Repetition

There's so much repetition happening in my life right now.  Some good, some...less than good.  I am a repeat offender in regards to art, good music, obscene levels of milk drinking, being generally hilarious...purposefully or not, and collecting weird stuff that I don't really have room for but that's too cool to pass up.  That's all generally good stuff.  But I'm also a repeat offender for stinky stuff...cigarettes, junk food, staying up too late at night when I have to get up the next day (ending in the zombification of me during daylight hours) and of caring too much about people who will never care about me.

I've talked about that last one before...like I said, I am a repeat offender and I know it.  I haven't been able to help it so far...once you get into a habit, it's easy to stay in it.  Maybe it's something everybody does at some point...loving someone who will never love you in return.  You know their feelings will never change, but it's like an addiction...you feel powerless to resist the pull they have on you, despite the fact that the entire thing is one-sided...even when you finally see that it's one-sided, you still try to make them love you.  Relationships shouldn't work that way.  Real relationships don't work that way.  

Unfortunately for me, I am an expert at finding these one-sided love situations.  I've always been that way.  I find the person who will take and take and take because I'm willing to give.  I don't think that it's a bad thing to be willing to give, or to take a leap and hope that this time will be different from all the other times you've been let down.  Hope can be a terrible and dangerous thing sometimes.  But I want to love and be loved in return, and the only way to do that is to put your love out there.

Since I've been art journaling, which has pushed me to get in touch with how I really feel about things in my life, I've come to see that I don't have to keep letting people steal my love.  That's not a requirement of love at all.  Love is too valuable to be wasted on people who don't appreciate it.  The feeling that my love is too valuable to be wasted is new to me.  I mean, I've understood the concept, just not as it applied to me.  Now I think I'm beginning to understand.  You, me, whoever...we're all worth so much more than our desperate need for affection.  We have to love ourselves first, before we can expect anyone else to love us.  We have to have enough self-respect not to jump into things with both feet and not try to get back to shore when we realize we're swimming in leach infested waters.

So I've got that part down...the part where I know that I need to make a break.  The next step, I'm not so sure about.  Now that I've unleashed my emotions, I have a tendency to feel very...passionately...  Passionate love is what I've got...but the downfall is that I have the opposite problem too...  And the opposite of passionate love is passionate hate...actually, that's not true.  I really think that the opposite of passionate love is apathy...in my eyes, having someone hate you is much better than having someone be indifferent toward you.  But I haven't learned how to be apathetic yet...I really don't know that I'm cruel enough to ever be apathetic toward a person...so what I have to work with is passionate hate.  That's my solution for now.  

I know, I know...that's not a solution.  But it's what I have to let (or make) myself feel for now.  It's the only way to break the cycle of too much unhealthy love.  Therefore, if I happen to see a certain person and set my jaw, roll my eyes, or comment to a friend that I hate said-person's stupid face, it's only because at one point I loved too much.  I have to replace the love I felt and the pain of rejection with the feeling of general disgust toward the person I formerly cared for.  And if I fake it often enough, eventually it will become how I really feel.  And maybe at some point in the future, I will be wise enough to let that disgust fade into not caring at all.  

And that's the thought I had in mind when I made this journal page:

"Repetition creates a habit.  Repetition breaks a habit too."  -Melissa Ferrick

Here's a live version of the song that the words on the page are from:

If somebody has a better idea of how I can skip the feelings of hate and disgust and go right to not caring, I would love to hear it...I don't want to hate people, but I don't know any other way to make myself stop caring too much.  I've thought about trying to pity the aforementioned non-returners of love...you know, because I am pretty awesome and they are missing out big time...but that's not worked out so well.  I really kind of want to hate them for now.  And that is a feeling...even if it's not a very nice one...and it is one of my goals to accept what I am feeling...  Can you tell I'm trying to justify my longing to hate?  ...really, I'd feel much better if I just got to throat punch the non-requiters...and then say, 'Now you know how I felt'...but I don't think violence is the answer...or, really, I just can't afford the lawsuits...  So, for now, until some better choice comes along, I'll be repeatedly telling myself that I am above punching people...but not above hating their stupid faces...and maybe eventually I'll break the habit of caring about people who don't care about me.

Noteworthy...Or Not

All the way back in May, whilst buying comic books with my husband, I bought a little 4 x 6 notebook from Books-A-Million...because what I needed was one more new art journal... *averts eyes due to lie*  The reason I remember it was all the way back in May is because I did a bunch of sketches in it the day I got it...and ACTUALLY DATED THEM!  One of my goals is to be more diligent about dating my work...for purposes of noting improvement...plus I just think it looks cool...

Anyway, this little notebook has come to be my travel journal...because I carry it around in my purse and pull it out when I'm away from the house and bored.  So I thought I'd share what's going on in the book:

This is a very quick sketch of Andy, my husband.  He is a lot better looking in real life...however, I have captured the essence of the look he was giving me at the time.  He makes this face a lot...I call it his "disapproving father" look...we don't have kids, so I get to be the sole recipient of this face...all the time...

The first five pictures were all done on the same day...

...where we went on an impromptu road trip...

...on accident, just like always.  I blindly get into the car, expecting to go to Books-a-Million for comic books and end up driving to South Carolina and back home by way of Knoxville...

...proving that 'every day IS a winding road',  the days I end up in the car with Andy are at least.  

I also use this book for remembering important things, like the phone number for Bluff City Diner, which makes the most delicious from-scratch desserts.  I call them almost every weekend to see if they've made Buckeye Brownie Cake...I will make a special trip for Buckeye Brownie Cake...it's heaven in chocolate and peanut butter form.

