Drawing, Self-Esteem, and Toracon

I've bitched about my atrophied art skills for years, now. I've attempted numerous plans and schedules for rebuilding my lost habits and talents. I've never really done anything about it. Yesterday was Toracon, this little middle school anime convention a friend and her students put on. I always try to have an Artist's Alley table there, to help support them. I don't exactly make my money back, but it's worth it anyway. I'll make a couple of bucks through prints or little sketch commissions, but mostly I'm just there, talking and hanging out for around six hours. 

Yesterday, more than any previous con, I spent the day drawing and talking about drawing. I made over half a dozen little sketches (commissioned and otherwise) of various geek characters in the bubble people style. I spent way too much time on each of them 'cause I was having fun with colored pencils. I looked through a kid's sketchbook and remembered the days when I used to actually fill those books. I had two or three kids come by, take one look at my stuff, and tell me how gorgeous my art was. I had one kid come by and say he wanted to learn how to be good like me. I said to one kid, once, that my neighbor's art was way better than mine, and that neighbor told me flat to stop it. I recognized, throughout the day, how frequently I was talking about the skill I USED to have and how disparaging I was about the bubble people I do now. 

I'm good at these little guys. Paul got me started on them in college, and I do them all the time, now. They're an incredibly fun, subtly versatile style of drawing. I went to my friend's house, last evening, and as soon as I sat down, my first impulse was to start drawing again. I think this is a sign, yes? Stop talking about it and just start bringing my sketchbook places again. 

Rule of Five

My willpower, my self-discipline, my ability to self-start on accomplishment has waxed and waned over the years. I remember poorly-handled attempts at managing my own academics, at various points in my homeschooling career. I remember taking two years for the ninth grade because I simply hadn't gotten much done. My procrastination bloomed during college, and touches on far more than simply studying or doing paperwork chores. Everything from snooze buttons to eating to exercise have been problematic at times. I know I've been good at this, though, because I remember being almost entirely in charge of my academics during my senior year of high school, and I got everything done. I was in the best shape of my life because I was willingly going to Capoeira some seven, eight times a week. In the last half-year, I've been developing strategies to accomplish what I've gotten out of the habit of. Some work, some haven't. I'll better cover lists, food, and my commandments in other posts, but today is for the Rule of Five.

My Rule of Five is that I don't have to do everything at once, but if I start on something, I need to do five bits of it. I put away my bed in the morning (air mattress, so I fold all the blankets and stack them and the mattress against the wall)? I count each blanket as I fold and stack it, count the pillow as I put it away, count the mattress as I lean it against the wall. There are eight things in total, so if I do them all at once, I need to put away two other items in my room to finish out my count. It works during the day, too, because I'll put away the shoes I left on the floor, then do a quick sweep around the room to get four more things. I might keep going after that, or I might be done with it until later. Rule of Five means that I stop being so intimidated by the big tasks I have to accomplish and instead focus on getting them at least a little bit done.

It applies to more than picking up, too. My bookmarks, for example, have been horribly jumbled for... years. I obviously saved these things for a reason, but as they are, I ain't never lookin' at them again. So, today, I took care of ten of them. Some are sorted into new folders, some are deleted outright, and some are saved onto Pinterest instead of my bookmarks folder. It's a start. Music? Oh, God, my music collection is a Stygian horror of corrupted files, duplicates and triplicates, former half-complete organization attempts, and the inclusion of music of Jeremy's that I no longer want. Not to mention that I, morally, don't want to have music that I didn't get legitimately, anymore. I had my downloading phase, made easier by college ethernet, but no more. As I organize my music, I'm making a list of the songs and albums I want to buy. If I'm not willing to spend money on it, I'm deleting it outright.

Five songs at a time.