Stepping Out

It's so easy to get lost in my head - mainly because it's so intereting there. But while escapism has its benefits it is usually a lot wiser to face whatever I am trying to escape from. That is why I am doing my best to step out of my head and into the world. It would be nice if it was easy. It would be great to feel like I was doing the right thing. Sadly, it just fills me with cold sweats and makes me want to slam the door shut.

The only trouble is I am tired of being lonely. I am tired of feeling so alone. If there was another way to do this, I would gladly sign up for it but I may have to go through some discomfort before I finally step into a great new world of wonder. It's a lot like teething. It hurts for a while but its a welcome new world of chewable food on the other side.

Now if I could just make it through without feeling like my heart was being reaped out of my chest.

Attack of the Body Snatcher

If I took a break from my life would it still be my life?

I just wanted to take some time away and figure out if this was something I really wanted to do. The only trouble with that is, it came at a time when I found the process of creating anything at all very difficult. So Illustration Friday is on a break - but then again - so is everything else I've been trying to do. The effects are making me wonder about a lot more than my artistic talents.

The weekly writing challenge has remained unchallenged for nearly two months. The usually weekly newsletter is a month behind schedule and there is evidence enough here of just how well IF has been going. Somewhere along the way I lost the plot and I'm not sure if I can recapture it.

So with such a bad showing, I have to wonder...is this really me or am I living proof that there really is something like a body snatcher? Because it walks like me and talks like me but I don't think it's me any more. I think maybe I just took a break and forgot to take my body with me. I wonder how I would sort that out. I wonder how I can feel so broken - it is , after all, just a little undone art. Right?

Illustration Friday: Shaky

On shaky ground...

...in more ways than one.

Illustration Friday: Worn

I've been away a while but I knew I couldn't let another Illustration Friday go by without an attempt. I'm trying something different and hoping it will work but so far... I figure it's still better to do bad art than to do no art so this is me getting my head back in gear.

I like to call this image 'the bag lady and the mannequin'. Make it a metaphor if you please or take it as it is. I just hope the idea of worn gets across.

Illustration Friday: Adapt

Technology might mean we have to adapt ourselves to new ways of doing things but there are so many other ways we have to make necessary changes to deal with technology. Just the plugs to my power supply need an adapter to work properly and these are just the ones from my computer to the main socket. Is this really progress?

Illustration Friday: Cracked

This is more about a crack than cracked but I figured it would crack someone up and went with it anyway. It was actually my boyfriend's idea so I can't take all the credit but he disowned it the minute I told him I was going to post it...no fun. :-D

Illustration Friday: Contagious III

"Smile, and the world smiles with you; cry and you cry alone."

People don't really smile as much as they used to. We can blame it on any number of things: the failing economy, the lack of anything to smile about, the fear that someone you smile at might just be an axe murderer... But in an attempt to do something different, I've been smiling at anyone who crosses my path. It not only feels great for me (a cross between silly and utterly light-hearted) but I've had a few favourable responses.

So maybe spreading the flu is 'natural' and yawning is contagious in its own strange way. But if there is anything I wish to pass around like wild fire, it's a smile. Go on...smile with me.

Illustration Friday: Contagious II

It's been said that the easiest way to know if a person in a crowd is looking at you is to yawn. It is so contagious that they won't be able to help doing it too. I am a believer in that idea now especially since the search for the perfect yawning picture resulted in several of my own.

This is the second picture in this series and it came to me shortly after the first. There is a third in what is now an interesting triptych.

Illustration Friday: Contagious I

It's flu season and with the recent H1N1 scare it's not easy to think that I might get sick. Sadly with its severe contagiousness, it might be hard to keep something like that in check. So when you have the flu - please cover your mouth.

This is a public health warning from your friendly local artist. LOL!

Illustration Friday: Parade (Coloured)

A little colour makes for an interesting change to an otherwise drab picture. And the ducks still look like their having fun...

Illustration Friday: Parade (Pencil)

Ducks on display is the way I would like to think of this. The best part is they all look like their having fun.

Watching The Audience

Desperation is great for inspiration. Everything I have come up with for this weeks Illustration Friday spark word: PARADE has been a little off. My artistic vocabulary has never been so severly taxed and I wondered if I really had the skill to pull of some of the ideas I had in my head. In a bid not to give up, I did this picture...


It's a lot like the other pictures I have done but for some reason it didn't feel like enough. I just didn't feel it, what with the plainness of it and the fact that it still didn't fit the idea of PARADING (although the first version was meant to be a nude).

So I decided to add a little colour using paint - nothing complicated there except I learnt that just because its drawn a certain way doesn't mean its ready for digitization. But I was a little better pleased with the final effect. It was a little strange but still intersting enough to give me some ideas for the future.

Sadly, it still didn't fit what I wanted for Illustration Friday. (Or maybe I just wanted to experiment some more) so I'm trying the same technique on something else...