month slip by without updating the blog here. there really hasn't been anything noteworthy i feel like i could share and write about here. when i don't have anything new to share with you guys i just sort of end up talking/rambling a whole bunch, which i think might end up happening today. i had all of this week off from work, so it's been nice just kind of taking it easy, even though i didn't get a lot of stuff done that i was wanting to do.
however, i did go for a really nice hike to a waterfall this week with my boyfriend. it was really nice weather and all the rain we've gotten recently had the river nice and high. the only downside was there were multiple high school/middle school summer camps out there =P annoying but at least they're outside having fun. they all showed up right as we were on our way back to where we had parked anyway, so for the most part it was nice and quiet. there was a guy who was trying to jump off from a ledge after his friends urged him on, and slater and i really thought we were about to see him crack his head open on the side of the rocks... it was a little unnerving. he ended up jumping in and being fine though. waterfalls are one of those things i don't like to mess around with, there's been so many people who've died falling off of them and drowning is my biggest fear so i like to watch them from afar.
im thinking about getting back into painting, i haven't painted anything since the semester ended last month and i don't want to let myself stagnate when it comes to traditional art. i did pick up a new sketchbook, and i've been trying to draw something every day. most of the time i just end up doing things like line or texture exercises, just things to keep my hand-eye coordination good and to keep things fresh in my mind. over time i've found out that if i go for too long without drawing i forget a lot of the small technical things first. then things like anatomy follow after... it sucks, i miss having the time to draw all day!
lately i've been itching to find new artists, it's so hard. in an age where social media is so huge and widespread it's somehow harder than ever to find artists that i enjoy or feel inspired by. when i talk about old art platforms, i try not to let myself get clouded with nostalgia but i also have to admit that it was so much easier to get inspired on places like deviantart. logging in and checking my notifications, seeing all the artists i liked posting their new works would always amp me up to draw.
now it's scrolling the timeline and wading through a whole bunch of BS on either bluesky or shitter... while there's a lot less dookie on bluesky, it's still not entirely there for me and i feel like i mostly find furry art over anything else on there, which isn't a bad thing, it's just not what's inspiring to me right now in my life. part of it is i just don't follow the right people yet, but then finding those people is such a pain in the ass. there is also the problem of i'm not really Sure of what it is that i want to see right now either. there's pinterest too, but it's so easy to get suspended by their shitty AI moderators on there and it's mostly kids reposting peoples work without credit and when you go to check the comments to see if anyone's got the source it's a bunch of people asking "what aesthetic is this?????? is this moecore? webcore? Someone help..."
one of the solutions i've found for this problem is physical art books. but that gets expensive and in our relatively small apartment it's difficult to find space for more books among the 10 trillion that we already have. i think we're going to go through some books and donate them soon, probably within the next week or two since my parents are coming to visit and we mostly have witchcraft books. doesn't really mix well with my christian conservative parents =P
work on quinn is still happening, i've got the first chapter outlined and i've started thumbnailing everything. working on a webcomic makes me feel so ...... stupid?? not in a negative way or anything. it's similar to when you finally get your drivers license after having only a permit for years, and you're driving by yourself for the first time. it's this feeling of "am i really doing this? im controlling this thing? i can go anywhere in this???" i put so much effort into planning and fleshing everything out that when it comes to actually making it, i'm sitting here thinking "wtf am i doing this right???" i guess 'stupid' isn't really the word i'm looking for, maybe 'bewildered' is a better fit. it makes me feel like a confused animal or something.
that's all i really have for you right now. i'm gonna go play some SSO before jumping back into working on all that mess that i mentioned above =] i hope you're all doing well and enjoying all the gifts that summer has to offer.
05.17.25
hi =] what's going on? sorry for the lack of entries as of late, i knew i wanted to start a new page for my blog but i didn't feel like going in and shifting everything around... lazy lazy i know. it's been a really beautiful spring here so far, i've been very busy with taking care of plants both at home and at work. my little porch garden is coming along nicely, i'm trying to grow some bush cucumbers this year so we'll see how that goes. tbh i can't wait to have actual ground to stick plants into eventually, there's only so much you can do with a porch garden. i did get a really nice shelf to put out there and it's freed up a ton of space, i don't know why we didn't think abotu doing that before.
and of course, getting pumped for one of my favorite parts of the summer... art fight! i think this weekend i'm going to focus on making references for some ocs that didn't make it on there last year. art fight is like my favorite thing ever, i can't believe i ever put off doing it for so long because i was worried i wouldn't be motivated enough for it. it turns out it's actually a really great way to Get motivated.
coming out of the semester i'm always trying to figure out how to switch off grindset mode. i still have to worry about work burnout, but i have a little more time to explore hobbies that i ignore because of school, yet when summer actually rolls around i'm always scratching my head like 'wtf is it that i wanted to learn how to do???' so i'm going to sit down and make a fun little list of things i want to teach myself this summer. maybe i'll finally FINALLY get around to opening up blender. i messed around with it a little bit a few years ago but didn't do a lot with it, so i want to try again. also don't want to stop traditional painting, i had so much fun with it this semester that i want to keep rolling with it. my only problem is that i have nowhere to put the completed works and my apartment is already small enough as it is.
i've once again been working on my webcomic, i know i keep saying this haha... it's sort of a cycle, i'll come back to it every few months and work on it in chunks before i get busy and have to drop it again. TBH, i'm a little reluctant to show WIPs because that's how i end up losing motivation to work on stuff, but here's One Little Taste for you to look at:
i had to go in and once again fix the code for the site. then i went in and looked at how i wanted to present the actual chapter, in the past i've just sort of haphazardly slapped things onto a black webpage with little regard to how things were working. now that it's been a few years since i've started working on this project, i've had some time to learn how to code a Little bit better so i wanted to go through and tighten things up a bit. so far what i have looks much better than how it used to, and i'm excited to show it to you guys when it's done. i've also been working on an outline for everything, when i previously tackled this project it was only half of an outline and i figured i would just cross that bridge when i came to it. as you can probably tell, it backfired. as of now, there are 9 chapters that are all roughly outlined (as in i have written down a vague account of what will happen in each chapter). the first chapter is halfway written, then i plan on going through and thoroughly outlining each chapter and then writing each chapter/script out as i go. here's a little vague look at the (tentative) chapter titles:
well anyhow, that's all i really got for you guys today. i hope everyone's enjoying their spring so far =] there's been a lot of wild/severe weather this past week so i hope you guys have been doing okay. see you next time!