Avert Yon Gaze, Ye Makers of Merry Mocking

Don't look below what I have to say if you have a delicate psyche such as myself. I was doing a project you guys might remember called "In the Pain"? I never finished it. Maybe the thought behind it was not visceral enough for me for the project's namesake. And do you remember when I mentioned making art for Narcolepsy? Well, tonight I have. And I wept a little as I drew my helpless creation, part inspired by the original "In the Pain" intended visual, only put to use in a more frightful fashion, and partly inspired also by my own experiences.

People say things, most of the time not really understanding their impact. We all do it. And I'm not particularly mad about this thought that just pops out of some of my loved ones mouths. They don't see it. They don't know. They don't feel it crawling along, dragging you around by your constantly heavy eyelids. They don't see the darkness slithering in, pressing down, reminding you that you have no real control. And I can go on with this, and on, and on, but that in itself is awfully tiresome. But the thing I've heard constantly from friend, from family, from stranger is " I wish I could sleep like that!"

Do you, really?

She:

"Please, WAKE ME UP!" A silent scream between the realms of dream and awake. She cannot move, although she feels and hears the movement. To her horror, her nightmares solidify. To her partner on the other side of the bed, if he were to wake at this point all he would see are her eyes boring into the ceiling, or they may even be closed. He wouldn't know unless he caught the sight of a tear trickling through her hair, or the small whimper she might be able to manage.

Sometimes when it's particularly awful, she breaks free of the paralysis but is weak and still sees the nightmare, causing her to scream and spasm, until she's rigid again, only this time it's the Cataplexy. Stone once again, she gives up only to dare sleep again in hopes she won't wake the same way. If she's fortunate, her lover is there, to hold her, to soothe her until the monsters fade, then if she feels up to it, he moves her limbs to try to hasten movement and warmth back into her body so she can go about her day. 

It's a wonder she hasn't completely lost her mind yet.

There are even nights that she doesn't sleep. Nightmares and strange epic dreams consume all of her sleep time anyway, no 90 minutes of dreamless rest for this one before she's off again being a male space pirate battling robots in an underground tunnel rigged to explode, but damn it! The sacrifice has to be made!!! As fun as THAT sounds, mostly it leads to anxiety.

Not quite touching base on all of it, but as shown in the above drawing, this is real. There are no sweet dreams for me. There's no real rest, no matter how much I exhaust myself. I'm always scared to sleep and have been since I was young. 

Once again, I'm not mad. I'm just demonstrating that I do not really sleep that well. So don't wish it on yourselves, my dear people, to be Narcoleptic. 

As grim as I may sound, and as sardonic my smile can be, I'm still pretty happy.

Whoa, Nelly!

It's a myth that Narcoleptics sleep ALL the time. We simply don't get the restorative 90 minutes of solid sleep time in between dreams like other do. Sometimes dreams happen while awake! Last night I was unable to sleep a wink. Not because I wasn't tired. Ooooh, boy, was I tired. Just couldn't get my mind to stop racing, or my eyes to close. I took my meds in hopes that this major sleep deprivation doesn't impair me too harshly today. However, I keep getting these fun little waves of silliness in between zombie states. BEHOLD!

I may get wild later after I down a pot of coffee and draw this cool idea my husband came up with the other night. Now as long as I don't get the wiggins (hallucinations and cataplexy) I should be cool. Here's to hoping! (raises coffee mug)

Sale!

Featuring my first Promotional Sale! My After Black Friday 15% off special! Dec 3rd through the 25th. Use discount code afterblackfri at checkout in either my storenvy or etsy!

Prints

I ordered a copy of both sized prints I have available through my stores of Moonshine. My brother suggested that I try to sell poster sized prints instead of the 8x10 (shown next to the 16x20 print here). I'm thinking that perhaps I will with the others. Warning, I'm not a professional photographer and I was too excited to post these once I got them despite how dark my house is right now.

Would you like to have poster sizes of the others? All of my prints come housed in a transparent sleeve to protect the image, then are laid upon a sheet of cardboard or inside a sturdy folder to prevent bending.

I have slowed down with new art for the moment due to holidays, but I will be paying attention to my shops for orders. As always, thanks for stopping by!

Wow

I went to check in with my Storenvy shop before heading to bed and found a message plastered to my screen about recent changes to their shopping experience and whatnot. I stumbled upon Storenvy not that long ago and decided go with them too with being able to list things for free, custom store page, being able to link it to facebook so people can shop directly from there, and other nifty things that etsy doesn't do with only having to deal with profits being taken from Paypal for using their services. Then today, BOOM! Hey, they want 10% commission (and this includes from your shipping) if people shop from their marketplace to get to your store, on TOP of what Paypal and now Stripe (whatever the customer chooses during checkout) take from whatever you make.

Now, I understand it's a business. And the previous things I've mentioned are pretty neat, but hotdog dudes, I'm just a tiny business person! I won't be shutting my store down and I won't be changing prices to accommodate this commission thing, so don't worry. Just another price I have to pay to try to get more exposure on this world wide web. And I still don't have to pay anything until "I" get paid, so still not that big of an issue. I kinda feel like doing a pros and cons type of deal between Etsy and Storenvy but I'm too tired for that right now. I like a lot of aspects of both, but it may prove a little more expensive for me to use Storenvy now.

I just wanted to let you guys know, in case any of you mess with either of my stores, that things will remain unchanged for you if you heard this news elsewhere. No panicking on your end, you hear?

Okay, NOW I'm going to bed. Geez.

