So, some news: tomorrow morning I'm having surgery on my right arm - my dominant arm - my drawing arm, my writing arm, my brushing-my-teeth and typing-in-chat and unlocking-my-door arm - and will lose most use of it for years, and an unknown (but hopefully less dire) amount of use of it forever. As you might expect, this sucks so, so bad.

As you can see above, I have been trying to proactively warm up my left hand so I can still write and such once this happens. As you might also detect above, it has not felt great.

(complements on my left-handed writing are not welcome; the feel of it is so alien that even if it looked perfect, i'd be upset)

So while I go in to get that done, I was wondering if you'd be willing to reply or repost or something with a thing you like about my work that isn't about how it looks? So I can go back to this post when I get real depressed afterwards and remind myself I'm more than my line quality?

And if you are curious, slightly more explanation with anatomical specifics below the cut:

shameless insta crosspost update: surgery got delayed till Monday, then it went well and now I am home taking many naps and watching extremely chill youtubes.

I'm really too busy to draw the webcomic I'm currently happily committed to, but of course my mind is just dancing around all sorts of short story ideas for other comics, just in case.

After reading E K Johnstons' The Afterward, I'm thinking about lady knights again, and wondering if these three from a short story I did years ago might deserve a followup short?

Got out an old caran d’ache oil pastel set and did a crystal study on newsprint while hanging out with my niece over discord. If you need to get excited about colour again, may I recommend pastels? They are amazingly inspiring to use!

tonight's painting visitor was a pearl mouth of some sort - every time i take a photo of a beautiful mouth i think of @lycomorpha's work and it was a lovely reminder at the art desk tonight, even if i did throw my paper blending stump across the room when it first surprised me.

so I've been taking photos of bugs, now that I can trust my phone to not chew up any macro or zoom photography I take, and sharing them onto inaturalist. it scratches my look I took a photo itch, it scratches my talking about cool things itch, it often tells me what bug I took a photo of, and it connects me with a whole lot of other people who occasionally also look at my photo of a bug and say yep that's that bug. it's a really great motivator is what I'm saying. but the best thing about this is that it has completely changed the dance my brain does when it sees a bug.

for context, I am a twitchy and tense person who doesn't see very well in dim light or out of my peripheral vision, so I am usually very surprised by bugs flapping or running into my field of view, or if I'm very unlucky I hear them first. and because I'm twitchy that often makes me jump, flail, and in general just be stressed. but now, while I might still yell and flail once if I am surprised by a bug, the secondary instinct of taking its photo and putting it on inaturalist to find out what bug it is completely takes over my brain almost immediately. and all of the adrenaline and fear response that I've spent a lifetime training myself for just leaves.

last night I let this little moth climb onto my hand and it let me carry it outside and it was the sweetest interaction I've had with a wild animal maybe ever? and while I extremely do not expect to have that kind of interaction with a house centipede or any of the many wasps in my yard, I don't think I could have had it with a moth either before improving this loop in my brain.

which is to say, if you too do a lot of yelping and freaking out over bugs despite wishing you were not yelping and freaking out at every bug, maybe try taking a photo of more bugs. going out and opting into finding and looking at a bug has made being surprised by them much, much less awful.

another visitor tonight!

he for sure knew i was photographing him

starting another animal painting in oil pastel

making good progress but let it be known: this lighting arrangement is TOUGH

finished!

starting another animal painting in oil pastel

making good progress but let it be known: this lighting arrangement is TOUGH

WIP; ref from unsplash

finished! oil pastel in a Robert Bateman sketchbook; the heavy paper is handling the pastels really well actually!

tonight's painting visitor was a pearl mouth of some sort - every time i take a photo of a beautiful mouth i think of @lycomorpha's work and it was a lovely reminder at the art desk tonight, even if i did throw my paper blending stump across the room when it first surprised me.

so I've been taking photos of bugs, now that I can trust my phone to not chew up any macro or zoom photography I take, and sharing them onto inaturalist. it scratches my look I took a photo itch, it scratches my talking about cool things itch, it often tells me what bug I took a photo of, and it connects me with a whole lot of other people who occasionally also look at my photo of a bug and say yep that's that bug. it's a really great motivator is what I'm saying. but the best thing about this is that it has completely changed the dance my brain does when it sees a bug.

for context, I am a twitchy and tense person who doesn't see very well in dim light or out of my peripheral vision, so I am usually very surprised by bugs flapping or running into my field of view, or if I'm very unlucky I hear them first. and because I'm twitchy that often makes me jump, flail, and in general just be stressed. but now, while I might still yell and flail once if I am surprised by a bug, the secondary instinct of taking its photo and putting it on inaturalist to find out what bug it is completely takes over my brain almost immediately. and all of the adrenaline and fear response that I've spent a lifetime training myself for just leaves.

last night I let this little moth climb onto my hand and it let me carry it outside and it was the sweetest interaction I've had with a wild animal maybe ever? and while I extremely do not expect to have that kind of interaction with a house centipede or any of the many wasps in my yard, I don't think I could have had it with a moth either before improving this loop in my brain.

which is to say, if you too do a lot of yelping and freaking out over bugs despite wishing you were not yelping and freaking out at every bug, maybe try taking a photo of more bugs. going out and opting into finding and looking at a bug has made being surprised by them much, much less awful.

tonight's painting visitor was a pearl mouth of some sort - every time i take a photo of a beautiful mouth i think of @lycomorpha's work and it was a lovely reminder at the art desk tonight, even if i did throw my paper blending stump across the room when it first surprised me.