Life Update Blog🌳 (End of August)

🎨💼Hello my beauties! 🌸 Comin' at you with the monthly blog where I update you on the random happenings in my life and journey!  How was your August???  

I still haven't fully accepted that it is SEPTEMBER!  My subconscious knows since it keeps pushing me in more gothic moody directions in my art but my conscious hasn't accepted it!  I think  this September feels off to me is because I still feel like I'm waiting for summer to hit.

  Here in Sweden, after about a week of warm weather in June, it has been very rainy and chilly throughout July and August.  Rain in July isn't unusual here, but in past years the temperature will usually warm up again at the end of July and into August, but not this year!  It feels kind of like we skipped summer altogether!  I think I need to just accept that we won't get a real summer this year here.

Autumn is may favorite season, and I am clearly ready for more spooky vibes, if my art is a reflection of that at all!  I think a lot of us in the artist community favor autumn!  What's your favorite season?  Do you fall in the autumn lover category?  The leaves haven't changed yet but I won't be surprised if they change a bit early this year.

Thanks to all the rain this year, mushrooms have been growing like crazy.🍄 

 So I went out for a little mushroom spotting in the forest when we had a break in the clouds.  I'm to afraid to actually pick any mushrooms to identify edible ones, but someday I'll know enough about them to do proper mushroom foraging.  Mushrooms can just be so scary when you read their descriptions!!!

 I can't tell you how many descriptions I've read that say something along the lines of "this mushroom is a wonderful edible mushroom that's good in soups and stir-fries, but beware of it's close look alike that will cause seizures, organ failure, death within 12 hours, and will trap your soul in the fires of hell for all eternity."

While I didn't suffer any ill effects from mushroom spotting, a few days later I did find an unwelcome stowaway attached to my neck!!  Yes, a tick!  It wasn't my first encounter with ticks but it was my first time finding one that had clearly been attached and feeding for a couple of days!  I was horrified!  Fortunately once it was removed, I haven't noticed any ill effects or rashes.  Hopefully it stays that way! I'll let  you know if I die of lime disease. 

(fun fact, Ticks are arachnids, not insects)

🎨As for August art, once I returned home from my trip in the mountains in the US, I found it quite difficult to get back into the groove of things.  I'm not gonna lie, it was extremely frustrating and disheartening because after the whirlwind of a trip, I was really looking forward to hunkering down at home for a while and getting caught up with everything.  But alas, that just isn't always how it goes.

I may have mentioned it in another post last month, but I actually struggled a lot with creating a fantasy portrait for the tutorial last month.  Over the course of about a week, I started and scrapped so many illustrations, nearly completing at least 2 of them before discarding them because they weren't flowing.  A quote I really like is: "Art is like a fart, if you have to force it, it's probably shit."  And I've found that when a piece isn't flowing and I have to force it, that quote often holds true in the end.  haha

In my mind, fantasy portraits should have been the easiest subject matter, and I'm not sure exactly what was going on that was causing the block.  Perhaps the little over a week of not drawing when I was out of town just made me rusty, or perhaps I was still exhausted from everything.

I did eventually work my way through the block it and it turns out that the "lost week" didn't set me back as horribly as my mind was making me believe it would.  

Sometimes I get the feeling that I can't afford to stop or lose time like that.  But what this little instance has taught me (although it is a lesson I need to be reminded of constantly), it is that in the grand scheme of things, a day, a couple days or even a week, doesn't actually make that much of a difference.  It's okay to be 'not productive' and 'lose time' like that sometimes.  

It will be okay.❤️

Other then my own emotional turmoil and art block, August was a generally chill month.  Since I had been away for the first few days, I didn't make any big plans out of the ordinary, so it mostly consisted of me working to catch up with everything.  

(A lot of photos in my phone look like this!  Hand and pose reference for ages!!!)

What else is on the horizon?

September is my 🎂birthday month, but I don't have any big plans at the moment for September either since I will be traveling to Scotland in October with a friend!  But I'll still try and take my birthday off at the end of the month to have a little downtime.  Maybe I'll have a cozy game day, or a reading day.  Anyone else playing Baulder's Gate 3? 👀

So my goal this month is to try and get a little bit ahead with art and work so that I can schedule lots of goodies for you while I am away and not be stressed out about other projects going on.  We need to get through all the September goodies first though of course!!

 Speaking of which, I am thinking this month's tutorial will be on drawing men's faces since it was the runner up for last month's tutorial vote.  Aaaaand I'm going to be putting together 2024 Zodiac Calendars soon!!  I'm also working on adding secret larger NSFW prints to the patreon secret shop.  They aren't available yet, but if you have any  you would like me to prioritize adding, please let me know!!

Anyhoo! I'll go ahead and close this little blog out with a reminder that I mentioned earlier in the post in case any of you also need to hear it!  

In the grand scheme of things, a day, a couple days, or a week doesn't actually make a huge difference!  If you need to take time to rest, or if you are beating yourself up because you haven't been productive, try to be a little kinder to yourself.  🌈✨

💗Love you guys to bits and thank you for coming along on this journey with me!
Hugs hugs everyone and we'll speak more soon!

Chrissa XOXO