There's also some lettering practice going on in the book...especially if I think of a really good phrase (like above) or if I hear some kind of awesome song lyrics that I want to remember.

Sometimes I draw people I work with when I'm on my lunch break.  This guy is a hipster cutie I work with...I accidentally made him have a weird look on his face, and I think he totally looks like he's thinking "Well, that's interesting..."

I also sketch ideas I have for at home art, like this picture.  I thought it would be really neat to have a picture where the wind was blowing leaves and one was really close to you, blocking things in the background...I really like the idea, I just need to figure out how to make it happen!

Having this book in my purse is a nice distraction from my day job...when I'm in a stinky mood, I can hit my car when I'm on my lunch or breaks and do a quick sketch to get me in a better state of mind...it really works most of the time!  ...but maybe not on this particular day...I still wanted to go home...

Can you tell I did this girl after watching Jane Davenport's Whimsical Faces video?  See those eyes?  Those are Jane eyes for sure...  

I like this girl and the song lyrics that she has beside her...I'm going to make a sit down fancy piece based on those lyrics someday...

I like this girl too...her face makes me super happy...and I like that phrase.  I saw it on Pinterest.  For the record, capricious means 'impulsive, unpredictable, changing suddenly for no reason'....I had to pull out the dictionary when I first saw the word...

I'd love to get good at  realistic fast sketches of people and things.  I'm practicing...nothing noteworthy yet.  Mostly the ones of people end up like the sketch of my husband in the first picture...a little menacing...   And the ones of things end up being skewed...  But I know I'll get better if I keep practicing...and I know I'll keep practicing because I'm obsessed.   

I'm also currently loving the thought of keeping an illustrated diary-type journal...one where I do (or attempt to do) realistic daily life drawings (with pen and ink and watercolor) and add diary style journaling to accompany it.  My art journals tend to be more 'whimsical' (egads, I hate that word...I don't know why...) and more broad spectrum emotion-y stuff and are mixed media.  So an illustrated journal would be a nice divergence from my normal journals...  Hmm...yeah, that's gonna happen...really soon...

Minneapolis...Face 3 of 29

Day 3 of 29 Faces and the 30 posts in 30 days do-over!  

I've got a face I'm SUPER happy with for you all today:

"I've been waiting for you to come back..."

I'd like to find a way to say how awesome I feel about this page without breaking my arm patting myself on the back!  Let's just say that I'm as surprised as you all are, how about that???  *insert a million angels singing and sunshine rays shining down on this page*

I picked the words for the page out of this song (Minneapolis by Lucinda Williams):

I always listen to music, especially when I'm arting it up...and I have to say that Lucinda Williams is one of my all-time favorite artists...I would go so far as to say that she's in the top three, if not number one on my list...and that's saying a lot, because I LOVE all kinds of music and it's hard for me to play favorites with singers and songwriters.  But 99.99999999% of the time, lyrics are my favorite thing about the music, and Lucinda's songs always have amazing lyrics.  That last verse especially gets to me:  "A dozen yellow roses All that's left in Minneapolis. I wish I'd never seen your face or heard your voice.  You're a bad pain in my gut.  I wanna spit you out.  Open up this wound again Let my blood flow red and thin Into the glistening Into the whiteness Into the melting snow of Minneapolis"  Can't you feel the sadness in it?  It just moves me so much!

At any rate, back to the journal page, I used a 2B pencil and black and gray watercolors (cake type...I think they are called pan watercolors, but doesn't calling them cakes make you feel so much better?  How can cakes be bad???) to make him.  You KNOW I'm happy when I don't want to even add color!  That NEVER happens!  (The pink at the right side of the picture is not on the page, it was over-spray from a previous page that got on the edge of the back cover and some of the later pages, but it's not actually on the page with this dude.)  There are only two things that bother me ever so slightly about this page, the shading on the nose...I think I could have done a little more with that...and the ear.  The ear bothers me the most...but in my defense, I couldn't see the ear in the photo reference I used; it was blurred out.  Well, let me just show you the picture I used: 

See?  That ear is all blurry and I couldn't get it right!  I will look for non-blurry ears in the future!

I know my page doesn't look like the reference photo, but I am still REALLY happy with the end result.  It definitely came out looking like a human, so that's a positive.  I'm pretty sure you can tell it's a male human...and masculine faces are harder to draw than feminine ones (at least they seem to be to me).  And I even thinks it looks like an attractive male human...not a horribly disfigured elephant man/Quasimodo...So overall, even if I stopped here (WHICH I'M NOT GOING TO DO), 29 Faces would still feel like a success for me...That's how happy I am with this face!

So before I go, don't forget that if you'd like to do my 30 posts in 30 days challenge do-over with me to please leave your link in the comments.

Also, if you've followed along with the blog for a while, you know I've been PROMISING to have a little giveaway when I reached 5,000 page views.  Well, 5,000 page views kind of blew past me when I wasn't looking!  Thank you sooooooo much for helping me get there!  Since I missed that milestone, what I decided to do is have the giveaway at the end of the month.  I have already started putting together a fun prize package...but you have to wait to see it...  On day 29 (since there's 29 faces), I will post a picture of the goodies (and of my 29th face, of course!) and then on the 30th, I will draw the winning name and announce it on the blog!  So, what do you have to do to be entered in the drawing?  If you're not already following me, it would be fantastic if you would follow my blog (I feel like I'm trying to start a cult when I say that) and then come back on Day 29...September 29, 2013, just to be clear...to see the prize and leave a comment so I know you want to be entered for a chance to win!  That's it, just two little things!  I'm really excited that you all care enough about the blog and my art that you keep coming back and checking in on what's happening...I wish I could give everybody prizes!  Big squishes and eager anticipation happening on my end!!!