Have A Mojo

Random word of the day - "Union" It's time– Time to move on from rendering basic shapes to colors. Today I'm reviewing another part of the workshop notes I took, which involve value, hue, saturation, and where they exist on basic shapes. Here's another warning If you have no interest or experience in painting from life, I suggest you skip the following notes. Don't read it or you'll get bored and confused. I don't want to lose you!!  Just go ahead and scroll down to my horrible exercise-paintings. If you are interested , however, and my notes end up confusing you in any way, go ahead and send me a message or ask a question in the comments. I'll gladly help. Joan Miro said: I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music. What a beautiful comparison. And now, on with the notes! The most beautiful greys are the ones produced by mixing opposite (complementary) colors. Also if you ever want to de

Rendering an apple - Another "comparing" exercise Last Saturday, I decided not to blog over the weekend in order to reflect about what I should be writing. That however escalated into a relapse where I started ignoring my new ways completely. I didn't paint or write until today. " The Nothing " had befallen me again, which is making me sad and anxious. I'm not really sure what happened, and I even went through the techniques I learned to figure out what I was doing and why. I did not like the answers. I'm just bored of it all. I doubt this has anything to do with depression, but I'm positive that it will be the case if this continues. I started this blog as a means to regain mojo, and I believe I found plenty— I learned a couple of life-hacks to free myself of "Nothing", I painted daily (and enjoyed it), and I was facing the demons that came along the way. So why did I relapse? Just boredom? Fear? One thing is certain, my blo

A sketch inspired by the random word of the day - "Place" Here's the situation, I'm a sort-of off today. I don't feel like writing. I'm very agitated, and when I feel this way, I simply want to withdraw into doing easy things like watching a video or playing WoW. But instead of falling into another loop of  Nothing, I'm going to repeat the method I learned earlier — Getting to the root of the matter by questioning a 6 year old. So, what's up dear? I don't feel like writing.   Why don't you feel like writing? Everything around me is agitating— I couldn't think of something to write about, it's hot, the dogs have already been out, but every time I move they think I'm taking them out again (which is adorable under normal circumstances), there is a spot on my face that I want to scream at, I want to shower but there is wet laundry hanging in my tiny toilet, I want to change the bedsheets but all the other sheets are

So today I googled "hate of repetition"— I've always been the type of person who can't cope with the same things happening over and over. Repeating tasks just becomes so intimidating to the point I'd do anything humanly possible to stop them, or life becomes unbearable. I don't want this happening again now that I have something to do. The only answer I found that made any sense is depression as a root cause. Yes, I know that the internet is not a healthy source of information on this matter, which is why I decided to stop the search. I would however like to share the search result that brought me to this conclusion by Haley Quinn: 22 Things From My Everyday Routine That 'Go Out the Window' When I'm Depressed  It only shares people's experiences with depression and how they've reacted. It somehow put my mind to ease (about starting to hate my routine). Now here's the thing— I'm not particularly fond of writing about t

I didn't manage to fall asleep until 3am this morning, but in my defense, I wasn't stalling or using technology. I just failed to sleep (and that's probably a result of the endless sleep procrastination cycles I subjected myself to over the years) :-( In any case, no point dwelling on failures when I'm in the process of correcting them. I decided that today's method will be to review parts of the material and exercises I learned while attending an Imaginism workshop years ago. I'll be going over my notes about planes light & shadows how to render basic shapes and I'll be blogging in the meantime. So let's go. I've reviewed these notes a million times over the years, but for some reason, I always end up forgetting some of the most important points. Warning! If you have no interest or experience in how to paint light and shadow, I suggest you skip the following list. Don't read it or you'll get bored and confused. I don&

More face-rendering practice Re-make of the "mist" day painting .. the one that made me want to study face-rendering. Thumbnail-story inspired by today's  random word — "Blank" I googled it— "Hate going to bed", and turns out it's not an abnormality after all. In fact, there are so many guilty-as-charged, studies  have been conducted. Brenda Savoie writes about this in her blog post: How To Break Your Bedtime Procrastination Habit I'm not surprised to see mentions of mismanagement of time, as well as the inability to sleep as side-effects of chronic bedtime procrastination. Brenda also lists some pointers that might help rid us of this habit. The one I relate to the most is getting into the habit of purging any excess feelings that might still be occupying our fragile minds (I know it's not just me). This includes any type of feeling— Anger, frustration, sadness, and even happiness! ...  if you manage to exp