#keep learning

Are those Sebastian or Dan’s hands?? 🤭🫣🤫

While it’s not my favorite piece I’ve done of Willow, I’m proud of myself. Today drawing was being mean to me. My paper ripped while lining her, the pens bled, and her hair color marker is drying. But one of the beautiful things I love about art is that it’s not made from the perfection and quality of it, it’s made from the mistakes and the passion behind it. While artist can perfect and create the best things, they can also make mistakes, but instead of throwing those mistakes away, which is easy to do, I’ve learned that it’s more rewarding to see the progress you made to make those mistakes turn into something equally as beautiful. Because of that, I think I’ll set this as a new pfp, to remind myself and others of that!

Thanks @clumsydragon28 and @twnj for this idea!

Okay, so I am notoriously bad at saying how I feel. Whether it be online or in person, I struggle to find words to communicate my ideas, theories and opinions. I grew out of a speech impediment from early childhood, and have even managed to get through four years of graduate study...and I still don't know how to express myself to the world without the fear that I'm misrepresenting myself.

But for the first time in a long time, I feel like I have an outlet for expression: art. Expressing myself through art and digital media has literally freed me from so much internal blockage. Learning the technical elements--values/color theory, gesture, line weight, etc.--and story elements like composition and narrative has given me more ways to communicate than ever before. Things I learned from college (hello Gestalt psychology) are suddenly coming up again, how to organize information and communicate a vision. And for the first time since FOURTH GRADE, I don't feel so ashamed to say that I'm an artist. I see something in my head and I have to tell the world how I see it.

I use to draw my friends and I as Winx Club characters. I would spend lunch periods drawing Pokemon and sharing them with my art buddies in class, and reading the "official" handbooks from the school library. I loved Project Runway and the way designers would translate a vision from paper to showcase. It's no wonder that I would spend so much time in my school's theater department, putting on shows for the stage.

Fast forward to 2019, I hadn't picked up a pencil to draw in years (I had become hyper-focused on academics, getting into a "good" college, etc.). Oddly enough, my academics would lead me back to drawing. I was a cognitive science major, and a significant part of the curriculum was learning the anatomy of the brain, sensory organs, nervous system, etc. I was mapping out bodily systems and functions for tests. At first, I hated it--I didn't see myself as interested in the body that way. But I eventually enjoyed what felt like a new way of communicating through mapping, color coding, annotating, etc.

Okay fast FAST forward to 2023/4. I was sad lol but not for the reasons you think. Truthfully, I felt tired of fandom and didn't know how to revive my love for it. I got back into sewing, debuting two of my cosplays for contests; revisited manga and anime I hadn't interacted with in years like Cardcaptor Sakura and Zatch Bell! I was slowly starting to repair my relationship with media in a way that didn't feel so...consuming. I was beginning to tell stories again. And most importantly, I found a love for characters that made me feel seen. The Akimichis are that to me, and I realized the story I wanted to tell had to feature them.

Lots of people won't call their friends out on ablist/racist/sexist/queerphobic etc shit, because they want to keep peace, dont have the energy, have trauma around it, or fear rejection and ostracization.

And beyond that, if some random person on the street tells you theyre a plumber, your not immediately going to let this stranger into your home. But lets say they show you their certificate in plumbing. First of all, that could be fabricated. And even if it wasn't, a certificate is no guarantee that theyre a GOOD plumber. It just means someone gave them a passing score on some test or another some years ago. It takes first hand experience to earn trust.

All this to say, i dont mind if I come out to you, you tell me you have a friend or a family member who is like me. I'll usually take you at your word and think that you likely have some base knowledge in the area. But dont expect me to open my whole heart to you or trust you implicitly. I won't automatically believe that you are knowledgeable about the politics taking away our rights and systemic stigmatization, let alone are taking appropriate action to do what you can do help us.