The History of Drawlings

Ever since the moment I was given my first crayon I was in love.  In love with art.  I drew constantly as a child.  My parents had it easy because all they had to do was give me some paper, a pencil, some crayons, colored pencils or markers and I was set for the day.  Well, I might require a sandwich or two for the day, and a juice box, but other than that I was set.

As I got older I drew a lot of inspiration from video games and manga and felt that I found my art niche.  When I was fifteen I discovered an artist, Priscilla Hamby who I admired so much that I very nearly became her clone, artistically.  I regret emulating her so much in retrospect, it's handicapped me as an artist now.  But it is what it is.  I was at least happy and delighting in the niche I finally found myself in.

Then three years later *dramatic music* I joined the military.  Reality threw a swift, merciless backhand to my face.  Everything about drawing flew out the window and everything about just simply surviving day to day took over.  Four years after that, at the age of twenty-two, my active duty contract was finally over and I returned home with grand ideas of snuggling back into that comfortable niche I was in through high school.  But reality struck again.  The civilian equivalent of my military job fell through and I was stuck living with my parents, still reeling from a very messy breakup, totally flat broke, and struggling staying sane under my parent's roof.  Emotional and desperate, I threw together a messy plan to move up north and start a new life up there, independent and free from everything that was just incapable of getting control of.  But I had no concept of trying to hash out a living on part-time job pay and ran myself into debt just trying to keep up with bills.  So back to my parent's house I went.  Back to the drawing board.  Ha!

So now, nearing the big two-six, I'm at a loss where the hell I am at with my art anymore.  I'm slowly gaining speed again, discovering my style once more.  But how do I do it?  How do I really pull all this off?  I'm quite simply just too busy to sit down and draw.  If I'm not actually busy, my mind is too busy.  Sure I've spent nearly 20 minutes composing this wall of text, but I tried to draw and it wasn't distracting me away enough from being sick as venting over the internet.  (Excuses, excuses!)  In the last few weeks I literally haven't sat in one spot longer than 10 minutes unless I've been sleeping, eating, or driving.  I made a new commitment for myself; I must commit myself to draw something at least once a day and surprisingly I've managed to fulfill this commitment so far.  But since I can't seem to sit still it's all quick, meaningless sketches.  It's something, but not enough.  I've been watching a great many artists online pump out these beautiful pieces day after day.  I don't know how they do it.  I don't think I could ever clear my mind enough to sit down and actually finish an art piece.

Tomorrow I'm going to an appointment to fill out some paperwork for tuition assistance at a local college to begin a degree in graphic design.  My whole life I've wanted to get a degree in fine arts or illustration, but I've lowered my standards and decided that I don't quite have that "it" factor to ever be successful with actual art.  Instead I'll just stick with boring, corporate, easy-money art.

I just wish things could be like way back when I was first really starting to draw, back when I was five, six, seven, eight.  Back when I was correcting my young peers and telling them; "It's called 'drawing' not 'drawling'."  But don't we all wish for what things once were?  Don't we all wish that we could start over again and do things a little different?

Sorry for being so melancholy.  I always end up getting this way as my birthday starts to close in on me.  Haha!

~ Dani

Photos

There was a photo contest on DeviantArt, the first I've ever seen, back in late August for the George Clooney movie The American.  I was excited to enter especially since I would be on vacation during the entry time and would be travelling to Traverse City.  Traverse City is very picturesque, even the downtown, so I was sure that I'd be able to find winning subject material there.

I missed the deadline for the contest and the opportunity to take photos in downtown Traverse City though, for several annoying reasons.  It was actually pretty devastating to say the least, but that's what you get when you let life get in the way of art, I guess.

I didn't really have any photos that fit the criteria I think they were looking for in the contest.  I was going to try and enter them anyway, just for the heck of it, but I couldn't really find any "slice of life" city photos that were asked for for the contest.  But here's some of what I took.  Some were for the contest some weren't.  At this point I don't feel that I need to distinguish which is which:



I'm still not very good at taking pictures of people. If I were I probably would have been more confident with my entries. I have to take my time when I'm taking my photos, I'm still not very good. And working with humans, of whom have feelings, attention spans, and the like, is very difficult for me.

