I’m making time to fiddle around with art stuff – my next little project is going to involve watercolor-like graphite – and am still trying to find my style (if I have one?). I love hatching and have found that it’s a combination of zen-like focus and utter frustration, but I wanna branch out a bit.

Now, obviously, I’m not trying anything too daring for my first venture out, but I really enjoyed the process. I had to worry about shading a bit more than I have previously, which wasn’t the most successful part of this piece – which I have named “glam…” – but hey, I’m always learning.

Anyway, here she is:

I used to use colored pencils exclusively when I was a kid, but for whatever reason, I stopped? I can’t really remember what caused me to drop them, and I’m pretty sure I still have my stash of pencils at my parents’ house … hundreds of pencils. I should probably look for them, yes? I mean, as if I need to add to my already large collection that I already have that I barely use. Come to think of it, I don’t even remember buying most of them.

Anyway, in my latest Sketchbox, I was gifted a whole mess of quality colored pencils, so I was like, meh, what the hell?

And thus, this little sketch was born:

I wasn’t sure how I was going to like this one because it’s the first time I’ve used watercolor powder – damn, that can get way more pigmented than you want if you aren’t careful! – but I’m actually quite happy with the result. I think I’m going to play with these a bit more.

So I don’t think this is necessarily my best work, but! I’m playing with different styles now to see if I can incorporate them into my future pieces. Looking at this, it definitely does look amateurish, but hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?

I’m trying to remove myself from a lot of social media, or at least make sure that I have one place that’s mine, one area of the internet that I make and format and isn’t owned and run by a billionaire. So that means I’m going to be posting art on here a lot more than I have been. I’ll still have my artwork pages up for my best stuff, but I’m likely going to shut down my Facebook author page (I basically only use it to update my few followers about new posts on here) and maybe even Instagram at some point (less probable, but it’s on my radar).

And so here’s my first entry:

This is definitely not the best thing I’ve ever done – her eyes are all sorts of wonky and I did this freehand, which was A Choice – but! I’m starting to kiiiiind of get the hang of markers. It’s still not my favorite medium, but I’m not as antagonistic toward it. I’m still staunchly a watercolor gal, but with a bit more practice, I might actually learn to like markers?

I’ve mentioned this before in several posts, but I’m a perfectionist, so this is … hard for me to do without freaking out about fixing the issues I see or (what usually happens) just tossing this in the trash, but I see an improvement in my technique and need to get over showing people my mistakes. My plan is to continue posting sketchbook stuff – maybe I’ll even make it into a challenge later on in the summer, when I’m not freaking out about passing med-surg 2 – which will 1) desensitize myself to a lack of perfection in my work and 2) encourage myself to make art regularly.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in nursing school, it’s that I have to take care of all aspects of myself, not just my physical health, and art plays such a huge role in my mental and spiritual health that, if I don’t do it, the likelihood that I will go back into a depression raises exponentially. So no matter how shitty what I make is, well … y’all are going to have to see it.

You’re welcome.