Via Schatky with thanks to Lickal0lli for the translation
This is actually such an amazingly motivational post because it explains visually exactly what art block is. Do you know what art block is?
Art block is that moment when you realise your skills could be so much more then they currently are. It frustrates you to draw because you can finally see your drawings differently. You can see where they can be better and you want them to be better. It’s not a matter of “I can’t draw today”, it’s a matter of “I imagined this would turn out so much better” and “there’s something missing, I just know it. What technique did I miss.” You’ve got past that temporary phase of analysing and researching and now you’re able to incorporate it in your own work, you just need to figure out how, and when you get past that art block. Well, you’ll see the improvement before you know it. Slowly, but it’s there. And once you get comfortable with using those new skills you’ll move on and start analysing again, and you’ll see where you can improve.
Stay experimental and open to learn, it’s the quickest way to get over art block.
When I was a child, from the time I was about four and could understand things, my mom told me and my brother that we should have a secret word. That way, if we were ever in trouble or felt unsafe and we didn’t want the people around us to know we needed her to come get us, we could let her know. So she let us pick the word and my brother and I chose the phrase “peanut butter cups.” (I’m happy to share the phrase now since both my brother and I are adults now).
I used the phrase twice in my life. Once, I was at a friends house when I eight years old. Her dad got really drunk and was throwing things against the wall. I was really scared and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself on the phone when I called my mom to come get me because I didn’t know if he would get more violent if I asked her to come get me. So I called her and was calm and after a couple minutes I asked “Hey mommy, did you get me those peanut butter cups from the store?” And she said “I’ll be right there.” And she came and got me within minutes.
Second, I was a teenager spending the night at a friends house. Her brother and dad were drinking and they started talking about things that made me uncomfortable – ie: what they liked to do to women. My friend didn’t seem perturbed and said that was normal for them and that I shouldn’t worry. But I was worried because they were really drunk and I was 15 and the only ‘woman’ around that wasn’t related to them. I went in my friends room, told her I needed to call my mom and say goodnight. Before I hung up with her I asked “Next time we go to the store, can we get some peanut butters cups? I’ve been craving them.” And she came and got me, just like that.
Two incidents, one as a young child, one years later as a teen. Don’t discredit this stuff, it fucking works. My brother used it a few times too. Let your child pick the word and no never, ever, ever, ever get mad at them for using it no matter what it is.
I don’t mean to impose a personal favour on you guys, but I really would like to ask that everyonewho follows me reblog this.
I don’t think I made it very clear but last month I was sexually assaulted by someone who I thought was my friend (I don’t want to talk about it don’t ask), and it’s… really fucked with my head.
Had I known this a month ago I would have been able to get away.
So, essentially, I’m really pleading with you to reblog this so everyone who follows you doesn’t get stuck in the same position I was with no way out.
I mean again I don’t want the point of this to be my sob story or whatever but if you could reblog this it would seriously mean a lot
and im asking to all of my followers who see this post in your dashboard to please press play to this video, you never know when this is gonna be
useful, PLEASE DON’T IGNORE IT.
This is one of the first moves I was taught in Krav Maga, and it is one of the most effective.
It took me about a half hour to get down with practice, but once you get it, it’s an intuitive movement.
Imagine how you might feel if your wildest and most wonderful fantasies were brought to life. That’s probably how a child would feel if their drawings of strange and wondrous characters were turned into real-life plush toys, which is exactly what Budsies does.
Budsies takes children’s drawings and reinterprets them as 16-inch-tall hypoallergenic plush toys – but they’ll take playful adults’ drawings, too.
NO DON’T GIVE THIS TO TUMBLR USERS THIS IS A GRAVE MISTAKE
CAN PEOPLE OF ALL AGES DO THIS
BECAUSE IMAGINE IF AN ARTIST WANTED A PLUSH OF THEIR OC
You can also make a plush out of a selfie/picture.
Budsies are introducing Petsies soon. To decide who the first 100 people to get Petsies, Budsies will be holding a raffle. Raffle tickets are free and winners are random. Petsies regularly cost $199, but the first 100 raffle winners can order their Petsies for $99 and the next 1,000 winners pay $149. The first 100 winners announced March 15th. Additional batches of winners will be announced weekly thereafter.
I’m still positively reeling from the new episode but I really, really wanna talk about Pearl’s song for two specific reasons (which I had to process back-to-back so consider me thoroughly destroyed.)
Beyond the fact that it’s beautiful and touching and basically everything about it is perfect – the pacing, the colors, DeeDee’s vocals, the lyrics, the cinematography, the emotion – I feel like this song does a little extra for us. It might feel like a rehash, especially given how much material we already have concerning Pearl’s feelings for Rose, yet despite all previous musical numbers and instances of Pearl addressing that, this still feels very fresh and unique a perspective to bring to the topic.
