Wednesday November 8 2023

I deleted instagram and TikTok from my phone and I don’t scroll thru apps anymore, and I don’t watch YouTube. I have been struggling with heavy internet addiction pretty much all my life and it was really weighing me down for a long time, and nothing worked for me but going cold turkey. I also started walking on the treadmill at the gym for at least 30min every day because I was living a sedentary lifestyle. I also quit drinking coffee, to save money and to calm my nervous system. I started all that November 1 and it’s been a week now, and I’m feeling happy and healthy. It was really lonely and weird for the first few days but I don’t miss all the advertising and hatred that I was seeing on every social media, I felt so drained by that. I’m slowly readjusting. I do want to keep posting of course since I do that for my job but just through my computer quickly without getting lost down rabbit holes on the internet and feeling miserable about it. I want to redirect all my energy to taking good care of myself and making lots of art. It feels like I am going very slowly, but that’s part of the healing process I guess. I have a lot of projects to keep me busy and good friends around me. It feels really good to work out at the gym and beautiful nature is easily accessible where I live, I’m really happy I moved here. I just have to keep it up, i think I was preparing for this on and off when I attempted before, but I’m doing it for real this time. I did play Minecraft on my switch last night for hours haha, everything is built to keep extreme attention like that. I’ll have to be careful around Minecraft too. I think my hyper focus is my super power and if I direct it specifically at art projects I want to do, that will be really healthy and I can get a lot done. I need to let go of resistance to move forward. I think I am doing good, I’m proud of myself. I have been cooking healthy food at home too like prepping a bunch of veggies and adding salmon and having green smoothies. I want to stay positive and be a kind person.

Self improvement quest 2023

Yes, I am very determined to change my life and wrote down a lot of habit and time trackers that should help me be extra aware of my own actions and stay present. 10/1/2023 I’ll be 34 on October 10th, I’ve had a great year so far. I journaled so much to try and gain some clarity and ground myself after being depressed and burnt out and discouraged for a very long time. The clarity I gained is that what truly brings me purpose and happiness is to work on my comic dear skin. To celebrate I have uploaded the first chapter all at once for free which you can read now under the dear skin comic section on my website. I will continue to update it as a free webcomic here every Tuesday and Friday at 5pm (California USA time zone). I’m tired of hoarding these pages I have been working on and I’m finally ready to share them. Another good idea I had was to ask people for positive stories about their lives and do real time drawing videos as kind of asmr or to relax on YouTube, I think that would be a nice contrast to all the scary and dark stories. My goal is to continue sketching and painting dear skin as much as I can til it’s done! I’m also doing inktober this month, two paintings every day, and I’ll be posting them for sale in my shop to try and save up money for tattoo equipment.

Monday September 11 2023

So, I’m going to get back into blogging on my website! The last time I wrote a blog post was when I started my website in 2021! Sooo much has changed in my life since then. I moved all the way across the country to Arcata California and have been living here for a few years. After some hardship I finally found a great roommate and apartment in a very beautiful area and have some great friends. I have been struggling to make money off my art recently, I have been burnt out for a while- but reading my last blog post was really eye opening for me especially the part about my comic dear skin! I am now halfway thru chapter 9 of 11ish chapters of dear skin! It’s been over a month since I worked on it and I really want to push thru and sketch the final pages this year. I just started fiverr today in hopes of getting more commissions online, I want to try out artistree and upwork as well. I posted a ton of my originals to my website shop all day yesterday as well. I want to start posting dear skin online as a webcomic-there’s no use trying to gatekeep it forever until it’s done lol! I feel like a dragon hoarding treasure uselessly- over 6 chapters fully done and nobody to read them. I don’t have enough money right now to self publish print more books anyway I might as well start sharing for free to get my motivation up to work on the rest. It’s finishing the story that’s important to me. I am trying really hard to make big changes in my life recently. I have a gym membership, I’m trying to go there more and more, and I quit coffee which is a big deal for me, and I’m cooking at home simple veggies and meat dishes and smoothies. I have been trying to write in my journal and stay present instead of scrolling or watching YouTube mindlessly, pretty solidly for a week now (I wrote so much haha) I think I’m in a good place, I just need to keep this motivation up to always be trying new things boldly with my art. I know I can put myself out there more. I have some ideas for little comics series as well, and I want to write my thoughts on this blog more often. I want to draw and linocut print on clothing too. Being able to look back at my feelings over time will be useful, I think. I’m really grateful for everyone who has ever supported my art. Picture was taken at a coffee shop yesterday, I was enjoying sitting in the sun and posting my art to my web shop, sipping on a peanut butter smoothie :)

Hello

Today is my first day of working on my new website, I am getting a feel for it and thinking about how to make it cool. A blog might be a nice place to put my thoughts and feelings! It is 2/1/2021 and my current life goals are to finish my comic dear skin (three chapters out of nine done!) and to move somewhere very hot and sunny in the next year or two. hopefully when the pandemic is less awful all over america? it is difficult to plan for the future right now, but moving somewhere new is what ive been dreaming about a lot, somewhere quiet nestled between the ocean and the forest where i can be close to nature and paint lots. I wonder how to add images to these blogs….hmm