Rawr!

Another sleepless night for this Narcoleptic. We had a long day of Christmas shopping and it wore my kiddo out so much that he wound up sleeping all the way home (between 7-8pm), therefore keeping him up to this point. He's in bed, but he's restless. At least he's not upset about going to bed when he feels he just woke up. Hopefully by the end of this post he'll be asleep. My old man gave up hours ago on staying up. He has a massive sleep debt like you wouldn't believe.

Great news that I meant to mention the other day, ETSY APPROVED my printing service. Now I'm selling prints instead of downloads in my Etsy shop! Same prices as the storenvy shop. Hopefully I'll see some business soon. Click here for Etsy.

When I went out shopping earlier I picked up a 12 piece set of oil pastels. Nothing fancy since I don't know how I feel about them yet but I'm going to have fun experimenting, especially since I love to mix mediums. As soon as I awake from the dead tomorrow that's what I'll be doing. Not sure how good of an idea it'll be to put them in my scanner when I'm finished with whatever project I wind up doing. Meh.

I'm so jealous! Tyler's Art Shack channel on youtube. Oil Pastels.



Well, I think the boy is asleep so ciao my lovely peoples.

Venturing Further Into Color

I pulled an abstract on myself the other night whilst being kept up 'til 3am by SOMEONE'S CHILD... oh yeah, mine. It was fun, though, my eyeballs swirling and closing into near sleep while my brush moved across the paper. The first layer of paint, yeah I was nearly snoozing but while I was getting into the second layer, I perked up and started experimenting with my brush strokes... and stabs. I was nearly maniacal in my movement, to the point where my 3 year old stopped coloring with his crayolas to raise his eyebrow at me in puzzlement. Maybe it was more like concern.

Anyway, so here's what came about when my subconscious took over:

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I've already put it up in my storenvy shop. I'm calling it "Abstracted Green". Well, goodnight all. I'm going to work on something else now.

Couldn't Sleep

So I made this:

I've named her Liv and she's available in the storenvy store. She was originally supposed to be all tearful because she was only supposed to be a test for drawing water, then she just evolved into this.

Well, I'm falling asleep at the keyboard. Check you later. Aimes out! (Head thump)

Thought Interrupting a Thought

Kidneythieves' Zerospace album is stuck in my head tonight as I patiently wait for my child to slip off to sleep. He hasn't been feeling well so I let him nap when I normally wouldn't. Kind of paying for it now! Oh, well. When you need rest, it must happen.
I've been thinking of other things to draw. Not that I'm finished with what I'm currently working on, I'm just wanting to make a note of potential future projects. Like maybe doing portraits in a fantasy type setting. THAT could be endlessly fun and entertaining. A friend's mom suggested that I draw covers for self-publishing book sites at some point, too. Gather more people to my art.
I get my test prints in from White House Custom Color tomorrow (today, technically) and I'm all kinds of elated over that. This initial order of 8x10 inch test prints was completely free and it should be coming with samples of finishes and different types of paper. I will post when I get them in. Too tired to post much else and I think the little one has finally nodded off. Ciao and as always, thanks for stopping by!
"Mistake in the belief that all I see is with my eyes" - Kidneythieves, Song "Take a Train (Awakening)"

When Dream is on the Horizon

Unlooked for inspiration flows easier into my mind when I'm halfway between awake and dreaming. The night is soothing to me for that reason. The day feels so chaotic, so busy, that I can't properly focus with all that light glaring at me. All the things that have to be done during the day is rushing your life forward so fast that you can't even grasp who and what you are for a comprehensible length of time. The night is a time of reflection for me, of slowing down life enough so that I can drink in my existence and contemplate the existence of others in a greater scope. So quiet. Ah, but I over think.

I'm becoming more "conscious" of that moment right before I drift off. Where my dreams are but shades swirling and attempting to come to life, forming fleeting shapes that I can remember when I wake in the morning. Last night, an image came to me. It was a visual culmination of all the thoughts that had flitted through my brain before I decided to give up and go to bed. This image begs to be drawn but how I'm seeing it, I'm not sure I could pull it off.

A woman screaming with pain, tearing her bright button up shirt open to reveal dark hands reaching out of her chest. Then a moment later the genderless dark figure discards the woman, now a heap of flesh and clothing, onto the ground. It looks relieved. I realize then that it is the woman truly unclothed. I understand what I saw. I mean, wouldn't it be nice to do away with the trivialities of the day to day and get in touch with what's really inside? Like the shadow of ourselves that lives deep within, desperate to be seen? It speaks of a certain degree of spirituality, I think. Breaking away from the material. But it's hard and it's painful to try. So much easier to live in the here and now. (Sigh)

Perhaps I need to put Carl Jung back up on the shelf. And also back away from the astral projection books.

So the perspective of the image I want to draw (the woman screaming) I find a bit daunting, I'm used to the straight on looks, as if we're standing right in front of them, but this woman I'm looking at from above while she has her head tilted down at the hands reaching, her eyes closed. If only I could take a photo. I find it so hard to translate what is in my head onto paper the way I see it. With meditation, it is getting better to keep a grasp on these images for longer periods of time but I don't know if it's going to be long enough. I have so many wild and beautiful things come from my head... agh. But I will attempt it. I found a few images for painful faces for reference. I won't post them here since they are not my images. I'll start on it after I'm finished with project Autumn. I spent too many years bouncing between projects which left so much unfinished.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." - Carl Jung

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.” - Carl Jung