One of these days, I tell you. One of these days I'll get over my qualms. Until then I'll just keep boosting my confidence and continue honing my skills. Wish me luck!!

~ Dani

Yes, indeed.

So, I’m stuck.  I was working on my purse and everything was hunky-dory when all of the sudden *dramatic music* I came to the zipper part! *cries*

I presented my problem to my mom, who has been sewing/crocheting/knitting/all-around-crafting for …half a million years or so, and even SHE couldn’t figure the stupid pattern out.  I guess that’s what happens when you buy cheap patterns.  I can’t even really describe what’s all that difficult about it either.  When I look at the pattern everything’s gravy when I put the fabric pieces together and under the needle of the sewing machine it …it just looks all WRONG!!  It won’t fit the way it’s supposed to and the useless black and white scribbled drawings do nothing to explain to me where I’m supposed to place things. 

I encountered a lot of problems last year when I went full steam at a Halloween costume project that made my costume less than satisfactory to me.  Everyone else liked it, but I was ashamed of it and ended up not finishing it.  I’m determined to not let this happen with this purse.  I mean, it’s about 80% less material to work with than my costume, how much longer should it take?

Maybe I’m just too picky.  Maybe I’m just too inexperienced.  Maybe I’m just biting off more than I can chew.  I don’t know.

I was also delayed working on this because my boyfriend has been visiting for the last week.  He’s decided to move back to Florida for school/job reasons.  So every moment I had while he was here I was trying to spend it with him because I don’t know when I’m going to see him again.  It sucks.

I want to finish this stupid purse so that I can finally accomplish something worthwhile and to do something to keep me busy.  But doing something frustrating to keep me busy is counter-productive for me right now, so I’m at a little bit of a loss.

Tomorrow I have my martial arts class and a friend to meet up with, Wednesday I’m giving blood and will probably not want anything to do with needles afterwards, so Thursday looks like the day for me to take another stab at it.  We’ll see if I can tame this mo’fo purse.

;D

~Dani

Purse Project

So I'm in the middle of about four projects at the moment, but this one I'm currently working on and should actually have finished in not too long.  I'm making a purse for myself.  I went into a store looking for a unique, small purse that would be just big enough for my essentials (i.e. wallet, phone, keys, camera, hand sanitizer and tissues) and was under $20.  Well, I guess it's been so long since I've been purse shopping that I didn't realize 20 dollars was an impossible limit for anything purse related, even a large wallet.  So I hopped over to JoAnn's and found some nifty fabric and decided to make a purse out of it.

Here's the fabric and the stuff I was going to use with it.

I chose this fabric because the cheap pattern I went with was relatively plain, so I thought the multiple colors would help make it a little more snazzy.  Here's the pieces of the purse cut out of the fabric.

After some deliberating with my mom (a sewing expert) my lower skill level and frustration with the sewing machine would make my pattern modifications way too difficult for me to accomplish.  So I went back to the drawing board and followed the pattern without my modifications.  Guess you have to walk before you can run, right?

So, I had to go without the metal clasps I was going to attach from the strap to the purse, and the hemp string I was going to braid into the strap also had to get reconsidered.  But I'm still going to incorporate the hemp braid into the finished product in one way or another.

Anyway.  So this is what I've accomplished so far up until about 30 minutes ago.  I was supposed to work on  it when on Wednesday, my day off, but I made a last minute visit up north to catch some of Traverse City's Cherry Festival and visit with my boyfriend's family.  Thursday when I got back, I was sick.  Friday I was still sick, had to work, but trained for a martial arts tournament after work anyway, and Saturday I was at the tournament.  So today was the first day I could really tackle it.  I had to stop at the zipper part because I was reaching my limit on patience, that and my back was killing me from hunching over.  I'm going to take another stab at it tomorrow after I get off of work.  I heard we're supposed to get company, though, so I might have to postpone it again.  We'll see.

