I’m just too amused by this sketchbook page to not share it.
It took me so long to finish that she had already turned 10 months by the time I finished! It’s hard to make time for big projects like this when you’re a full-time stay-at-home mom, but it was very much worth it in my eyes. I even kept it as simple as possible, but I simply couldn’t find the time to work on it most days! It got done eventually though, as you can see.
You can’t tell just from the photo, but this is a VERY large sketchbook. I’m not sure of the dimensions, but it’s over 12″ wide. That contributed to how long it took to finish, each small illustration would have taken up most of the page in one of my travel sketchbooks!
Luckily though, starting today, I am only a part-time stay-at-home mom! Due to our situation we qualified for free daycare, so we now get 6 hours of free time every week day. She loved it too, no surprise there since she is such a social butterfly. She even napped TWICE, and she hates napping for us! I can’t wait to have so much more time to devote to my creative hobbies!
That’s all for now, I hope Monday was kind to you all, and I’ll see you in the next post!
Last night marked the completion of the 9th sketchbook I’ve ever filled from cover to cover! So as promised, here are some of my favorite pages from said sketchbook. (Some of my favorites from this sketchbook have already been featured in my post about dangle art!)
Although this sketchbook was started in 2019, I actually filled about 60% of it in the last month. I’m excited to be starting a brand-new travel sketchbook, and I’m wondering how long it will take to fill up since I won’t be abandoning it this time! I think I will take it at a leisurely pace though, since I’m working on finishing a massive sketchbook that I can only draw in at home!
I’ve been wanting to make more Google Drive folders for my sketchbooks like I’ve done for the first two I completed, but I’ve not made the time to do so. I decided to just bite the bullet and do that for at least this one I just finished! I of course wish the photos were better but something is better than nothing in this case, and there were nearly 100 pages to photograph! Some pages have been slightly altered and one withheld entirely for the sake of privacy.
I’m a sucker for all methods of doodling and pattern drawing, which is why mandala is such a recurring theme for me. Dangles are right up my artistic alley. So after copying down many patterns in the book for reference, and of course practice, I decided to create my own original artworks using the dangle method:
In the future I would love to create real, tangible, 3D dangles! My partner pointed out to me that wind chimes are in fact dangles and that just made me all the more excited about the idea!
I actually have another post set to come out as early as later today, so I will see you all again very soon. Have a wonderful day!
If you’ve read the post about my new sketchbook system you may recall me mentioning one of my “travel” category sketchbooks being bigger than I’d like. Recently I came to realize that it’s too big to fit in my cargo pants or fanny pack! I had two options: move that sketchbook to the “medium to large white paper” category, or let it go. Using a bigger bag wasn’t an option for me, due to my disabilities I need to carry as little weight as possible, and I have a tendency to fill all the space in any bag I use!
A few weeks ago I met my friend’s 4 year old daughter and we had a blast drawing together, and since I’d learned she didn’t have a sketchbook of her own, yesterday I decided to ask her mom if it was okay to give that sketchbook to her. They were both thrilled by the present!
With that taken care of, I was left without any excess travel sketchbooks in the overflow cabinet! My No Buy rules allow for replacements and refills as necessary, so I was allowed to buy one. I knew I wanted one of the exact size I’ve been using since it fits perfectly in both my cargo pants and my fanny pack, but isn’t ridiculously small either!
In order to not torture or tempt myself I actually sent my partner into the craft store for me! With her help we picked out a recycled paper sketchbook by Artist Loft. (Not sponsored!!) They were out of the exact sketchbook I had been using, but this one has the same page count, weight, is the same width and is only .5″ longer. I am excited about trying recycled paper- I think the little speckles in the pages might help me fight against the fear of the blank page!
(Image from the Michael’s website)
Well that’s all for now. I’ll make a sketchbook highlights post when I finish up this current travel sketchbook, which will be soon! I’ll see you then, take care in the meantime!
Content warning: self-injury; mentions of child abuse and substance use.
