Intentional Practice

For those of you who may have missed it, my primary creative outlet is drawing. I have been having a terrible time actually doing it though, due to all the other things I need and want to do as well. I kept thinking I didn't have the time (same excuse I use for cleaning our room...eesh...).

But then I read a blog post on Mabel and Riv. It struck a huge chord in me as here I am at 26 years old like the author was when she heard the word "Intention" used in a way that drastically changed her life. I am currently doing what she talked about, surviving only, letting myself be a victim of my perceived circumstances.

But Ari taught me something different. She taught me that living intentionally means thriving instead of just surviving. She taught me that intention means slowing down and taking the time to actually do things that matter in ways other than getting by from day to day.

I decided that Intention needs be a theme in my life as well. That's why I made a weekly plan for my sketching practice. It takes the guess work out of it so I can slow down and enjoy the process. As an artist, I've been surviving. 

Now it's time for me to thrive. Thank you Ari.

If you're an artist like me, feel free to use this plan or the concept behind it.Customize away but do please credit me a wee bit. Go ahead and share it too.  I know I will be!

A Strange Collection

Disclaimer: In this blog post, there be nudity. I really do try to keep this to a minimum but I've also made my peace with it after taking a Life Drawing class. I promise that it will never be nudity for its own sake nor will it be pornographic. The specific image I am referring to in this post is of a woman who spent most of her life alone in the woods. She does not understand modesty at this point in her story. You have been fairly warned and it is the last image herein so you can just ignore it if you wish. It honestly shows nothing as I'm posting an iteration of the piece that has no nipples. I simply wanted to share it because it spells a great deal of improvement for me as an artist.

Well now that that unpleasantness has been dealt with, on to the fun stuff! And by fun stuff, I mean what I've been up to while not updating this blog for so long.

This is my sourdough start, known as the Blob that Ate New York. At the time I took this picture, it wasn't quite as intimidating as I'd separated some into small jars and put them in the fridge. It completely filled that vase previous to that and is back to that status. I really need to use it more often.

This is the first food I made with Blobby. This is cinnamon sourdough pancake batter. It made way more than I was expecting. There are still some pancakes in the freezer should I decide I'd like more. It looks oddly pumpkin-y. My only guess is that I used the "white wheat" flour I have hanging around, which tends to do this. It's been so long I can't remember. 

And here are some of the pancakes. Holy moly they were good with some frozen berries and Greek yogurt. I barely made through three when I can usually demolish more conventional ones. Just goes to show you how traditional methods produce more filling results.

This is my sad sprout jar. It's currently on hiatus right now because I can't seem to remember to harvest my sprouts before they grow their embryonic leaves. The last batch even got hairy and thus when to the stock veggie bag. I'll get better at this once I'm not in the middle of a new project.

And here is the new project! Last week I received my kefir grains in the mail, from Cultures for Health . Two evenings ago they were finally hydrated and yesterday morning produced this lovely kefir. Unfortunately I missed out on a third of this first batch. I used most of this to make a berry smoothie. Everything was perfect until I reached out to put the blender jar back on the motor. I knocked my smoothie over, losing almost half to the depths of the stove's left from burner. After screaming "WHY?!" at the top of my lungs, I proceeded to clean up that horrible mess and enjoy the smoothie.

I've yet to try plain(er) kefir. I'm not that brave yet. Well, more that I'm not entirely used to the taste of fermentation yet.

And in new not food related, I found one of the most difficult part of my Fluttershy Cosplay 2.0. These boots have been agonizing to find! At first I wasn't sure what I was looking for, then when I did, I COULDN'T find them for less than $50. I am not made of money therefore that wasn't going to work. But when I thought that I'd never find the right pair, these popped up at Meijer for about $20 and I practically cried. They are cute and somewhat feminine but not impractical. You could take care of chickens in these and still be adorable. That is the essence of Fluttershy.

By purplefairy456

She's just so darn cute!

I've also been having fun with my Bamboo tablet. This is one of the first semi-finished sketches I have done since I received it. Only one of the characters is mine, Uzumaki Reiko on the bottom right. That's Haruno Sakura and Hyuuga Hinata (top and bottom left respectively) from Naruto (Kishimoto Masashi). Ahhh fanart, how I love thee! This is for one of the fanfics that made the cut.

Now this is one very loose sketch but I had to learn eventually that Sketchbook Express flattens layers of any file you close and then reopen it...and that is why Akimichi Chouji (also from Naruto) here is soooooooooooooo unfinished. I plan to finish him some day because the squishy expression has an adorable reason!

WARNING! This is where you need to stop if you do not wish to see the nakey. If you don't mind, keep scrolling down.

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I posted a colored head shot of this before but I couldn't help but post the rest. This is the best piece I have draw in a long time. This is a rare image that turned out almost exactly as I'd hoped it would. I never tire of drawing my Lithium so that makes this kind of growth that much more special.

Well, that's what I've been up to. I hope to be better about posting in the future.

I have no idea what I'm doing!

Or at least that’s how I feel most of the time.

Actually I have a better idea of what I’m doing than when I posted last. I've actually achieved some of my goals to an extent and that makes me rather excited to continue.

So here is what I have achieved thus far:

I have pared down my fanfiction list considerably from what it was. I cut the ones that were crack-tualarly stupid (LOTR OC falling in love with one of the sons of Elrond anyone?) for a grand total of six stories and only one is destined to be a fan comic. The others will be written stories, which is particularly good for the choose-your-own fanfic that I decided to keep because it was just so stinking hilarious I couldn’t bear to drop it.

I have restarted my sprout jar and will be harvesting my first batch today. Though I have a big jar, I’ve found its better for me do sprout small amounts of mung beans as the volume quadruples as the sprouts grow. That was January’s project from the Homesteading list.

I have also started my sourdough starter. I think I may have misunderstood what people have been writing about them because I had the crazy idea that they took a while to get started. When mine was living on the back of the stove, it took off running in two days. Not only that but it also out-grew its jar with stunning results not unlike a science fair volcano. It now resides on the kitchen counter in a large glass vase and still threatens to take over the kitchen for a while after every feeding. I’d better get a move on with various sourdough products. Last week I had a Pancake Day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have the guts to start some actual bread.

As for other food-related goals, I’m still struggling to kick some of the processed food habit. I have a severe weakness for pizza which is fantastically bad from a Real Food standpoint. Mishandled grains, dead cheese and who-knows-what’s-in-there sauce…and yet I keep coming back to it! I guess I’ll be adding sourdough pizza crust to my list of things to do with my Blob That Ate New York starter.

As for my other biggy, weight loss, well, I’m not sure what’s going on. Apparently while eating a reasonable amount of calories and exercising every day, my body doesn’t like getting rid of the padding. I’m pretty sure some of it is those stupid birth control pills. The rest is me, pure and simple. I’m thinking, and hang with my on this one, that I’m not actually eating enough.

A lot of people, including those who are supposed to be experts on nutrition and weight loss would say this is counter-intuitive but I’m pretty sure it’s one of my problems. I found out that at the very least I need 1500+ calories just for basic functions that keep me alive plus about 150 more for digestion. This doesn’t even account for things like moving, or exercise. So, with the knowledge that I already have and this “new” information, I shall move forward.

Whodda’ thunk my problem was not eating enough?

Found this in my files. I create terrible things sometimes.
 I didn't know what I was doing with this one.