Watercolor, War and Wedding

Right! So what happened since the last post, on January 21st?

For the past ten days there's war with Iran, so lots of missile sirens, running to the bomb shelter and waiting for the boom. Not me; I mean, I certainly wait for the boom, but I don't run to the shelter, not on account of unique bravery but on account of having a bum knee, and if I rush down three flights of stairs seven times a day, I'll end up hospitalized. So boyfriend and his kids rush to the shelter, while I remain up here with the cat and hope for the best. 

There's some anxiety there, I won't deny it; but it's quite small on account of my trademark unrealistic optimism (or denial). But there are significant benefits to not having to drop everything and run to spend half an hour in a cold, stuffy small space with eight neighbors some of which you really don't enjoy (the top-volume radio news from their phones, mainly). First, whatever I'm in the middle of doing isn't interrupted. Second, no cold and smelly and half an hour of discomfort. Just a brief wondering of 'is this it for me?' between the siren and the boom, and worrying about the boyfriend, who's spirit is slowly being whittled down by the interruptions and stress.

I hope the war ends soon; the people in Iran are in a far worse situation than us (this isn't a hate war between peoples, it's a hate war between the government's ideologies). For us this is (so far) discomfort; for them it's all the horrors of war, like you see in the movies, with a government that mostly kills its own citizens. Were I a religious person, I'd be praying for the Iranians. 

So that was the most dramatic news. Other than that - I'm still obsessed with watercolor, though I used to paint all day every day and had to stop for five weeks for a throat! Infection! Fudge! That! I had no idea a simple winter strep could knock me out for over a month. Now it's gone I'm back to my happy obsession, and, as a bonus, it turns out that when I play with my watercolor I forget about the war. Turns out all those tutorial people saying 'watercolor is good for your mental health' have a point. 

So here's the spread I'm working on tonight, with the two random-archaeology-items on the right and the beetles on the left. It's not a lot of painting proper, the spread designs - but it scratches the completionist itch, and I have at least one friend who says it's very aesthetic and pleasing, which is enough to motivate me.

It's been forty five years of making art; I started when I could hold a marker, did lots of colored pencils and acrylic during highschool, some oils later, switched to digital with photoshop when I was twenty, stuck to that until 36, then discovered Blender and 3D and dropped all things painting for eight years, because Blender was much more fun. 

Thing is, now that I'm back to painting, I'm not doing it for the sake of creating an image I have in my mind; nowadays that can be done witn AI, and infinitely better than I'll ever be able to. I paint because it's fun, which leads me to my current problem: I don't know what I like to paint. 

It's been around all my life, people using prompts and inktobers and fanart100 and so on, and I never got it; I never lacked for things to draw or paint, because I was roleplaying in various tabletop D&D (or MERP, or Vampire, or Freestyle, or 7th Sea, or Amber Diceless, or Victorian Occult) campaigns, and nothing sets my inspiration on fire like roleplaying. I've not roleplayed for a couple of years now, though - life's too busy, and full of nice things - so no inspiration, and no friends to please with my art...

(Actually, there is a small Cthulhu campaign - but not only am I the GM, and not only do we meet once in a blue moon, also one of the three players is a proper artists, a tattoo artist and person who truly paints for passion and makes my drawings look like a child's doodles.)

Which brings me back to I don't know what I like to paint. All the tutorials have flowers, leaves, cute animals, cute random doodles, eye-pleasing abstract art, scenery or what I call 'kindergarten projects', which is anyone-can-do-this happy splashing of paint in a sketchbook. None of those appeal to me, and I think that only today I got what they all miss: Narrative. I need a story to excite me to paint something. It doesn't need to be much, but it needs to be more than just aesthetic or fun to make. Which is a stupid reason to get stuck and not painting, but there you have it. 

Oh, one more thing happened - boyfriend proposed! 

Behold my magnificent ring of 14 carat plastic, accidentally sent to boyfriend years ago from Aliexpress instead of the Lego Millenium Falcon mount he ordered! We're properly engaged though, which means somewhen in the upcoming months we'll hop over to the lawyer to sign papers and make it official.It turns out one can actually have two loves of one's life (though, in most cases and this one too, not simultaneously). 

And last... I really miss Blender. Watercolor paint is fun and addictive and I love it, but I do wish I had a Warcraft-art Blender commission or two. It's been to long. 

It's already been five hours without a missile alarm; perhaps the bombers in Iran are having a good night's sleep. One can hope.