Zzz...

Yes, my title is a snore. That is the approximate energy level I am operating on today... Maybe I'm getting sick? I'm also kinda bummed out that this time last year (even though I'm pretty sure I was near death) I was packing it up to go to the Rocky Mountains... This year I plan on sleeping. Such is my life :P

So, I just posted yesterday. What the heck could I have done since then?? Anything super interesting? Did I just post to complain about how tired I am? No and no:P I didn't do anything amazing last night. I mean, I planned out some merchandise stuff for MAHTA, and some of the things that I'd like to cover in the next newsletter (to be decided tomorrow night, another meeting... Ugh...). No, that's not really what I think is interesting right now.

This morning, after checking my email box, facebook, etc., I decided to check my spam box. There I found an email from Tara Swiger (I had signed up for her newsletter a while ago and had forgotten about it), with a little gem in it. Craft Sale's for Introverts. It's like it was meant for me!

Back story, I am a ridiculously introverted person, and being around people for any amount of time completely drains my energy. I'm also incredibly outgoing (or try to be), but I get no energy whatsoever from being around people, and I HATE reasoning things out out loud. HATE it. I'd rather talk to people through email or text message than actually call them or seek them out. This has been problematic in the past, but I've kind of come to accept it as just me.

Apparently there are other people out there who are introverts who are trying to somewhat do the same thing as me. Who knew!! In her podcast she has multiple tips for introverts stuck in an extrovert world of business. HALLELUJAH!! I was so drawn in to what she was saying I even took notes on it for this summer.

It's not easy being an introvert in an extroverts world.

PS. This was supposed to be published on the 19th, but apparently I hit save instead of publish:P OOPS!!!!

Thrifty Business

Hi all!! Happy Friday the 13th!!!

Finally the weekend... It's been another rough week for me, my Grannie's funeral was a couple of days ago, so I've pretty much been a total basketcase since then. But the show must go on, and she wouldn't have wanted me to be miserable.

So, what have I been up to? Surprisingly, LOTS!! I haven't drawn or painted anything for a little while, but I'll probably get on that this weekend, as I have my very first art critique on Monday!!! AHHH!!!

A little backround on me. I didn't take any art classes in school. I've only had 2 official art classes, and those were in acrylic painting a few years ago. The only people who really look at my art are usually family, or random people on the internet who I not only don't know. No one who really knows who their talking about has ever looked at my art (or at least not that I know of), so this is a TOTALLY new thing for me! I'm terrified, but also super excited... Raise Your Hand Say Yes right?

So how did this critique come about? Well, a couple months ago I signed up for a group called MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women's Art). They have a mentorship program (the one that I missed the application deadline for:(), and they also have workshops, etc. Well I signed up for their email updates, and their monthly Crit Club popped up. It intrigued me, and when I looked into it further I thought "What the hell, why not!!" and signed up. Then it hit me. What had I done?!? I've never been critiqued!! My art has always been pretty private, and it's only been VERY recent that I've actually opened up my sketchbook and showed the world. This is truly terrifying!!

But I have to do it!! I'm huge on facing your fears head on, and when my imposter complex kicks in, just saying "Yeah, you know what, this is scary, but guaranteed it won't be as bad as you're making it out to be." Pretty sure nothing could be that bad; I have an incredibly vivid imagination. It's both my trump card and Achilles heal:P This is super important to me though!! I've just gotten confirmation that I will, in fact, be having a booth at a Farmer's Market this summer, and since I plan on selling my art I should probably start showing the world a lil bit more... Still terrifying though!!

AAAHHH!!!! Speaking of terrifying, I also went to a couple thrift stores for the first time in my life last night. Pretty sure I was expecting dumpy gross-ness, but that was NOT what I got!! Once I learn what will look good on my body, and what is actually my style, I for sure will not be going retail. WWWAYYY to expensive. Like WWWWAAAAAYYYYY!!!!! I found a bunch of stuff with tags still on that were original $50 marked down to like $10!!! WHOAH!!!!! AAAHHHH!!!!

Come on Style School and Art Critique!!! Needless to say, next week is going to be terrifyingly awesome:) I'll probably be writing a lot about it next week.

Ciao for now!!

Stack of clothes I donated... They don't fit!!

Same pile, different chair:P

My tree art... I may have already posted this... Not too sure:P

Newsletter Hell

So... I have officially forgotten how much work newsletters are... I've put in about 6 hours this weekend and I'm still not done... Ugh...

 

This reminds me that, while I absolutely love to write, editing it into a newsletter format is NOT my favourite thing to do. Ugh... Trying to get a hold of people for things is also super not overly fun...

 

HOWEVER!! The weekend was not a total hair-pulling newsletter fiasco, I also finally got off my ass and painted!!! Yay!!! This does require a little back story though!

 

So, last Friday it was pouring rain... My bus stop is about a 10 minute walk from work, down a sidewalk that is RIGHT beside a very battered road (I'm doing a photo-series on this, stay tuned), so there's puddles EVERYWHERE. Now, most motorists where I live either can't drive well, or are complete jerks, so, not only was I battling puddles on the sidewalk, drivers were constantly splashing me. I was also only wearing a hoodie and my runners (my rubber boots cut off the circulation to my legs, and it wasn't raining when I left home in the morning half asleep). The only thing I really had going for me was the fact that I had an umbrella. But, if any of you live on the bald prairies in the spring, it was windy as sin so my umbrella kept blowing inside out; not much help.

