Doodling is Hard

I am way too much of a perfectionist to doodle actual little pictures. For me, doodling is something I do to stay awake in class. Doodling is something I do to help me focus on what someone is saying during a lecture. I started with the word "anti-gravity" so I decided to do a sort of... floating ink look. I scribbled a bunch of lines and then started to make a somewhat "brushy" look with my pen. From there I just did what felt good. Thicker lines when I wanted thicker lines and when I felt like I wanted more bubbles, I added circles and connected them to the larger piece. My only "rule" was that I not have harsh angles.
Although it was not a conscious thing that I was concerned about synchronicity I was hungry for Chik-Fil-A at the time. From that day on, I heard about Chik-Fil-A everywhere. Apparently the CEO died. The new guy at work used to work at Chik-Fil-A. All the kids at school eat Chik-Fil-A, which has probably always been the case, but I could definitely hear it more. I finally broke down and bought myself some Chik-Fil-A before my doctor's appointment on Thursday. Maybe now that my craving's gone, I won't see it everywhere.
I did however, think about my relationship with my best friend, Sean. It's definitely been an artistic journey. When I first met Sean, I had this imaginary friend. Sean didn't... normally look like my imaginary friend, but one day he dyed his hair and walked into class and it just... hit me. There he was, looking just like my imaginary friend. Pale skin, green eyes, and now that his hair was black, I could really see it. I decided right then and there that I was going to do everything I could to avoid Sean so that I wouldn't confuse him with someone I felt like I knew. We started running into each other everywhere. All our classes synched up. We were in the same hallways at the same time. We had lunches at the same time. I became so paranoid, I started having nightmares about him. I would wake up in a cold sweat, screaming and panting.
It turns out that we had a lot of mutual friends. I finally heard from one of my friends that he was really upset that I was afraid of him. He thought I hated him. I remember him waiting for me outside of class from time to time, trying to talk to me and get to know me better. All it really did was make me more paranoid that he was following me. It didn't help that he lived nearby and started riding my bus when he started dating a girl that rode my bus.
I felt bad that he was upset. All I wanted to do in the beginning was try not to confuse him with someone who wasn't real, but I ended up blurring the lines between fantasy and reality in other ways. I became determined to become friends with Sean and make it up to him. I started sitting with he and a mutual friend of ours at lunch. At first, I was so scared, I would shake. Sean would sometimes ask me if I was cold. Josh often served to calm my nerves enough that I felt comfortable around Sean.
At this point in my thoughts, I was done with my doodle. So when I went to Sean's house Thursday night, I asked him what it was exactly we talked about when we were first getting to know each other.
He said we talked about art. I would draw him a lot. I remember him sending me some pictures so I could get in some realism practice. I used to practice with those pictures night and day. I have complete confidence in my abilities with realism now and I owe a large part of that to Sean for being so cooperative.

(an outline for a painting of Sean I haven't finished yet)

Sean became my muse. He inspired me and he encouraged me. Through Sean I learned I have a passion for photography and have taken leaps and bounds as an artist.
But since, Sean has become something of a spiritual muse to me. Sean and I became best friends. He is my very closest friend and I can't imagine life without him. He encourages me as a person to follow my dreams. He has challenged me in life. I have a list of quotes from Sean I keep with me to help me through the day. He inspires me as a human being to stay true to myself. Through him I have learned to love myself. We have been through a lot together and those experiences have helped me to grow as a person. You can't be a successful artist with no feeling in your work.
I feel like my journey with Sean is a great example of serendipity, synchronicity, spontaneity, and surrender. And the art we make together has been going on for years and will hopefully continue for years and years to come.

