I bought a brand-new watercolor sketchbook (a Strathmore visual journal) a week or two ago, but I hadn’t gotten it “dirty” until today. I did some swatching and testing in the back of it, but until I actually create art in a new sketchbook I don’t consider it to have been started.
It’s been a long time since I’ve really tried to paint something that looks like anything, so I decided to take it easy and start with something simple. I recently watched some YouTube watercolor videos for inspiration, and decided to take the abstract florals route. I ended up painting the pink flowers in a patterned spacing by accident so I went with it.
Had a lot of fun making this piece. My partner is impressed by it too, and her reaction made me very happy.
Just a simple floral doodle pattern!Detail shot to show the shimmery-ness! I just can’t resist adding a bit of sparkle.
I’ve never actually drawn a comic before, as far as I can remember at least.
I’ve been trying to replace my phone habit with books. It’s difficult, even though I’ve gone out of my way to make my phone as boring as possible. It’s almost entirely utilitarian apps! The main problem is that taking off the web browser off is 1) impossible actually 2) not a good idea anyway because sometimes I rely on it when out and about for certain things. I have this problem with compulsive googling and then reading way too much internet, most of which is just a bunch of people’s personal opinions and not actually informative. Even after leaving the vast majority of social media I still find myself getting locked into scroll loops on my damn phone. When will I learn!?! When will I break the habit!?! I only use two hobby-specific forums, WordPress, and YouTube nowadays. I only use them on the computer, too. Despite this I still find a way to get distracted by that darned little screen. I miss the days of dumb phones.
A wise person on twitter once said:
Literally my favorite tweet ever. Really encapsulates all my issues with the internet and TV.
I drew this the week after we found out I was carrying our rainbow baby, as you can see I wasn’t feeling very optimistic. [Glitter markers and black Posca on rough sketchbook paper]
So, I’m pregnant again. I updated my “about” page a while back to reflect this, but unless you’re new here you probably haven’t seen that.
They say it’ll happen when you stop trying. For us that really was the case, I conceived the same month that I completely and utterly gave up. It’s really annoying it worked out that way though because that is the most condescending and insensitive advice you can give to anyone trying to conceive.
Due to how traumatized I am from my first pregnancy ending in miscarriage, I have spent most of this one convinced that something will go terribly wrong. It doesn’t help that I already have a severe anxiety disorder, I worry about everything all the time no matter what!
So far though, everything is going suspiciously smoothly. We have seen our dear “Birdie” (their nickname until they are born) twice now, and both times they were in perfect health for their gestational age. We are now in the 14th week and if everything continues to go as planned they will arrive in October.
Of course, now we’ve been exposed to COVID-19, so I have a legitimate reason to worry about the health of our baby. That hasn’t been fun at all, I had an extreme panic attack the day we found out, and now I’m worried I hurt Birdie from panicking so hard! Hopefully nothing terrible will happen, most pregnant women who get COVID end up fine and have healthy babies. I just can’t forget the stories of loss, those lost mothers and children matter so much to me. I wish this pandemic never happened.
The longer this pregnancy progresses, the more I get my hopes up. It’s impossible for me to regain the naivety I’ve lost though, I’ve read plenty of horror stories about late miscarriages, stillbirth, and neonatal death to know that you’re never truly out of the woods. Life is just crazy like that. If it’s alive, it can die. It’s not fair and we don’t have to like it, but life in general isn’t fair and shit just happens.
Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer but honestly that’s just who I am. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m extremely excited and grateful for this child. I even dedicated an entire blog to writing letters to them. (Although frankly a lot of those are pretty depressing too. I’m not the kind to lie to my kid and try to shelter them, life is hard so I’m gonna be honest about it! I want them to get to know ME… not a projection of who I wish I was.)
You shouldn’t be all that surprised that this isn’t a unicorns and butterflies kind of post though, it did say “vent art” in the title didn’t it? Haha.
Well anyway, thanks for reading, if you read any or all of that. Any well-wishes, prayers, words of sympathy, etc. are very much welcomed and appreciated! It’s gonna be a looong 6 more months.
An experimental piece I did today, just playing around with color and texture. Not sure what to title this one. [Copic marker on smooth sketchbook paper]
I practically haven’t drawn in months. I did a little bit of vent art earlier on in the year, and then a little bit of doodling here and there on my 3DS, but nothing aside from that.
Now that the weather is nicer, and since my partner and I are under quarantine due to her testing positive for COVID-19, I started thinking about picking up my markers again.
Last year I did a 90 day video game “detox” during the warm months and I used that time to do a lot of drawing while lounging outside in our backyard, so I guess it’s only natural for me to associate this time of year with creating. I like allowing myself to play as many video games as I want during the cold months when I can’t spend as long outside, and then taking extended breaks from them when it warms up again.
I don’t know if I’m ready to undertake another daily drawing challenge just yet. Since she’s had COVID for about a week now and we haven’t had any symptoms yet, I’m worried it’s going to hit like a brick in the next week. Though I haven’t tested positive yet, I know I will absolutely get it because there’s no way for my partner and I to isolate ourselves from each other effectively in our current living arrangements. Getting sick would definitely make me have to postpone any challenge I take up.
If I don’t catch COVID this entire time, that will be the craziest stroke of luck I’ve ever had. Maybe it does help that we got vaccinated, even though it was only days before the COVID exposure. If I test negative again this Friday, we will be able to end our quarantine a few days later on Tuesday. If either of us start having obvious symptoms, or if I do test positive on Friday, we will be restarting the two week countdown from that day. We will be playing things incredibly safe on the 3rd week, whenever that is, only extending our freedom to large outdoor spaces and drive-thrus.
