I haven't posted anything new in a couple weeks.
It has been a weird and hectic couple weeks.
The day of my last post, a couple hours after I made it, I was laid off from my job of two years. So, since then, I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do, both in the immediate and near future.
On the weekend of the 26 of July I worked my first convention and actually sold some art, which was pretty cool, though I did not even recoup the cost of my prints.
Unfortunately, I'm still having problems with my hands. I managed to squeeze in one more doctor appointment and a few tests before my insurance was cancelled, and we found a couple more things I am negative for and my doctor prescribed me some mild muscle relaxers in case a slight narrowing in some disks in my neck is causing the problems in my hands and just like for everything I've done so far, sometimes my hands are better and I start feeling really optimist and like we've finally found the thing that works. And then, they get bad again. Sometimes as a seeming result of inactivity and sometimes after overexertion. I pushed a little hard last night finishing coloring a sketch I did at the convention (here look some doodles!):
...and today my hand...actually, to some extent, BOTH my hands...are achy and pretty unhappy. I even supplemented my current treatment with four ibuprofen, just in hopes that the inflammation might chill out.
I'm just...I'm so frustrated by this and right now I really really want to draw and my hands hurt.
And I want to do sketches and try new things and not have everything I make have to be a completed thing or be a waste of very very limited resources...I need to be able to draw more than a couple hours a day without ending up out of commission for the next few days. I mean, for CRYING OUT LOUD.
And yeah, I pushed too hard last night, but based on past precedent, I sometimes what seems like 'too hard' causes me no problems and the sometimes it does and I'm kind of on the verge of tears today and now that I have no insurance I can't even go back to the doctor for more tests and more trying to figure out what's wrong.
And I have like, 100 projects lined up in my brain and every time this happens it really...stifles me as an artist. Because I can't relax and just draw. With every practice sketch I make, with every mistake I have to delete and with every detailed area I need to fill, I feel like I have Damacles' sword hanging over me. And I never know which bit will be too much. If I don't push, might I have been fine for another hour of drawing and that's something I don't want to miss out on. But if I do, maybe I'm going to end up with aching hands and distended veins and lose the ability to draw more than a couple minutes at a time for days. If not longer.
I'm just so tired of this and want to be better.
And I don't know how I'm going to work like this.
Everything is awful.
Edit: i colored another doodle --