It's What You Make Of It

After we talked about the value of a textbook and how it's valuable to others after you've altered it, I felt like it related heavily to my weight loss journey. I've been thinking a lot lately about how much money matters once you've purchased something. Particularly with my clothing. Over the last couple months, I made the choice to start a diet and lose some weight. So far I've lost 32lbs and have pretty consistently been needing to replace my pants each month. So when I went through my closet after losing the first ten pounds, I didn't want to let go of all the clothes I'd taken so much time to find and put so much money into purchasing.
I had an extensive collection of clothing. It was eclectic and full of things no one else owned. After building my collection for years, naturally, I didn't want to get rid of all I'd worked so hard to make.
It wasn't until I was at my 20lb mark that I really started to understand. I loved my collection so much, but I had to let go of it. Some of the things that didn't mean much to me, I gave to consignment. I made a good couple bucks and used it for gas to go to chicago for a few days with my best friend. What I got out of those pieces of clothing, was three days I'll never forget. And three days Sean and I spent bonding and talking about big things that we'd been putting off talking about for a long time.
The rest of my clothing I've been giving to my friends who can't afford clothes. It has been really emotional to see how excited they are to receive such beautiful clothing for free. A lot of the time they ask if I want something in return or if I want any money for the clothes and the answer is no. I just want those clothes to go to a home with someone who will care about them and love them the way I did.
I've gone from 160lbs and a size 13, to 127lbs and a size 6. There's no way any of those clothes I had could still fit me. There are a few pieces, less than ten, that I plan to alter. More over, I'm planning to get a sewing machine and start making my own clothing. After hand making my dress for my Jessica Rabbit cosplay this year, I decided making my own clothing would be the best way of ensuring I had unique clothing that fit. And if I found something cute while I was out that didn't fit, I could always alter it. I've since started hemming my pants myself, which has opened up a lot of opportunities for me with purchasing clothing.
It's no small task to replace an entire wardrobe. It's not a cheap one either. But the money I put into my clothing to begin with is gone now and no longer has any standing on the value of those items. All I can do is cherish the memories and use those to help others. Use them to help me design my own clothing. Use the bargain hunting skills I've gained to build an even better collection from here on out.

Experiment is Right.

Many eggs ended up being sacrificed in the name of my project.
Since my parents are also both creative people, I often brainstorm my creative projects with them. It never disappoints. I sat down with my mom and she helped me come up with the idea for making a sort of... egg ship in a bottle. To break the egg and then repair it with a little "bird" inside. The bird being an origami crane.
There were so many problems with this.
I used our own eggs we bought from the grocery store to try out my techniques. First I tried covering the egg with tape and then cutting the tape off of the egg. Then draining the egg and gluing the broken shell pieces onto the tape cast. That didn't work. Get this, eggs don't like to be modpodged to tape.
Second I tried draining the egg and carving the hollow shell as I've seen other people do before. Only I don't have patience or a dremel. Also, it was at this point I decided blowing the insides out of an egg was not nearly as easy as everyone made it sound like it was going to be. I used my x-acto knife to try cutting into the egg. But it involved too much force, there was no way I could cut a pattern without little cracks in the other parts of the shell.
It was at this point with my half broken shell that I considered cutting it straight down the middle. I began cutting down the middle and then a big chunk fell out of the bottom. This, I thought, would be a perfect place for the crane to be looking out of.
I had my design.
I went back to the kitchen and blew out the egg I was given in class, then cut down the middle and pulled a chunk out of the bottom for the crane to look out of.
Did I mention I was babysitting the entire time I was working on this? Because I was. I can't tell you how many questions I got about the weird things I was doing with eggs.
Then I went and looked up how to make an origami crane because, as it happens, I didn't know how to make an origami crane. I'm actually pretty good at origami, though, so I figured I wouldn't have much of an issue with it. It took a couple tries, mostly because I don't have any perfectly square paper in my house so I had to cut my paper to size.
Once I had my crane in my egg I decided it was too white. While I was making it, I imagined I would have a white egg and an orange crane. So naturally I started painting the egg red. Well, first actually, I tried dying the egg red. It didn't work. I don't know what I was going for. Sharpies and water. I probably could have looked up a good egg dying technique online. Gone out and bought food colouring. But I didn't do either of those things. Instead I broke out my water colour set and started watercolour painting my egg.
Side note, I don't watercolour paint ever. This was my first time opening a set I was given years ago. It's at this point I start to think, "Gosh, this smells like formaldehyde." Only to look it up and find there's formaldehyde in the paint. If I didn't already hate watercolour painting, I now have a solid reason to. Also, I'm somewhat disturbed by my ability to accurately point out the scent of formaldehyde.
So, with the smell of death thick in the air, I look at my red egg and think, "This looks like a complete gore fest." I wash all the paint off leaving a white egg with red membrane and little red cracks in it. I was very happy with the look of this.
I went on to paint my little crane red, wait for it to dry, get impatient and just shove it into the egg half dried.