To commemorate the occasion, I made myself a little laminated keytag, which is being displayed on my fanny pack.
I’ve battled many addictions, from shopping and hoarding to drugs and alcohol, all just different symptoms of the same disorder. But the first and hardest addiction to quit has been self-injury.
When I was 12 I started cutting myself. Even before that though, I don’t even remember when exactly it started, I began hitting myself. Because my father beat me, I learned to beat myself when I was angry. Now it’s been a few years since I last cut myself, but it’s only been 90 days since the last time I hit myself.
I am truly amazed that I was able to get this far. I am being completely honest when I say this has been more difficult than kicking drugs. My fists are always attached to my body, I have to go out and buy drugs to use them.
Unfortunately I could relapse at a moment’s notice, but I won’t dwell on that fact. If I relapse I will pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep going. Just because my clean time counter resets doesn’t mean all that work suddenly just disappears, these 90 days will ALWAYS count for something. Nothing will ever take away the fact that for these last 3 months I have not cut, hit, scratched, or bit myself.
I truly believe that if I could do this, you can break any bad habit too. Sometimes it’s a matter of gritting your teeth and sitting on your hands, but it’s well worth the effort.
Thank you for reading, please be kind to yourself, and I’ll see you in the next post!
You can use these mandalas to frame a drawing or a photograph, or just color them and leave them as-is! Use them however you want really, it’s up to you 🙂 I’d love to see your work if you ever do use them for anything!
These were inspired by my mom, who decorated clear photo holders to have fun frames, in which she displays photos of her granddaughter! I would love to paint real frames in the future, perhaps after my No Buy is over!
Thanks for stopping by, stay safe and healthy! I’ll see you in the next post 😀
(If you take a sip of water every time I use the word “sketchbook” in this post, you should be quite hydrated by the time you’re done reading!)
Like many artists, I have suffered from constantly craving a shiny new sketchbook. I would often buy a new one before finishing the one I was working in, leaving the old one to collect dust. This is why one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2022 was to finish filling 3 of those partially-filled sketchbooks, and at the beginning of July I was able to achieve that goal!Yesterday I went above and beyond, completing a fourth!
Through my Art Supply No Buy I have come to accept that I am not a “sketchbook monogamist” and that variety of materials is important to me. Tidiness and a minimalistic lifestyle are also important to me though, so I have come up with a system: I may have 4 sketchbooks active at any one time, but they each have their own use. These four categories of sketchbook are as follows:
One medium to large, white paper, dry or mixed media sketchbook.
One medium to large, black paper, mixed media sketchbook.
One watercolor paper sketchbook, of any size or color.
One pocket size sketchbook, of any media or color.
These categories allow me to have just enough variety for all the mediums and sizes I want to work with, while also giving me a hard limit on sketchbooks to prevent over-purchasing. When I run out of sketchbooks in one category at that point I may purchase one new one for the same category. So for example: if I fill up my black paper sketchbook I may buy a new black paper sketchbook, but not a new sketchbook of any other category… No matter how tempting the options may be!
My No Buy rules allow for replacements and refills when necessary. Because of this, depending on just how much I create this year, I could possibly find myself purchasing a new sketchbook before the year is over. Black paper is the category I am most likely to actually go all the way through, because I only have one small pad of black paper in surplus besides the sketchbook I am currently working in. We will just have to see what happens, but that could be quite exciting!
I decided to take an inventory of all the sketchbooks I have left that are waiting to be filled:
2 in the medium to large white paper category, the larger one is about half-full and the other is completely empty.
2 in the black mixed media category, one is about half-full and the other is a pad of removable paper I have only used one sheet from.
2 in the travel size category, although they are a bit bigger than I’d prefer. In the future sketchbooks of this size will be in the medium to large category, I just don’t want to buy anything right now so they will stay put. The smaller one is about half-full, the other is completely empty.
