Like the title says. Shit hit the fan these last few months-- health problems, work troubles, money troubles, and psychological suck all in one nice, steaming pile, just for me!

Money is still an issue, and eventually, I hope, I'll be able to start selling art to help with that. I hope. I'm going to get back into posting at least weekly here, to force myself to practice.

Life is a pain in the ass some days.

...and cleaning out my submissions folder. Is it creepy to go through and comment as well as fave? I feel like I'm stalking these poor artists, but I swear it's just that I'm going through my submissions back log! I know on dA you always get that gentle reminder to add a comment after a favorite, and so I figure-- that's probably only polite. Right? Maybe?

I'm so socially awkward. I have no idea what I'm doing here.

Up today: gesture drawings, then some actual art.

I hope.

*fist pump* Okay, let's go!

Holy crap. I did it! I did the digital art thing! It only took me twenty minutes to figure out why I could only paint in red (the red channel was selected) and only took me two hours to figure out how to use a gradient map effectively! *confetti*

I mean, it's not perfect by a long shot, and there is plenty of room to improve, but I'm really proud. I haven't done and actual piece of digital art in a long time-- I fell out of practice thanks to life, depression, work. And then there was the anxiety of trying to start it again! What if I suck? What if everyone laughs at me? What if my sad under
powered computer commits suicide during the night?!

Honestly, two days isn't bad. Not at all. It took way less time than I expected once I remembered that gradient maps exist. I've never used them before-- I could never get them to work-- but I finally beat GIMP into submission and made it work. I tried new things like adding texture, worked with new brushes-- I forgot how much fun this all was.

I want to continue this. I missed this. I didn't realize just how much until now. I have an outlet again, and it feels wonderful.

Just need to write somewhere to get this out of my head-- I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall.

It used to be easy to color things in GIMP, didn't it? What, five or so years ago? Augh Fucking hell. Seriously.

I'm out of practice, and remembering precisely why I hate coloring images-- It's such a pain in the ass, and it's not really how my brain works. Which sounds like a cop out. I see in color, yes, but I feel like I don't do so well enough to actually color anything worth a damn. Traditional media is hard enough, digital is horrific-- the only advantage is I can cleanly erase my mistakes without destroying the surface I'm working on.

I really miss having Painter. I loved that program. I could try to boot up my old desk top and use that, but that would pretty much require rearranging my art room and even then, I'm sure I'd have the same problems I do now, it's just that I'd have something closer to traditional media (sort of) to work with.

And then you factor in the fact that even in traditional media, I don't use it "correctly."

The trouble with never going to school for art. You have to learn this crap yourself. Which, really, isn't such a bad thing. But sometimes I wonder if it might be less frustrating if I had gone to school for art rather than what I did.

Then again, most people I meet that go to art school all want to make things that... really don't have much appeal to me. And they seem to do no better with some of this than I do.

Rant over. Getting something to eat, taking a breath, and then going back to trying again. Can't get any better unless you try, right?