Just Let Nature Goblins Live

I decided to have another go at watercolours, click here for the not pixelated version of the blog post and lots of process photos ^-^

Tank Troubles

So, Tanks's cyst/abscess (don't worry I won't go into detail)(unless you want me to, I'll happily reply to comments about it, bodies are so weird and interesting) had some sort of hissy fit and the vet decided the best thing to do was to open it up and keep it clean while it heals in the hopes it won't just fill back up again.

WOW IT'S HORRIBLE!

Not in a gross way, like, it is gross but a gross that Will and I don't mind at all. It's horrible because Tank hates it so much. Obviously. He has a hole in his neck and we're holding him down and wiping it out. The poor little thing screams his heart out (and poos up a storm). He has always been a crybaby, you don't have to even touch him sometimes and he'll squeak at the anticipation of you doing something he doesn't want but these screams are so awful. It breaks my heart and wears me out and we've only had to do it twice so far out of a twice a day for probably at least a week.

The other side of the stress is that he's such a sweet boy. All he does is scream. I can't believe he hasn't tried to bite us. He's so good. And it feels awful to be abusing his trust like this. I know I've said he cries a lot and that probably makes him sound anti-social but he really isn't. He's so cuddly and will groom all along your arm while you're holding him and we're doing this awful thing to him that he doesn't understand. It's for his own good and we have to just do it but it's tough and wearing.

The rats are the best things, so when something is going wrong with them it is the worst thing.

Cleaning as Self Care

Sometimes things happen that are very stressful and upsetting and are so far out of your control and it can be very frustrating to have to have all these feelings about something and to not have any resolution to it. I can't do anything but that doesn't stop me from feeling like shit, shit that can't put my mind to any other tasks.

When a big societal disappointment makes you unable to focus then anything you might have done in that time that makes you a good force in the world doesn't happen. Fuck that!

This morning I spent some time rambling nonsense frustrations with Will and then I got the kitchen roll, duster and window cleaner, put on The Uncluded Hokey Fright and cleaned our bedroom window and table/books. I don't enjoy cleaning in general and I can't do much in one go because I get so worn out from it but as a distraction technique cleaning one small space works perfectly. I can clean and let my mind wander, I can wipe a window and cry at the same time (never underestimate the power of having a cry), I can use my nail to get right in the mouldy grooves of the frame and feel sad and angry while the dirt disappears and I can dust precious little items and sing along to songs that make me feel good.

The cleaning doesn't take any particular brain power, it's not something I can ruin but at the end I feel at least some satisfaction that I got something good done in the time I could have just been going over and over what was bothering me. It also gives my brain a break from going over and over the thing.
I felt better.

Then I did some reading, had some lunch, stood in our over-grown garden for a bit and now I'm at my desk, writing this before starting something that can count as work.

Gotta look after yourself so you can fight back, whatever that means for you.

Blog thoughts and Sundays

Wah! Technology or whatever. After all my hopes for blogging again I'm now hitting problems here that I can't fix. The image quality is bothering me a lot. I think maybe blogger has just been neglected and isn't suited to how good screens are now?
However. I think I've come to a conclusion. As mentioned in my last post, I set up my Patreon account as a just-in-case but it's there now so I may as well use it. What I'm thinking is, if it's art/work related the image quality is important but if it's just personal, it's not as important. I can carry on blogging here for myself and when it's something to do with art I can do a public post on my Patreon page and link to it from here. I don't know how well that will work, will people bother to click through to other pages? Does it seem like I'm trying to trick people onto my Patreon page? (I'm really really not btw, if anything, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I even have one, I don't have an audience asking for it, who am I to think I might need a Patreon account at some point etc etc) I don't know but in the grand tradition of making the best out of what you've got I think this is my plan for now.
I would love to have a website and have a blog and everything else on there and make it all nice and fancy and good but I can't afford the fees for now and I don't want to set up another free blog somewhere else only to move it again in a year or two.
So yes, these are my bloggy thoughts that I don't really need to share but feel the urge to. I hope you will click on my links to see my work better on other pages and I hope you'll enjoy my personal posts here with slightly pixelated photos.

Anyway, it is a sunday and I have been feeling pretty good lately and am planning to just "have a sunday". I'm learning to find balance in working and resting so that I don't get so drained. It's hard, I feel like I need to just work until I've succeeded at life but I can't work well if my brain is a stressed mush and there the evil circle starts up. Also, if I'm always working towards this "success" I'm losing all these days in the mean time. I'm also trying to learn better focus when I am working so I get more out of my time. Just trying to be better while also just existing and enjoying where I am.

