[ creativity is human nature ]
This was just a scratchy practice sketch with mechanical pencil, but somehow I managed to push forward long enough that I actually like the result!
Obviously it’s not perfect and there’s still a lot I can improve upon, but I think I still managed to capture her likeness well enough and it’s overall just a super cute drawing 🙂
Content warning: miscarriage & suicidal ideation
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:
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.
We recently acquired some Copic markers and a Posca paint pen, I really love the Copics and have been using them a lot! But the Posca marker has a lot of novelty factor for me because it’s a more unfamiliar art supply. I’ve used alcohol markers before, but never acrylic paint markers. I love how you can draw and write on just about anything! I’ve been drawing hearts and faces on random inanimate objects around the house, and even labeled my ceramic coffee jars with it.
I will probably post a big “art dump” (or several separate smaller art dumps?) of what I’ve been doing in my sketchbook pretty soon, once I get some quality time with the computer. My partner has been playing a lot of Roblox with “the boys” (her three nephews) and the WordPress App leaves a lot to be desired so I don’t bother using it.
Not going to lie, when my cat Rain Rain suddenly ran across the art desk and got paint water all over my multimedia sketchbook my immediate reaction was to cry and curse god. So after saying a few regrettable things and getting snapped at by my partner for doing so, I went to take a shower to get away from everything.
While drowning my sorrows in soothing hot water, I remembered the story I heard about a woman who let her daughter draw in her sketchbook and called it a collaboration rather than a mess.
I also remembered how Rain Rain’s birth mother, Sula, used to bring me moss from the roof. It irritated me to no end! It was so gross!
But eventually I realized that one day Sula would leave me too soon as they all do, and that I should cherish these gifts she is bringing me out of love.
Now because of that realization I still have a ziplock bag of the roof moss in my closet, despite my practicing minimalism it’s something I chose to hold on to for now. (Sula ran away when the kittens were 3 months old. It’s been 2 years now and I still think about her every day…)
Remembering my vow to tolerate mistakes, and out of love for my cat-daughter, I decided I would take Rain Rain’s idea and run with it. I would turn something painful into a sentimental memory… once I dried off the sketchbook of course 😉
Miraculously this was the only painting that was damaged in the whole sketchbook, the one I had just finished that day. I thought to myself “maybe this doesn’t look so bad after all” and I added more water to it for a “rainy” effect. The irony of her name and the resulting mandala does not escape me.
I now have plans to frame this piece and hang it on our bedroom wall 🙂
Flip through the entire thing at your own pace on this google drive folder!
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.)
I also like to doodle my cats 🙂
This piece is from October 2019. I made it for my mom in celebration of her 22 years of sobriety on November 19th 2019 🙂 She loves burgundy and silver so I knew I had to incorporate those somehow. I used primarily watercolor but the silver was done with gel pen.
I owe my life to the 12 step programs. These mandalas were gifted to the recovery club where I began my journey to a new way of life without the use of recreational drugs.
My art cannot be divorced from my journey through addiction and recovery, which is one of the reasons I maintain anonymity by using the name Ari October.
I understand that AA and NA are not for everyone, but if you struggle with addiction yourself I hope you find something that does work for you so that you may lead a life free from compulsive addictive behavior!
This mandala was completed on March 20th 2020, thus named after it’s completion date.
I am not the best at naming my works so generally I just don’t.
I used a circle template tool when designing this mandala, which is also something I don’t do all the time. I draw a lot of mandalas 100% free hand, oftentimes out of pure laziness.
I do love how round and symmetrical they turn out when I do use templates though.
If you ever decide to color this, I would love to see your work! 😉
Ari October Art 