25 (Weekly Update)
Something about the week leading up to my 25th birthday got me all riled up in terms of the future and what I’m doing with my time. I think I mention quitting my job in every one of my weekly posts now. I’ve gone from considering it at least once a month to considering it every day. Thinking of ways that I can gracefully leave or at the very least, make my job less painful while I’m still there. But every idea I have related to changing up my role, sees in a meeting where I smile and nod and go “ok, I think I can try that”. The other week, I was telling my boss that I’m having a hard time in my position and she told to make more folders in my inbox and see if that changes anything. That’ll help.
Work and the future and all the uncertainties of life have taken up a lot of my brain power this week. To combat it, I came up with a rather marketable device that helped in getting things off my mind. I was sitting at my desk on Monday afternoon with my head just absolutely swimming with thoughts and questions and worries. I was unable to get a single bit of work done. Instead of sitting and festering, I took a sheet of paper and listed out everything that was bothering me. Then, I tried to see if there was anything I could solve or take care of right now, there wasn’t, so I rolled up the sheet of paper and…smoked it, no haha I wrapped it in a little post-it note and drew a little kitty holding onto it. The caption above my Worry Kitty’s head said “I’ll hold onto this while you work.”
For the remaining hour of work I got all my things done without the burden of all those thoughts. Every time one of the subjects I wrote down popped back up in my head I said “No, I don’t need to think about that right now, my kitty’s holding onto it, I can take care of it later.” It honestly did help me. I’m thinking that it might be a cool product idea. Just a little animal friend to hold onto your list of worries. You can choose to return to the list and deal with the things you can or you can just throw it away. It’s a cute idea, definitely something I’d see in one of those little shops on the North Side.
In the art world, I didn’t have much spark until late last night. I took a short break from the oracle cards simply because I wanted to draw my original characters, or “OC’s”, for a little bit. Dani, an old friend of mine from college, loves to talk original work and projects with me. We used to get together on school nights in our dorm and discuss plot points and character arcs for each of our respective creative properties. We’d do this all the time and it’s thankfully something we still do over Instagram to this day. Dani certainly outweighs me in terms of OCs and OC art. I applaud their stamina for creating so many and making each set of characters their own unique and complex world. Last night I shared a text post meme about OC’s with them and they joked about how it reminded them of one of my characters, Ryan. I started getting nostalgic and felt the sudden urge to draw him. So now, instead of city scapes, I’m taking a short intermission to daw some old friends.
Yesterday was my birthday and for the occasion, my mom gifted me three gorgeous art books. Faeries of the Faultlines by Iris Compiet features stories and descriptions of fairies found in the “thin veil” around different parts of the world. The loose and sketchy artwork paired with delicate watercolors made me want to drop my iPad and pull out my old set of paints! Some of the fay folk in this one are of a devious nature and are a little creepy! A Natural History of Fairies by Emily Hawkins and Jessica Roux tells a completely different side to fairy folklore. The fairies here seem much more inviting and the art was just too adorable. Art Forms in Nature by Ernst Haeckel is an incredible compilation of natural art plates drawn over 120 years ago. The colors and details on the pages just absolutely mesmerized me. So many unique designs and color palettes. I already have one of the pages as my phone’s lock screen. I’m definitely looking forward to reading through these books and taking copious notes for my own creative projects!
Another artist friend of mine, Landis Blair, is a pretty well-known Chicago illustrator who I’ve known for a few years. He does incredible crosshatching work and has illustrated his fair share of books, including one of my favorite graphic novels, The Hunting Accident. I follow along with his projects and often get inspired by the work he puts out. This afternoon, he made a post on Instagram saying that he was disappointed with the algorithm and his performance on the app. He said that instead of focusing his time on IG, he’s going to start sending out newsletters with art updates and upcoming events. I wanted to see what meant so I took a look at his account and saw that a total of 7 posts he made in the past few days had never made it to my timeline. I interact with his account and like his posts frequently so I thought I was seeing everything that was getting posted. Isn’t that how the algorithm is supposed to work? You show me the people I like?? What was even crazier was that his posts all had around 100-150 likes each. For an account that has over 26,600 followers? Yikes. I have 280 followers, and get 16-20 likes on all of my posts so that seems pretty proportionate. But all that aside, I’m excited to see what he has in store for this newsletter. And I can’t wait for his next project!
Ok, that was a lot, it’s been a busy week. Until next time.
Only the very best,
Shelby :)