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 little guy is Wisp from the Animal Crossing videogame series. He’s a cutie 🙂 When I saw that prompt I knew I had to draw him. I was a little lenient on the mandala part today, but I still think it fits my theme ❤
Edit: Broken image? I will fix this soon when I have some time
I’m quite rusty after a few weeks of not drawing, but something is better than nothing! He’s based on a butterfish. I think they just look much like the quintessential fish to me.
I’m going to be doing all my inktober sketches in the same small sketchpad I’m bringing with me on my trip to Texas later this month, for consistency, and because the small format is less intimidating given I’m just now getting back into daily drawing.
I will probably continue to do small doodle-y things like this, nothing too fancy because I’d like to complete the monthly challenge for once and if I try to be too detailed every day it’s going to wear me out. Which is exactly what happened last year, lol.
I’m proud of myself for pushing through the very strong feelings of not wanting to draw and making this little guy. He’s cute.
My favourite spread in this one is actually the first one 0: If you’d like to flip through this sketchbook yourself, check out the Google Drive folder!
As the name implies, this sketchbook was originally a planner. I wanted to do something like a bullet journal for the conversion classes I had been attending but I didn’t realize how difficult that is to do without a dotted notebook. I gave up quickly, and the book sat in my shelf for a long time. I realized that paper planners aren’t really for me anyway, I do just fine using my phone’s calendar app.
In October 2019 I started drawing in this sketchbook, but the 1+ page per day challenge wasn’t started until late December 2019(?), most of the sketchbook was filled between January and February 2020. 133 days total, from very start to finish.
But here are the rules I lived by for this particular sketchbook challenge: >I, Ari October, had to fill at least one page per day with a drawing. >Other people could help me fill pages, but those were bonus pages. >The drawings didn’t have to be good, they just had to get done.
So not 100% of the works are mine, my partner also assisted me in my goal to fill this baby up ASAP 🙂 You can tell which are hers because she signs them as Jasper or Jazzy. And quite a few of the pages in this one are just lazy plaid patterns and other very lazy pattern doodles, because it was a good and safe place to experiment with color pallets.
This time I didn’t include 100% of the pages like I did in the last sketchbook folder, because many of them were just journal entries that would not be of interest to anyone but myself. I included pretty much all the doodles though. There’s a page where I left the journal entry visible because of the placement of the mandala doodle, but you can easily just not read it. I don’t mind either way.
I had a lot of fun filling this guy up. Not so much fun taking pictures of every page though, my legs went numb @__@ Had to make use of that morning light though! It’s the only way for me to take decent enough pictures of my art without extensive editing of each image.
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 ❤
A birthday present for my best friend that I procrastinated coloring for TWO years O_OHe stands at about 18” tall.
On my birthday this year, I spent a good chunk of it finally coloring the birthday present I had started for my best friend an entire 2 years earlier. Said friend’s birthday is now a little over a month away, which reminded me I’d like to post this here.
I was so incredibly relieved to finally have this done, but in the end I’m think I’m glad I finished when I did because my coloring skills had greatly improved in the 2 years since I did the line art! So super happy with the final product, he looks so cute!
The character is Punchy from Animal Crossing, the theme was “Fight Club Punchy”, because that’s what they asked for 🙂 I do like that movie a lot, a little too painful for me to watch nowadays though. I’m a lot more sensitive to violence than I used to be, and I have always been sensitive.
I encourage anyone reading to consider the projects they’ve been procrastinating, perhaps it’s time to decide to finish or ‘frog it’ 🙂
Unfortunately I ended up giving up in the first week, but I’m still really happy with the illustrations that came of it. I’m really excited to give it another go this year, probably trying to theme mandalas around the prompts! I haven’t done a themed mandala in a while because they’re more effort, but they are so much more interesting. Whatever I decide to do, I do plan on at least participating to the best of my ability. Wouldn’t be right if I didn’t, being an artist under the name October and all 😉
Ari October Art 