Cromer

I've been having problems with image quality on here and it's starting to really bug me.
When Patreon announced it's new pricing I set one up so if I ever did use Patreon I'd get the founder perks. Not to be down on myself but I'm not expecting anyone to pledge yet BUT you can do public posts so I thought why not use that as a platform for when the images getting ruined here would be too annoying.
So when it's art, I think I'll post over there and link to it from here. For now it seems like the best solution for me but I don't know, I'll keep trying to figure things out.
Anyway, here is the post on Patreon with some photos and the drawings I did on some of them ^-^

All The Badges and some stickers ~ Shop Update

I was doing a stock check and thought it'd be fun to put all my badges together into one photo. This is a lot of badges lol. I love to make badges, the process is fun for me, it's a way for me to get my drawings onto a product and they're a cheap item which means they're accessible for more people. Turns out this wasn't enough badges though...

...because I made more. And some new stickers too which have all the same love and reasoning behind them as badges.
If any of these take your fancy they're all available in my Etsy shop, most of them are made from prints and I make more when they sell but some of them are hand drawn originals so when they're gone they're gone.

Thanks for looking and here's to a new week! I'm actually starting the week super tired because I'm an introverted hermit that went out and did stuff but it's worth it so I'm not complaining, I'll just be sleepy for a bit ^-^

Turn The Page Book Arts Fair

On Friday we visited Turn The Page Book Art Fair at the forum. I found out about it a couple of years ago and hadn't managed to actually go but this year I'm adamant to not let as many things pass me by. There were some pieces on show and people with tables showing/selling their work and all the work is based around books. But the books don't just have art in them, the books are the art. It was so cool. I love books, I love handmade items, I love art. I came away from it feeling inspired to make more stuff. I definitely want to make some more ooak books.

I don't want to make assumptions about anyone but overall it felt a little white/middle age/middle class which I was expecting anyway tbh and while there was a range of different types of work (and a section for some educational groups, artpocket and some universities), I'd love to go to a more diverse version of the fair. Imagine how much more variety in the works you'd get to see.

There were some books that looked like they were made entirely from bits of ephemera, the pages as well as what was collaged onto the pages and I loved them so much. There were some really interesting types of binding and ways to fold pages.

Something I took away from it was that I looked at some books and didn't see an obvious theme or know what it was about and I still loved it and I feel like it will be a good reminder to let go of over-explaining or needing an obvious running theme before I start to make something. Sometimes something can just exist and be its own thing, it doesn't necessarily need an easy to follow clear theme, maybe the theme is just that it got made or maybe I know the theme and you don't and that doesn't matter.

I came away from it feeling so inspired to make some books and to remember to not be so restricted when I'm making things.

I'm really feeling that I'm not articulate enough to explain this event and how it made me feel but seeing art is always awesome and I've definitely been left wanting to create even more than I do anyway and it's given me a lot to think about too.

Afterwards we went for a hot drink and did a bit of drawing and then we nosed around Waterstones while we waited for our bus. There were so many books I wanted in Waterstones *wah* but at least I got to have a peek. Another good thing about the day was that we treated ourselves to a bus ride. We normally walk or cycle everywhere and it's pretty tiring. It felt really good to get into the city and not already be worn out and to get home and not be totally wrecked. Transport is magic, next time you're stuck in a traffic jam just remember how lucky you actually are!

Anyway, I won't turn this into a ramble about gratitude and noticing the good daily things (although you totally should!) and I'll end with my video from the day. Thanks Turn The Page, I'll definitely be back next year.

Some Good Things

I've been using the Wysa app and finding it really useful and one of the options I have set up is at 4 o'clock everyday it asks me what I'm grateful for. It's a small thing but taking a moment to focus on what is positive can help teach you, over time, to focus less on the negatives that are so easy to dwell on.

Most days they're tiny, regular things but this week a couple of things have happened that have made me feel really lucky and grateful and I thought it'd be nice to share them here.

To start, here's a lesson about just being honest.

In college I wasn't so great and one time I skipped a psychology class that was going to be a mock exam. The tutor took me out during the next class to ask why I hadn't come to this test and I just told her the truth, I hadn't studied for it and didn't see the point in just sitting there for an hour not being able to write the essay anyway.

I think prior to this I would have had an instinctive reaction to make something up, just make up an excuse in an attempt to not get in trouble. For all the lessons we're taught about honesty when we're little I think this "just try and get away with it" mentality is actually more prevalent in what we learn from society around us and especially as a teenager you don't want an adult to tell you off, you want to get away with stuff.

But guess what? She appreciated the honesty. She obviously explained to me that I was being kinda stupid and I wasn't making the right choices but the fact that I was honest about it meant we could just have a conversation with no one getting angry and defensive. It was much more constructive and I think about it a lot.

Allowing yourself that moment of honest vulnerability can feel like something you shouldn't do, power moves and tricking people to get what you want is often celebrated but it's not healthy for you as an individual or good for us as a whole.

Back to this week, I had two instances this week where people wanted me to phone them. One for some invoice/payment info and one for an account being hacked. After the anxious gremlin in my head told me to abandon getting paid and to just let the account be lost forever I remembered my little honesty lesson from college and reminded myself to not be controlled by the anxiety gremlin and I emailed both of these people and just explained that I have really bad phone anxiety and I was hoping the issues could be resolved in other ways and both of them said it was fine.

