Black Gives Way to Blue (and a sketch preview)

The past nearly 2 weeks have been emotionally rough, as is expected.  It's still rough but I can feel the tendrils of adaptation starting to take root.

For one, I've found that my love of just sketching things has started to return.  I have a lot of 'moments to breathe' now and I tend to gravitate towards creating things again.  I haven't been as worried about tight sketches as much as just getting some weird idea down into lines.  

Above is one of those sketches that's still in progress.  Just a little 'snippet preview' of a larger picture, featuring wolves, because it's winter and wolves seem to go well with the season.

Of course, there is a story to the above picture, which is another thing I have found joy in again.  Just writing out a sentence or two about things that I might find to be an interesting 'thing', even if only to myself (But hopefully others).

I have found that I've needed to get back into a routine again.  Art and writing both seem to notch into that groove nicely without feeling like a 'chore'.  I've begun trying to learn things again, and even watch videos on art to get myself back up to speed, and maybe learn a thing or two in the process.  

It is work.  But it is work that I love and am passionate about.

Going forward, I'm going to put some feelers out to see if people are still interested in commissions.  While I have done lots of sketches for folks over the years as part of the Patron tier (and that will continue), I have only done a literal couple commissions over the last four years at least, if not more.

Part of this is to bring in extra income.  Six years ago I could only work part time.  Four years ago I couldn't work outside the home at all as I went into full time caregiving.  I've been out of the workforce for a fair while now and the extra income would help bolster things.  Depending on output and how I feel about doing that work again, I still may be hunting for a part time job at least as well.

The other part of taking on commissions is that it not only keeps me in practice, but I just like making cool shit for people, and seeing their ideas too.

None of this should make my output here drop.  Quite the contrary, I expect my output here will only go up as I can now treat each weekday as a work day.  8:30am starts with coffee, 5:30 stops for dinner.  Brokering time to do this feels strange but nice.  It's done wonders for helping me cope, and mourn, as strange as that sounds, because it gives me structure, and purpose again.

I'll still have my down days.  We all do.  When my mother passed away nearly 30 years ago it took a good year to get to the stage where the hole left behind was manageable.  And I do still have a lot of work to do in regards to settling the estate.  It's not hard, just a lot of paperwork, and filing, and waiting.. Lots and lots of waiting.

So, onward.  Let's see where this path leads.

-T.J.