Happy, Healthy Artist!!!

Hello, friends!!!  Since tomorrow is Easter Sunday, may I wish you and your family a very blessed Easter day!!!  ^^   For me, it's a time of reflecting and thinking about the awesome sacrifice that Christ made for us, and the miracle of His rising again!!!  And also, I'm looking forward to having Easter dinner with my family tomorrow. My husband is currently on a missions trip in Puerto Rico, but my daughter and I will be having Easter dinner with my family and grandparents. I'm already drooling just thinking about homemade noodles over mashed potatoes, my grandma's awesome glazed ham, rolls, homemade stuffing...

And so on that note, let's get into the topic of this blog post...

In the past several years, poring through dozens and dozens of books helping artists, I think I have only ever come across one that talked about the need for an artist to stay healthy. It's a little bit of an odd subject, probably because it's a wee bit off subject for an artist, but!  As an artist, it is important to stay healthy, for so many reasons!!!


Let's face it... artists are not lazy. Don't let anyone ever convince you that sitting around, sketching, inking, or coloring for hours is not grueling work... because it is!!!  It takes so much mind power to crank out. It can be mentally stressing and exhausting. But to be a committed artist also means... you're sitting around a lot. And all that sitting isn't good for you. It isn't good for anyone!! Also, ever happen to notice when you're having a particular stressful time working on a project, and it becomes easy to stash away goodies... snack cakes, little candy bars... in your desk, and then you find yourself breaking them out and snacking away like crazy?  Don't worry.. I do this stuff too!! And when you're set in your ways... literally, SET in your ways of sitting for hours at a time drawing, and snacking on junk food, you can start feeling bad about yourself. Maybe you start noticing that you're putting on a little weight here and there... or maybe you feel really tired, and you can't figure out why, because all you've done all day is sit at your desk. I suppose this is a weird post, but I have a few tips to share from my own life that I hope might inspire you to think about becoming, or trying harder, to be a HAPPY, HEALTHY ARTIST!!!!   =-D





#1:   Try to eat a more balanced diet. If you're a candy bar or snack hoarder, try cutting down on those, or even taking them out of your desk or secret stash, and replace them with something healthy you can nibble, like nuts, or granola bars. Some of my favorite snacks are yogurt, granola bars, and apple slices with peanut butter. I'm not a crazy health food eater (and maybe I should be), but I do try to eat a balanced diet.. I usually end up eating lots of salad with chicken throughout the week. You'd be surprised by how filling a nice, big salad can be, and when you sit down to work (my art time is usually in the afternoon), you won't have that heavy, bloated feeling like you ate too much. Like I said, you don't have to go nuts with it.. but small changes make a big difference and really help you feel better about yourself, and thus, your art!!

#2  Drink tons of water.

It's recommended that you drink 6-8 glasses a day. Which is a lot. But you know what I've noticed? When I get really busy, it becomes harder for me to keep drinking water like I should. I have to make myself drink glass after glass of it... but you feel so much better when you do.


#3:   Work out!!!  Sometimes, it feels like your brain needs exercise more than your body. So taking the time to include daily exercise is a win-win for both your body, and helps your brain feel more alert and focused and can help you to be more creative. One of my favorite ways to stay creative is to take walks outdoors when the the weather is nice. The fresh air and colors outside can do so much to inspire you and give you fresh ideas!!   I also try to stay on track doing about an hour daily of exercise, splitting that up between the morning and afternoon. It helps me feel better about myself, feel better in general, and keeps my brain feeling alive, alert, and enthusiastic.   =-)

#4:   Let yourself have one thing each day to indulge in. Mine is coffee. If I'm having a normal, routine day at home, my coffee time is at 1:00 sharp. I usually put Lucy in her room for a bit of quiet time then, and I enjoy my coffee and some art time.  I like the comfort of that half hour or so where I can enjoy a cup of hot joe and focus on an art project!!  Some days, this really keeps me going. Coffee also gives your brain a little bit of a buzz and helps you feel extra creative.  ;-)  But I realize that not everyone is a coffee drinker. I know a lot of artists that prefer tea to coffee. Whatever it may be, try working something like that into your daily routine!