I love to be unashamedly honest. It feels so good to just tell the truth and I think more often than not people respond well to it. It isn't just some other trick to get what you want, I fully expected these people to be like "nah, you need to phone" but at least we'd have all been on the same page. And as awful as people can be I think that's learned behaviour and at our core we naturally want to help each other.

The other, more massive, more brilliant thing that happened this week is about Tank's face. Last week we noticed a lump on his cheek, under his ear and we took him to the vet and she said it might be an ear infection so he had some antibiotics and to come back in a week for a check up. After a week the lump was still there. It had changed, I think there was an ear infection but also there's a lump. So we took him in for a check up and it didn't look good. We were told about biopsies and surgery and how it's dangerous and a bad location for nerves and rats have a high risk under anaesthetic and we came home feeling pretty shit and upset. We talked over all the options and decided to have the biopsy, at least we could try and find out what it was.

We took Tank into the vet at 8.30am the next day and left him there to have the procedure, we've never come home without one of the rats before and it was horrible. We were expecting him to have to be put to sleep to have the biopsy done, a needle into the lump to take a sample, and we'd be phoned about lunchtime when he was ready to come home. Lunchtime came and pretty much went and early afternoon we got a phone call.

He was fine! He was a really good boy and hadn't needed the general anaesthetic, he just sat there being a good boy AND the lump wasn't a tumour at all, it's just a cyst! The relief was incredible. There's no tumour, he's just a beautiful gross cyst face boy! We had to wait another three hours before we could go and pick him up (which was torturous) just because the nurse had to discharge him to us and they were out on calls and we went in and got him and it was amazing and the best feeling and I just feel so lucky. He doesn't even need a check up, we just will keep an eye on it. He didn't need the general anaesthetic and it's just a cyst!

Having to deal with Tank was really difficult and having these phone call requests coming in at the same time was really stressful but being able to stop and think "maybe I can just ask them about it" rather than panicking and feeling all "woe is me" turned it all around and made it go much smoother and I'm really grateful. I'm grateful to myself for trying, to the people for not making me phone them and mostly for Tank's beautiful, gross face being gross not deadly ^-^

Baba Yaga's Cat

Someone asked Will for a tattoo design of their cat with a chicken leg. I'm not sure how long it was before I realised they meant their cat and a chicken leg rather than a chicken legged cat like Baba Yaga's Hut but it stuck and I had to draw it.

I put it up on redbubble if you'd like Baba Yaga's Cat on a shirt or phone case or whatever ^-^

Skulls and Flowers ~ Painting Clothes

I love to paint my clothes ^-^
I feel really good wearing them and the process of painting them acts as a kind of relaxing, self care type of activity. I love it, it makes me feel good.

I don't buy a lot of clothes but I needed something for bike riding, I don't have many pairs of trousers and most of them are loose and would get covered in chain grease and my main bike trousers have started to get the old chub rub, bike seat, crotch holes so I went round the charity shops and got lucky with these pink jeggings for £3.50. To be honest over £3 felt a bit steep for something that had visible (and kinda smelly) dirt on but I knew I'd be able to wash them and they'd be fine. Seriously though, wash clothes before you donate them, be decent.

Before I started I did some quick doodles to warm up/clarify my ideas. Even though it's a simple design I get anxious so easily it's better to do a little prep work so I don't freak out when I come to actually painting the fabric.
I made a video showing how I do it. It's not complicated, I just like making videos too :)

Social Media Breaks

I've been avoiding social media. I find it really good for me every now and then to just take a step back and let my brain breathe a bit. Most of the time I love looking at everyone's stuff. The internet is amazing. I'm so nosy, I love to see people's lives and I love art so much, it's amazing to be able to follow so many amazing artists and most of the time it's great.

Sometimes I'll realise I'm not actually looking at what I'm scrolling past which then feels like a waste and sometimes seeing all these amazing things makes me feel bad about myself. Seeing people with things I don't have makes me feel poor and unsuccessful. Seeing cool drawings makes me feel uninspired and incapable of good ideas. When I realise that is happening I take a break. I don't set a time on it, I just stop opening the app until I feel ready to again. I've taken complete breaks and I've done, like this time, breaks from looking but I'll still try and post. (and then I wonder if that's hypocritical of me, why should people use the app to see me if I'm not using the app to see others?) I've consciously done it a few times now and it always helps. I spend the time looking at other things and I spend more time with myself mentally and I start to feel more creative again. I don't think social media is the cause of my problem but I've noticed it can sometimes make it worse so I just stop for a bit, get some air.

I've started looking at twitter again so I'm sure I'll be back in instagram soon too, and I'll try to be more intentional in how I use it so that maybe, eventually, I'll be able to use them in a way that doesn't contribute to me feeling bad about myself because I really do love seeing everyone's posts but obviously when it starts having a negative impact on me it's a good idea to stop until it will be positive again.