I like to think my egg and little red crane are representative of birth and I'm not bothered by the blood red all over it because birth is a traumatic thing. But very precious. And very fragile.
I'm glad I was able to find a way to use my egg that didn't involve totally destroying it... exactly. I'm also glad I was able to use so many forms of art I've never used before. This is probably what I'd call my first "sculpture."
It's not exactly what I originally intended but I like the end result and I feel it carries the same spirit as my "ship in a bottle" idea.

I Have Overwhelming Maternal Instincts

Today was my first class of Seeing Sideways and, much like I had imagined it would be, I had a lot of very strong thoughts running through my head. First and foremost, I'm so thankful that I decided to take this class. The first assignment alone shows me that this is where I need to be. I need to learn to fishbowl myself, to limit my options before going into a project. I constantly open up my sketchbook and stare at blank pages. More over, a lot of the time I end up just drawing something that feels good to draw. People usually like whatever I turn out, but it's nothing new or challenging for me. A lot of pinup girls, mostly. Curvy figures are fun and easy to draw and they just feel good to draw. It's more self-indulgent than anything. But I really want to learn to express how I feel visually. I have a really difficult time doing abstract work and making a picture show my emotions unless I am literally telling a story with people. I'm hoping this class can help me explore new ways of expressing myself visually. But more than anything, I can't wait to be able to conquer that blank sheet of paper.

I've been making a lot of changes in my life recently. I can tell right off the bat that this class is more about a journey of self discovery than anything else. And that's good. That's what I want. I have made the conscious decision to become who I want to be. Which on the surface sounds easy, but it's not. Being who you want to be often means not being who other people want you to be. I am taking charge of myself and I've decided that I'd rather work hard towards something I really want than settle for something I know I can succeed at. I recently lost thirty pounds and I have ten pounds to go before I hit my goal weight. This has been huge for me. I have never been this thin and I feel great. I feel like I can wear whatever I want to wear and if anyone has anything to say about it, I didn't lose 30lbs for anyone else. I lost it for me. And I'll be damned if anyone tells me I don't get to flaunt it. But that also means I'm letting go of my old self. I'm letting go of all my old clothes that I worked years to accumulate. I have absolutely no clothes in my new size because I've never been this size before. It's scary. But I'm doing it. I feel great about my new weight. I don't feel ashamed of my body anymore. I figure, while I'm at it, time to make some more big changes.

And last but not least, I had a bit of an emotional rollercoaster on the way back to my car with the egg (I hate to admit). I had already had a plan for my egg which involved its inevitable demise. But first, I had to get the egg home. Which meant I needed to take care of the egg until it was time to crack it. So on my way back to my car, which was parked fifteen minutes from the IT building, I was cradling the egg as carefully as I could. And I found myself getting attached to the egg. I really should have seen that coming. I started referring to it as "little guy" and the like. Then I started to feel bad that I was going to crack it and wanted to think of something I could do that didn't involve cracking the egg. But then I thought, the egg is going to rot anyway. There's nothing I can do to stop the egg from decomposing naturally. I really can't be around anything that needs nurturing or taking care of. I feel that I have a very strong maternal instinct. I often have baby saving dreams, where I go out of my way putting myself in grave danger in order to save a baby. Rest assured, if there is ever a baby in need of saving, I will be there. I also have incredibly pleasant pregnancy dreams. I'm always happy in my pregnancy dreams, they're my favourite. I really can't wait to have children. My siblings are much younger than I am so I was taking care of babies not that long ago. I really enjoyed it and I love them with all my heart. I miss having a baby around the house and my main goal in life is to have a family and to be a good mother. Unfortunately these feelings often get projected onto other aspects of my life including inanimate objects that remind me of babies. So now I'm having a bit of a moral dilemma with an egg. Perhaps I can figure out a creative thing to do that immortalizes my little egg friend.