1 in the watercolor category, with a few pages full. You would think I might find myself needing another before the end of the year, but with a crazy almost-9-month-old it is hard to find time to watercolor.
Between filling up 4 sketchbooks and donating a few others, I have dropped my surplus numbers into the single digits! This is very exciting for me. I now see a number of sketchbooks I could imagine myself filling in the next 12 months, maybe even less, especially if I keep drawing as often as I have been lately.
I have to attribute a lot of this success to my change in lifestyle choices. I have not been playing video games for 42 days now, and over the last several years I have been working on cutting down on my internet consumption and overall screen time. Forcing oneself to allow for a healthy dose of boredom works wonders for increasing creativity and productivity, at least in my personal experience! Now I find drawing to be fun, a time for play and exploration, when previously it mostly felt like work and a chore compared to the instant gratification of the digital world.
Obviously technology still serves me, as I am currently writing this blog post on my smart phone. It has just become more of a tool than an entertainment device! I am currently very satisfied with my relationship to my tech and my art. It’s such a pleasure to be able to deliver such news!
It’s nice to get another post out again so soon, last night’s achievement has given me some momentum! My next post may take a while longer, but I will see you all there when it’s done. Stay safe and healthy!
Stickers courtesy of The Dollar Tree. I would love to credit the original artist but unfortunately they don’t so I have no idea who painted these lovely cacti!
These images are just a small sample of my favorite pages from this sketchbook.
The comic strips are collaborations with my partner, Jasper Rae. She did half the panels and I did the other half! It was a drawing game we came up with, one person draws a panel of a comic and then the other draws the next but with no communication or context other than the panel itself! It is based on other drawing games we’ve played and probably already existed in this same form before we thought of it, but nonetheless it is loads of fun and I highly recommend it!
I started this sketchbook all the way back in November of 2019, right after filling up the first sketchbook I ever filled from cover to cover! Most of it was actually filled in the last few months though, as part of my Art Supply No Buy side project of trying to finish up as many of my partially filled sketchbooks as possible. I “restarted” this sketchbook back in March, so it took only 4 months to fill the remaining 2/3 of the sketchbook!
While I won’t put a ton of pressure on myself to do so, I think it would be amazing if I actually managed to fill all of my semi-filled sketchbooks before the end of this year. I do own some blank ones still, so I won’t count those, but to just finally use the rest of all the ones I abandoned would be excellent. I hope to never abandon sketchbooks in such a way in the future, I plan on making much better purchasing decisions from now on!
I’ve got a couple things cooking in my drafts. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted (relatively, given how I used to go months between posts) I’ve just been rather busy lately! Thankfully it’s not because of procrastinating anymore, I’ve come to really enjoy writing and I look forward to making these posts.
I sincerely hope you are all doing well. Thanks again for all the support! See you in the next post, whenever that may be!
(My tiny travel sketchbook started falling apart! A whole clump of pages fell out, which was very disappointing. So I decided to fill up the remaining 16 sheets as quickly as possible, which took 2 days. I had 3 more exactly like it, but unfortunately I will be donating them since they do not suit my needs. I hope they will serve their new owners well, they are very cute but they just aren’t durable enough for me.)
Included in my list of intentions for 2022 was a goal to finish up 3 of my partially filled sketchbooks, and near midnight of June 30th 2022 I accomplished exactly that!
My partner actually made it possible to finish before July, because she took on the job of filling the last 4 pages in my tiny travel sketchbook, much to my relief! I had been worried an hour and a half left in the day wouldn’t be enough time, as I am a chronic over-thinker! I set the deadline of midnight for myself because I heard it helps to set deadlines, especially if you’re prone to procrastinating. She really saved the day, I was feeling exhausted from the long day we had, and I’d already filled so many pages in such a short time!
My sketchbooks aren’t only for me, I love to invite others to draw in them and leave their mark. I cherish the drawings provided by others, they are the most special to me, far more important to me than anything I draw. I’m aware many artists may find me crazy for this, as for them their sketchbook is a sacred place for only them. I’m just not like that though, I enjoy art-making so much more when it’s with friends. My sketchbooks are like journals for me, which is why I also write in them and paste things in, they are books filled with memories. In my eyes, the doodle of a friend is a treasure.