Overall this was very fun!  Mostly just because I was thrilled with the fabric and that when it came to the actual sewing I didn't suck as bad as I thought I would.

More later!

~Dani :D

Blatherings

Still haven't had the time to do what I want with my layout here.  I tried to fix the colors so it's a little easier on the eyes, but honestly I think my laptop screen messes me up in that regard.  I've been quite busy lately and a whole lotta stressed.  This last week has been terrible.  I'm glad it's over and I can try to start anew.

So!  I've been trying to do fun things (read: wasting time on the internet) with the little free time I've had so I can keep my mind occupied.  I discovered a couple of cool things lately I thought I'd throw on here since I don't have a whole lot to talk about (but still feel the need to blather on anyway):

Through a coworker I discovered an independent artist, alias "Kill Taupe", who had a showing of his art in Ferndale, MI not too far from where I live.  The showing was yesterday, which I couldn't make because I had to report in for muster duty for the Air Force yesterday.  Stupid military, always screwing up my life. ;P  But even if I didn't have to go, no one told me about this until after the fact when I saw pictures of the showing on my coworker's Facebook page.  To be honest, I think most of my friends/acquaintances and coworkers don't even know I'm into art; so my coworker wouldn't have thought to tell me because I doubt she thought I'd be interested in such a thing.  Oh well, that's what I get for being so reserved and shy.  ANYWAY!  I hope I can eventually meet this artist because his art is very charming ...in an irreverent and extremely hilarious way.  He had cute, killer cupcake cookies (say that ten times fast) at the showing, made by the Pinwheel Bakery using his designs, and they are way too awesome for words.  So here's a pic of them!:

These cupcake characters belong to a work of sorts of his called Vicious Delicious.  I'm still checking it out and don't know all the details, but it seems to be about killer, cannibal cupcakes with a plot to take over the world and a slurpee-drinking bear, the protagonist, has plans to stop them.  It looks way better than I'm (poorly) describing it.  Check out his blog and Flickr page, he's pretty cool!

I've been needing a new watch for a long time now.  I dropped my old one and it got stepped on leaving the glass covering it's face broken and quite dangerous to actually wear.  So I've been looking around for a new one.  I decided to dream big and went on Etsy to look for unique and artistic ones and came across some from a talented artist called Aranwen.  She has some really beautiful stuff, but it's SO expensive.  I'll never spend more than $30 on a watch, I always end up beating them to pieces unintentionally.  Hence the fate of my last watch.  But Aranwen's elaborate designs were fun to look at anyway.  Check out her shop!  I thought her designs looked familiar somehow and then I remembered I've seen her work on DeviantART too!  This one was my favorite, but I don't even know if there's anything I have in my tomboyish wardrobe that I could ever dare to wear it with.  I love anything with wings; silly obsession.

Another discovery I couldn't resist sharing was this awesome place online called Knock Knock by Who's There Inc.  Haha!  They have organizational stuff and office products that are the funniest things I've seen in a long while.  My favorites are the eco-friendly bag that has "My Recycling Pile is Larger Than Yours" written on it; the Eco Citation note pad; the Things You Must Do To Make Me Happy checklist pad; the Shit List with areas to write down the offender, their violation, and the plan of attack against them; and the Go To Hell sticky note pad that you just have to go look at to fully appreciate. :D

And that's it!  That's all for my blathering.  I feel better now having satisfied my need to bore to death any poor soul who attempts to read all of this. :P  Thank you very much. :D

~ Dani

Newness

Hey! I decided to join everyone here on Blogger! I jumped on the Flickr, Facebook and Twitter bandwagons, why not jump on this one too! Ha!

I'm curious how much I figure out as far as customizing the layout. I really suck at html. I was pretty impressed by Reed and Andrew's layouts. I know I'm no where as proficient with colors as they are, so I'll have to see what I can come up with.

~ Dani