Regardless of all that, I hope to be making more art soon and posting here more often again. Stay tuned!
This cute doodle took about 25 minutes total, just a fun little quickie. Doodled on the white inside of a Banquet dinner box! #Upcycling 🙂Like I always say, if it’s not glittery, why bother!?
I asked my partner’s nephew if he ever draws. Apparently he does! When he’s not playing video games or bored to death with school work. He said we should all draw together, using this prompt generator he downloaded onto his phone. My partner and her nephew both went off something I said, since they were having trouble figuring out what exactly to do with the prompt. I said, “what do you guys do on a lazy Sunday, why don’t you draw a unicorn playing video games or something?” So they both did that. Hilarity ensued! And I of course took a cutesy route, because I am a sucker for cute stuff. Plus, I had already grouped my 3 purple Copic Ciaos together, thinking about doodling a mandala or something, and figured that’d be a perfect pallet for a unicorn 🙂 Certainly not a masterpiece or anything, but this prompt got me drawing something I normally wouldn’t have even considered drawing, and I think the result is quite endearing. I gifted the finished piece to my partner ❤
I made this butterfly mandala coloring page in memory of our daughter, April, who passed away long before she would ever have been born. I invite anyone who is interested in doing so to color it as they see fit, I would love to see your work ❤ Here is a link to the full size image via google drive.
On April 30th 2020 my life turned upside down. Our baby, a gummy-bear-sized embryo measuring 7w4d was found to be dead at the 8 week ultrasound. No heartbeat, a few days behind in growth, irregularly shaped gestational sac. I never dreamt that a cluster of cells would wreck me to the core.
It didn’t hit me right away, part of me expected this. I didn’t begin my descent into sobbing and despair until I was scheduling my follow-up appointment with the secretary that I checked in with an hour prior. I had always said I expected my first pregnancy would miscarry. I heard it was common, and having EDS I assumed I might have fertility issues.
I quickly spiraled into an extremely dark depression. The kind I used to experience through ages 12-21. The kind that left me obsessed with death, chronically suicidal. My emotions were an absolute roller coaster. I have never flip flopped so drastically before. Some days I was filled with hope and determination, only to fall into hell again at a moment’s notice.
I made this butterfly mandala on May 18th, desperate to create something of value out of the tragedy that had occurred. Obviously it did not heal me, it could not save me, but it gave me something to look at and made our child’s existence more tangible.
On May 27th I also made this piece that I typically avoid showing people because it is so much more straightforward than the butterfly:
“Life is messy” glitter gel pen + my fingers as a smudge tool
It’s the closest thing I could create to a portrait of our baby. The embryo is actually pretty much to scale with a real 7 week old embryo on the physical copy. It’s actually pretty cute, I think, as cute as a weird blob can be.
Please remember that all people experience grief differently. Some people do not outwardly grieve miscarriages at all, others react even worse than I did. Most fall somewhere in-between. Grief is also something we don’t just “get over”, it is something we move forward with. Grief is traumatizing, and it is a trauma very few people get to avoid.
However you experience grief, whether you grieve an unborn baby, a child of any age, a sibling, a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend, acquaintance, a beloved pet, a place you cannot return to, even an enemy or a stranger…
Please remember that grief is a bizarre, hard-to-define thing that we all experience differently and you are not weird or wrong for grieving whoever and however you naturally do.
May the memories of those you love that have gone before you bless you always.
On November 27th 2019 I accomplished something a lot of artists my age consider elusive: I finally filled a sketchbook from front to back. I had even went above and beyond, leaving very little white space. It is important to note though that the sketchbook was TINY (3.5”x5.5”) and it took me 2 YEARS to complete! I started it some time in November 2017, so literally TWO YEARS! I filled most of it in the last 6 months or so of that timeline though.
That sketchbook saw me through a lot. There’s a lot of really personal stuff in there, it’s very much a visual journal. I started the sketchbook as an artist that didn’t take art very seriously, didn’t draw with consistent frequency, and had no idea what I wanted to do. I was also still actively using drugs and alcohol. By the end I had begun to take art seriously, was drawing nearly every day, learned how to sketch anything and everything from reference, had just begun to draw mandala art, and I was a little over a year into my sobriety.
My advice to anyone that wants to get into art is “just get started and don’t stop.” That’s what I had to do, I couldn’t have come as far as I have without simply getting off my butt and putting pen to paper.
It doesn’t matter how many “horrible” looking things you pump out, each and every one of those gets you closer to what you want to achieve. Without bad art there would be no good art. That’s what every “famous” artist has done and continues to do. Even if you think every single sketch they made is a precious treasure, they didn’t. That much I can promise. #MAKEBADART
There is still a “wrong” way to practice, if you do the same “wrong” things over and over you won’t be learning much. You gotta push yourself and try new things. Experiment. I suggest coupling hard work with studying the work of the artists that inspire you. This is applicable to ALL styles and mediums, even literally splattering paint on a canvas. There’s always room for improvement, never stop growing! You’ll be amazed when you look back and see how far you’ve come.
(Edit 2026-1-30: I messed up big time and now the original publish date of this post is lost forever. I tried to the best of my ability to estimate the original published date so it will remain in chronological order. WordPress devs… Please make this mistake more difficult to do.)
Ari October Art 