And I know what happened, really. I started thinking too much about the product, and I lost the process. But I don't know how to untangle this knot, that the product has become the motivation, but the product is never satisfying. Every idea I come up with to re-charge myself is oriented around how to get a better product, so it inevitably fails ( Read more... )

I remember when I was a kid and drawing was just a thing I did like breathing. Like moving. I didn't need to think about it, I didn't need to want to do it, it just was.

It used to be... part of how I processed things, how I thought about them. Drawing was like thinking with my hands. And drawing people was fascinating, intimate. I remember ( Read more... )

Actually, I should start drawing self portraits. Those are easy, and might be good practice, because--this is awesome:

A lady at church who works for the YWCA seemed the think there might be interest in me making portraits that they could sell. A socially valuable use for art, I had despaired of ever finding such a thing in real life. She also ( Read more... )

I need to just stop looking at the graphic design related job postings. They always want experience with a long list of programs I've never used or sometimes even heard of, and it's so much more depressing than the many various other jobs I'm not qualified for. Stop it, self, stop twisting the knife.

Ugh. Job searching continues to be bleak and humiliating. I want to hunt down every person who's ever said "having a degree in anything will help you get a better job" and tattoo "LIAR" across their foreheads.

My mom suggested that I make a painting for my dad this year, because he's generally impossible to buy for but also apparently actually really into my art in a way I had not realized. Which is flattering and also seemed like a nice, easy solution. That $30,000 degree may not have gotten me a decent job, but I guess it wasn't a total bust if it ( Read more... )