Revisiting old ideas & more of the art I don't share on social media.

Some of my regrets have been from sharing my favorite art pieces online.

And it's always been situational, if my real life is imploding and going very not good-

I get art blocks.

To surpass my art blocks, I have to challenge myself.

Challenges get my blood boiling, I thrive on spite and chaos. Through the fire I crawl, and I get to work, and a lot of the time I beat those challenges and create something I'm so bloody proud of. (I really am that dramatic.)

Only to post it to social media and it's all but ignored.

I can't tell you HOW HARD IT IS TO MAKE THAT PEPSI BOTTLE LOOK LIKE A REAL PEPSI BOTTLE WITH TRADITIONAL TOOLS BUT I DID IT.

My lines, my colors, everything is so much more solid than I've produced in a bit, really made this fucking leap off of the paper visually, I'm sooooo in love with what I did.

BUT!!!

My real life is a mess x 10000. I needed a rush of validation that I can't give myself right now. I posted this on twitter and there was predictable crickets and little action. So then comes the doubt in myself. Maybe the bottle didn't turn out that great? Maybe I'm kind of delusional and while it's better than what I've done, it can still get even better. It can always get better.

History dictates that when I'm needing a dopamine hit, the art will fall flat. I've seen this exact scenario happen to myself many times. So why did I do that to myself?

Because I’m always hoping it'll be different this time. I can always prove my theories wrong.

Oh well. So while I drag myself around the transformers fanart scenario, I’ve been working on a couple of other things.

I did a redraw of an old art piece.

This was the original. I drew it around mother's day I think last year. Was thinking about my mum, aunt’s & all the dead. That was what the stars were representing. The blue is to signify the one cat is a ghost.

Here's the redraw. I used Liono as the orange cat. I was thinking of my uncle's cat named Urge for the black cat. It was a long haired grumpy ass cat that was my uncle's best friend and companion. Urge hated everyone, he jumped from the top of the fridge onto your head and scratched the crap out of you.

But he adored my uncle something fierce.

Anyways, Urge and my uncle are long gone. But in my art I can keep reviving them.

Liono and Urge never met each other but their energy is familiar.

I used the Felis constellation as the stars in Urge’s ghost. Urge is blueish to give the ghost vibe, dark/deep enough to support the galaxies within. I like the fading of the colors from living Liono to the blue black depths of life after in Urge’s embrace.

Making Liono’s one eye white, kind of trying to show feeling absorbed by love/light from your loved ones in the moment. When Urge goes off to do his ghostly things, Liono returns to doing his living things.

I strongly feel like our deceased loved ones give us hugs and stuff like this. I feel uncomfortable illustrating human ghosts. But I can draw the shit out of ghostly pets and animals instead, to convey what I need to.

This is some art that I'm so proud of, but I won't risk it on social media. I don't need strangers telling me anything, good or bad. I won't let my brain be influenced on this. I know this is the vision I've been working at making. The ones who vibe with this, will understand.

I'm making it into a sticker, maybe a small print. It's helpful, reminds us we aren't so lonely.

Last bit of the current art that won't see social media. This was an illustration for my daughter’s teacher. They've been reading “the wild robot” series all year, so I illustrated the kids in her class working with the Wild Robot, planting trees. I blocked out the personal info.

I love it, sometimes I'm really surprised at how I can make an intensely packed illustration. My mind is busy, it's very apparent in these illustrations. I feel that because I loved to visually pour myself into each painting I saw as a kid and find all the hidden details…that it's why I do the same now with my pieces. I hope they distract people from their problems for a moment. I think I loved the Where's Waldo books more than I realise.

This teacher was really awesome and instrumental in a lot of helpful changes for my littlest. I tried to show my greatfulness for her in this piece.

I'm always torn with gifting people my art. I was raised to believe that giving someone my art was a “poor person” thing to do, I had a lot of family NOT want my art, had my sisters decline and turn down my art offerings/return art I made them. (None of that art for family was transformers related, I illustrated their personal favorite things.) It's taken years and lots of self work, but I'm at a point where I know my art is good, it helps inspire, and it's a worthy gift to give.

But I know fostering kids imaginations is so crucial to helping them build a good relationship with reading. I decided that the art would be more helpful in this case, and the teacher and all the kids loved it. They had fun figuring out who was who, and the idea of working alongside their favorite fictional character had the lot of them really chuffed.