I'm on threads now

I stopped visiting twitter a long time ago and stopped posting even long before that. It was time to shut it down. Look, it's either this or I start a broadcast channel on Instagram. And no one wants that.

So here are some life updates (in my head): I'm making a plan today to focus on filling up a whole sketchbook...and not buying any more notebooks/sketchbooks until what I have has been used up. OR jumping around to different sketchbooks. Because I literally have a stack of 4 notebooks + and iPad next to me because my brain thinks each brilliant idea has to be recorded on a specific type of paper or it will die. I've also been thinking about what would I tell my younger self if I could go back in time. I'd probably tell myself that filling the sketchbook everyday is the most important thing you can do for your talent, career, and sanity.

So...making lots of thumbnails in the hopes that something magical will motivate me to finish a series. HAHAHAHA.

And because I strongly dislike posts with no visuals, here is a process video of a knitting pattern I'm working on!

Bye guys.

Reading: It Start with Us / Colleen Hoover

Listening: The Retrievals / Serial podcast

This blog will be my livejournal and you can't stop me

A stream of consciousness that will appear more often, but less edited. I really want to get an IG channel so I can bother my followers more often.

Because like any good artist, I have a lot of sketchbooks. Always have, always will. And like any aspiring artist, the unfulfilled goal is to saturate each page with a collage of doodles and marks that are effortlessly merged together in a deliberate yet chaotic feast for the eye.

I imagine the journey is not unlike trying to reach enlightenment. Only instead of learning not have attachment in this life in order to reach true happiness, I will die buried in a hoard of fine liner pens.

But anyway, one good thing that has come out of moving is that I've finally curated my sketchbooks - mostly-full ones and blank ones are separated and easy to find. I have a few sketchbooks that are only a few pages in and have been left of the shelf dreaming of fulfilling their destiny. The thing that I've discovered is that most of my sketchbooks suffer from an "out of sight, out of mind" syndrome.

Truthfully, I do avoid looking at some really old sketchbooks because *cringe* it's not always pretty. But I've been able to revisit old projects and see where I can add or adjust to it to bring it into my current aesthetic. As I've refined my style this last year, I can now find fun in re-doing old work and be inspired by my old self...and not try to always avoid her.

Pt. 2 - it's not all bad

How Taika Waititi says he writes his scripts:

- sit down are write a shitty script

- put script in a drawer and don't look at it for a year

- after a year, re-read shitty script and tear it up (because it sucks)

- re-write the script but only the good parts you remember

So here we are! I have suffered from being a stubborn perfectionist that last 20ish years of my life. I'm pretty sure college made it worse (don't get me wrong, go to college if you can. But don't let bad teachers get you down). But it's time to get over the boredom of repetition. Ever think about how those super talented olympic athletes get to be so good? Ok, yes, it can be genetics. But the bigger hurdle is being able to get past the boring practice and never-ending repetition.

OLD PROCESS: sit down, start sketching. Does it suck? If Yes: you suck, you're not talented, light it on fire, give up. If No: this is pretty good, I'm not going to refine it anymore, it's done, never pick it up again for fear of ruining it, it's boring now, bye. Genius.

NEW PROCESS: Do some stuff. It's ok if you put it down and try other things that interest you. But come back to it. Because guess what? That idea you had a few months ago was pretty good. Now you can refine it and make it better. Nothing has to linear and complete. Trying to think of a new idea to work on? Look back at your sketchbooks because there is good stuff in there you forgot about. Re-work old paintings and drawings if you want to. Just because you got to a stopping point doesn't mean that you have to walk away from it forever.

Here's the final sweatshirt!

Don't clip my claws

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