I am so relieved to have, with plenty of help from my lovely partner, succeeded at finishing up 3 sketchbooks in a year. While it’s not quite as impressive as filling 3 brand-new sketchbooks from front to back in a year, I couldn’t be happier to have less clutter in my art cabinet! In the future I need to be diligent about not buying new sketchbooks if I don’t have a genuine need for one. I could write a whole post about my sketchbook categories and how I plan to handle purchasing new sketchbooks in the future, and I probably will honestly.
I would love to finish up even more sketchbooks this year, but either way this marks 7 sketchbooks filled, I am very satisfied with my progress! It took me twenty-something years to finally fill even just one, when I was younger I never would have imagined I’d actually fill seven entire books filled with intimidating blank paper.
That’s it for now, just wanted to share the celebration with you all! Have a wonderful day and I will see you in the next post!
I made this piece in February of 2009, when I was in the 7th grade and questioning my sexuality for the first time. By the time I created this I knew for certain I liked girls, but couldn’t decide if I also liked boys. That struggle continues to this day.
In a previous post I had labeled myself as pansexual, but that was a very recent decision. I had concluded I would probably love and stay with my partner regardless of how she identifies, therefore being attracted to her regardless of gender. However, today I decided to change the wording of that post and revert back to the Nonbinary Lesbian lable I have been so comfortable with for the past 5+ years.
Although it may sound contradictory to someone unfamiliar with the terms, yes I do identify as both Nonbinary and a Lesbian. This is because our language lacks words that would better describe how I feel. Sex, as in one’s body parts and chromosomes, is not a factor in who I am attracted to. Gender on the other hand, a personal identity and social performance, does for some reason. I am attracted to people that, for lack of better words, have “feminine energy”. This isn’t to say I am not attracted to masculine women though, and I’m not sure how to explain better what I mean by it.
I am also “woman-aligned”. My relationship to gender is so tumultuous I can no longer return to the label and identity of “cisgender woman”, but when forced to “pick a side” between man and woman I always choose woman. This unfortunately happens quite often, an example is when filling out forms that only have two options for gender and there is no way to write anything else. When I can discuss my gender more at length as I am doing here, I am able to convey that I reject the binary and don’t want to be forced into a box. I also continue to struggle with gender dysphoria that once had me identifying as a trans man for a few years, but I no longer feel comfortable identifying as and behaving as a man.
I’m not only attracted to women, but also to fellow nonbinary people. If more people understood that “bisexual” doesn’t just mean “attracted to both binary genders” but often means “two or more genders” perhaps I would use that instead. Unfortunately in our current world many people do not know that, and therefore lesbian is the best word I have to convey my sexuality in simple terms.
If you would like to read more on the topic of nonbinary lesbianism, I found an article that I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to understand the lable better. I am aware that it can be very confusing to people both in and outside of the LGBT+ community, but I urge you to approach the subject with sympathy and compassion, we are all just people trying to navigate this very complicated world.
At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter what my sexuality is, because as I’ve said before I am happily partnered (hopefully for life) to my favorite (also nonbinary!) lady in the entire world. I continue to question the labels I use for the sake of understanding myself better, as well as being understood better by others, not because I need other women to know I might find them attractive. Anyway, at this point in my life I think I would choose solitude over another relationship if the one I am in happens to end for any reason.
My relationship to sexuality and gender has always influenced my creations, as all other aspects of my identity and life experience do. So today I publish this very old artwork on this blog to pay homage to the very long journey I’ve had questioning my labels, and to thank my younger self for making this piece that I still resonate with so deeply.
Thank you for reading this and for keeping any unkind thoughts to yourself (wink!), I hope you have a wonderful day and I will see you in the next post!
Ari October Art 