 

At this point, understandably I think, I was soaked and incredibly cranky. Oh! It was also pretty much the only day last week that I didn't drive to work, and it was the only day last week that we had a torrential downpour. So, completely soaked and incredibly cranky, my mind turned to what I had to get done this weekend. I had been wanting to paint for WEEKS (as mentioned in previous posts), and since water was currently the bane of my existence, I decided I was going to paint a puddle with watercolour. I have never used watercolour as an adult. When I was super young we had little watercolour kits we would mess around with, but that was probably 20 years ago...

 

Raise Your Hand Say Yes right? So for accountability purposes, I put it up on Facebook for all my family and friends to see. Not too sure about the rest of the world, but this is super scary for me. I don't normally let people know when I'm doing creative things. Up on Facebook it went, my sweeping declaration that I was going to paint a puddle with watercolour paints. BAM!!

 

Well, true to form I put it off, and put it off, and put it off some more. Even though it was something a really wanted to try. Finally, after looking at my art kit thing (got it at Micheals a couple years ago, first time I've actually used it:P) for a couple hours, I found my multimedia sketchbook, got a lil glass of water, and went to town. What did I find out? I LOVE watercolour!! It's super fun and easy to mix colours right on the page. My technique leaves much to be desired, and if I didn't point out the fact that it's a puddle I think most people would have thought that it was a blue blob surrounded by brown with some blue lines on it (it was still raining when I was painting, so more rain seemed apt), but it's still something I'm super duper proud of. For my first try, I had fun!!

 

Now, because I very seldom do things halfway, not only did I tell the people of Facebook that I was going to do this, I actually POSTED IT on facebook (and instagram, but I do that with all my doodles and trials so I'm used to that). The reaction? Quite a few likes and some real support. What did I think was going to happen? The absolute worse thing possibly imaginable, because that's just how I roll. Hi there Inner Critic! How are you doing? Guess what? I just totes outsmarted you, and I plan to do it again in the future!

 

So, maybe doing something absolutely terrifying and new isn't such a bad thing. I now truly believe that everyone should do it:)

 

Peace out Monday!!!

Am I Really an Artist?

The other day, while purchasing this awesome sketch book, the cashier asked me a seemingly simple question.
 

"So, who's the artist?" I had also picked up a couple canvases (yay for sales:D), so I guess it was a fair question. How did I respond? I was completely dumbfounded.

I somehow managed to stutter through a "Me I guess." When she followed up with "What kind of painting do you do?" I had no idea how to respond. I think I just said that I was experimenting with acrylic paint. I think, but I was so shocked that someone would actually refer to me as an artist I can't really remember...
 

Why does this bother me so much? I make art (see my instagram), so wouldn't that make me an artist? I also write, so shouldn't that make me a writer?
 

This lead to a binge of the Raise Your Hand Say Yes podcast to pump up my confidence. The one in particular that I absolutely love to listen to (I may or may not have re-listened on more then one occasion) is episode 9 with Michelle Ward called Changing Dreams. The part I enjoy most is when they are talking about labels. I mean, if we want to be technical, when someone asks me what I do for a living I say "I'm a claims adjuster"... But that's not really who I am outside work (and even inside work :P). The cashier probably had it closer to the truth then my actual job title does.

Is anyone else like this? Pretty sure I'm not the only one:)

Monday Blues...

So, I have had an interesting and eventful weekend... I managed to get Friday off for "studying." Then, I got my reply from the scholarship I had applied for to go to a meditation retreat in Seattle in a couple weeks... No dice, and after looking into prices found that it's a little too much money to spoon out right now... So needless to say I spent most of my weekend in a bit of a funk amd as a result didn't really do too much crafty stuff.

However! I managed to drag my mopey ass over to Chapters and Micheals and got 2 new journals and a sketch pad. That helped considerably😜 I still haven't written in them, but it'll come😜

I'm also continuing on with my looming experiments, which are going REALLY well! When I was at Micheals I was also browsing through the yarn, but my will power held out and I didn't buy anything! Yay! There's lots of different thicknesses and textures that I can't wait to try out on my loom. And, of course, the bright colours. So many bright colours! I may have drooled a lil bit!

I also have plans for the sketchbook (other than the obvious sketching). I'm planning on trying to make an adult coulouring book (or kid if I can't make it intricate enough), and do a trial run with it at farmers markets this summer and see if anyone buys it😊 Pretty excited about that actually! Just have to get started now! Probably on lunch tomorrow (felt sick as death today). The bus ride blogging is also not really helping😜

I digress! The journals I have no plans for, but to add to my intricate collection of journals and maybe try art journalling... I should probably try to do some actual journaling too... Hmm...

I also REALLY want to start painting with my acrylics. Previously I took a couple classes on actual lifelike landscapes, but I think I kinda want to try abstract? Maybe? Look out for it on Instagram! @renaissance_renegade

Although I'm pretty bummed about not getting to go to Seattle, things are actually looking up for me😊 My next entry I'm going to be touching on being called an artist for the first time!! ...I'm mostly writing it down here so I don't forget...

Until tomorrow!!! ...probably...