Because I think what’s really gripping about this song is how it’s not even really about Rose, it’s about Pearl! Who she is, what she wants, how far she’s come.
It’s about Pearl wanting to move on, about her loving Rose but her wantingtomove on from Rose, to move past petty feelings, to focus on what’s important now.
I’ll say that the moment that really struck me most in this song was when we take a step back and we see Pearl fully, when she’s standing on the glass of the balcony and delivers these lines:
War and glory, reinvention
Fusion, freedom, her attention
Out in daylight, my potential
Bold, precise, experimental
I feel like this is Pearl reflecting back on all she dreamed of, the things she aspired for before Rose left. She was a renegade soldier, fighting for change, ideals of freedom and self-importance. Pearl came from a background where she was never meant to fight, but she worked at it, became something stronger than she was, for herself as much as for Rose. Out in daylight, my potential. Bold, precise, experimental.These are things Pearl truly sees herself as, or at least, she used to. Someone who was growing, becoming something better, something she could be proud of.
Then immediately she falls, doubts herself, thinks of what she is now, what she’s become in Rose’s absence. She thinks herself ‘petty and dull’, as if she’ll never be anything beyond that (what does it matter? it’s already done), but she has to be here without Rose. Be there for Steven. Because if there’s nothing else Pearl can do that’s worthwhile, she at least wants to be there for Steven.
That’s why this song is so heartbreaking to me, but also gives me hope. Pearl isn’t quite there yet, but she desperately wants to be, she wants it to be over. She wants to move beyond this. Yet the song isn’t hopeful, it’s a sigh of defeat. Benign acceptance thatit’s over, isn’t it?
But Rose is gone, and she’s still here, and she still can’t move on.
I think she can, though. I think it’s important that we’re shown Pearl wants to become better. I think that’s the point of her character, in the end. As much as it might sometimes feel like Pearl’s entire character is built entirely around Rose, to the point where it feels like they’ll never be separate, I think it’s more that her character is built on top of the impact Rose left on her.
Pearl’s development is about her learning to love herself, to better herself on her own terms, for her own reasons, and this song is amazing because it shows that she wants it and she’s slowly getting there, despite how much it still hurts.
Okay I’m only gonna say this once and preface this with the fact that I am Eyak and I probably do not want to hear your opinion on the Pharah skins Raindancer/Thunderbird. This is a really soul baring post so I’m not so sure about people reblogging it, if you do just try to be respective and remember this isn’t a go-ahead to go and appropriate all native cultures.
They’re pretty damn clearly based on Pacific Northwest tribal cultures. The ones I can pick out being Eyak/Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian, but we often get grouped together so that doesn’t surprise me. There are many more, but I don’t claim familiarity with all tribes and I can’t say if their art styles and myths were used.
For your comparison a little sample of the tribe’s artistic styles just to get the point across:
And I really have to get something off my chest people. I don’t have a problem with these skins, in fact I adore them. Please just chill with me for a second while I explain.
The biggest issue I see here is people (who usually arn’t ndn, let alone from pac nw tribes) yelling about cultural appropriation. Which good! I’m glad people are on guard for it! But it’s entirely possible that Pharah’s father was Eyak/Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian or from another closely related Pacific Northwest tribe, so we can’t really call that yet. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was.
Most importantly, speaking as an Eyak. Which is all I can do despite Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian being so closely related, our tribe’s relationship with cultural appropriation is uh, not exactly the norm.
The last Eyak fluent speaker died in 2008, her name was Chief Marie Smith Jones and she was also the last full-blooded Eyak on Earth. The very last. Please appropriate Eyak culture. It’s the only way it’s going to survive. There’s less than 500 of us remaining, and we’re scattered more and more every year. Families I grew up with in Alaska converted to Catholicism. The military took my family across the globe and left us an entire continent away. The language I learned at the dinner table in 1998 now almost exclusively exists on those cassette tapes my white father recorded that night and in reconstructive attempts from a French academic that studied our language from halfway across the globe.
It sucks shit guys, it really does.
When I first saw the Thunderbird skin I cried, I cried for an hour. Because Overwatch is huge. It will live on for years if not decades. And there’s Pharah with her hair in braids I haven’t seen my mother wear in over a decade. Wearing the colors that remind me of a home I no longer have. Embodying a mythic figure that I trusted to protect me during Y2K and sought out constellations in the sky for.
So before you spew vitriol about how racist it is that they did that. Just kind of chill out and think about different perspectives for a moment. If you really want to help us? Consider taking a poke about http://www.eyakpeople.com/ and taking a look at our language revitalization project! It’s pretty fun and you could even learn a language out of it.
AngelMihe 