Hey guys,

Wow, it looks like it’s been a month and a half since my last post, oops. Well, I can account for some of the time… sometime near the end of my 10-week illustration class I got the Summer Flu, which lasted about 3 weeks. Shortly after that I had a 3-day stomach thing. Then it was getting the energy to take care of all the stuff that got ignored while I was sick. It’s been a rather long road back to semi-normalcy. Not to mention that the longer I’m away from the blog, the harder it is to return. So I have some stuff to show-and-tell.

I’ve thought about the blog and what to write off and on for weeks, and I’m always torn between just posting a big-ass post where I just get it all out vs. making a couple of smaller posts that I set to publish at some future date. I usually go for the big-ass post though, because I always tell myself that I’ll have new content to post during the pretimed stuff, which I probably don’t, but whatever. I think I’m rambling now… let’s just see what I can write before I get too tired, shall we?

Ok, so I was taking a 10-week illustration class (online), and honestly, I got overwhelmed and then felt inadequate, then a bit burnt out. I was having trouble drawing the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood head on, I just could NOT wrap my head around it.

It all started with wanting to draw a spot where Wolf is stealing Granny’s nightgown, and honestly it was frustrating as hell…

So like with Kevin last year during Inktober, I decided to make a model of him. But the air-dry clay that I used for Kevin was like working with gum and spitwads mixed together. I needed a better clay. I did a bit of research and decided to try Sculpy which you dry/set in your oven.

Sculpy was awesome to work with, I just used my fingers and the butt-end of a paintbrush to make Wolf’s head. I used a bit of aluminum foil as the base, then added clay to that. Overall, I’m kinda proud of it. 🙂

So then the task was to try to draw Wolf now that I had a model. It was a bit easier, but I still didn’t know if I had captured him just yet. I’m still not sure of the eyes…

Meanwhile the class continued on and I progressively felt behind. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to keep up when I started the class and had intended to do my best and just make sure I watched the videos, knowing I could come back at any time. But it was really hard to turn off the chasing-the-grade brain.

Then I started to feel the beginnings of the flu and suddenly I cared less about drawing and just tried to keep up with the videos. The last week of class I was really feeling the flu; body aches, stuffy head, the whole lot (except coughing, thank goodness). I slept a lot. I didn’t make the last zoom meeting. But no longer cared, I was just too tired.

I also missed the Zentangle classes on Fridays, I slept through one. Didn’t feel like going to the second, also I hadn’t had time to watch the first lesson and felt like I wouldn’t ‘get’ the second session. By the third session, the stuffiness had moved to my ears, I could hardly hear, and wearing headphones was uncomfortable, so I missed that class too (plus I still hadn’t watched the first two sessions). Ugh, it was a vicious cycle. By the time the ‘breather’ class on the fourth week came around I was knee-deep in trying to catch up on all the chores and stuff I didn’t do the three weeks I was sick.

But I did start going through the Zentangle class videos (Organicize 3-part series) at my own pace on the couch on my ipad, using the side-by-side app function while I watched the video and used Procrate to practice.

Once I finished the first class, I played around with coloring it in Fresco…

Then I started on the second class…

Yesterday, I went to my Friday Zentangle online class (Found Flowers series) and it was good to get back into the groove.

Slowly I’m coming back to semi-normalcy. It feels like it was a long road back to this place of Adulting. And I still don’t have the energy I had 5-6 weeks ago.

So that’s my long-ass explanation for where and what I’ve been doing for the last month and a half.

This morning Penny got me up early, and it was sprinkling. It doesn’t rain here very often, and I love to photograph water drops. I noticed this spiderweb with water drops and found it striking. I was half asleep taking these, but I think I’m getting back to myself again, which feels nice.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot… I also requested the pups help me figure out Wolf’s face head-on, they were more than happy to help me create some reference photos. Their price: LOTS of treats! 🙂

Ok… this is a really long post. I’m sure I have more stuff, but that will have to be another time.

Until next time…

~nic