.... Well, I guess those are all the tidbits of advice I have. Maybe this post will just give you something to think about, maybe help you cut back on the candy snacking and pick up the apple crunching.  Whatever it is, I hope it inspired, and that you will do your utmost to be a HAPPY, HEALTHY ARTIST!!!    ;-)

-Stasia-Chan '16

SKETCH CARDS FOR SALE!!!

 

   Well, it's come down to this. 

 I am in need of re-stocking some of my Copics/ink refills. And so, I am blogging about selling some art, so that I can hopefully make some money to supply this artistic void in my life. 

 But in all seriousness... 

Remember, I AM just an artist. I don't even have a part time job... I'm a stay-at-home housewife and mom 24/7. So selling art and taking commissions is how I pay for the supplies that keep me going. And if you are a Copic marker user, you know those aren't cheap, and also are not something you can just run out to get at the art store. They have to be ordered in because they are manufactured in Japan!!   O_o   So when I start seeing that my marker flow is dwindling, I write down colors/numbers of what needs replaced, and then I start working on items to sell so that I can make that cost. Actually, the whole process is rather satisfying!!!  =-) 

So I am working on batches of sketch cards to sell. I currently have four original art sketch cards done and ready for selling!!  These come laminated and are roughly 4x6 in size. Copic marker on cardstock paper. I'm working on a few more for selling too, but this is what I currently have available!!   Since I've been working on my fifties project, I thought it would be fun to choose a few characters and dress them in fifties dapperness.   =-) 

   Elsa 

Princess Leia 

Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn 

Natasha Romanoff/ Black Widow (Who turned out so gorgeous in this dress, that I am actually sad that I have to sell her. But I need markers. And so.) 

These sketch cards are $7 each, with no shipping fees if in the USA. 

I've also got several nice Miyazaki pieces that I have available as prints!!

A 4x6 print is $3, 5x7 print is $5, and an 8x10 print is $7.  I can laminate prints for an extra $1. 

If you'd be interested in any of these original sketch cards or in a Miyazaki Monday print, you can email me at stasiachan89@gmail.com, and I accept payments through PayPal!!!  

Please consider supporting an aspiring artist!!!  ^^

*Note: I DO ask to be paid before mailing out art to the buyer. I am also accepting commissions at the moment and you can inquire about pricing and commission sizes via email.   

-Stasia-Chan '16

Welcoming Myself Back to My Own Blog..

I had thought that I had posted something in January.

Ding dong, I was wrong!!!

Last time I posted, it was Christmas Eve. Yikes. It isn't that I haven't been thinking about posting, or have a lack of ideas to post... Life is just crazy busy, and things like this sometimes get shoved to the side. So, let's start over.

Happy New Year!!!!

OK, now that that's out of the way... Let's fast forward through what's been going on. I've been faithfully keeping up with my "Miyazaki Monday" drawings for 12 weeks now... Which is harder to do sometimes than you would think!! But I've tried to stick to that once a week commitment. Not only does it help my drawing skills, but it's also a little bit of a breather for me, making myself sit down even if I've had a horrible day and no time to draw and just pick something from a Studio Ghibli work and focus on that. It's been stress therapy.  =-)

I'm getting ready to do a mini comic con at Sugarcreek Library next weekend. It's set up more as a meet and greet sort of event, so I think that might be nice change of pace. I like doing tutorial classes, but I get pretty nervous having to explain my drawing process, and constantly worrying that someone is going to correct me when I say "manga"... xD   So I'm interested to see how this event flows, and what people will have to say!

I'm still very interested in doing a 1950's sort of omnibus manga... What I want to do is a compilation of short manga stories set in the late forties and into the fifties. I've been checking out books from the library like crazy, writing down all kinds of things I find interesting from the era, watching some fifties movies, and putting bits and pieces together in character sketches. This whole process to me has been a lot of fun, like delving into a whole different world. There have been a few hard parts... Right now, I'm having a hard time actually figuring out how to write a storyline to be formatted to a manga comic. It's something I've been looking into, reading articles online, and thinking a lot about. Also, actually setting up a manga... The process is daunting to me. Drawing anime and manga style characters is one thing... Actually DRAWING a MANGA COMIC is another thing entirely, and it's not something that just comes naturally. I started sketching out a little Fifties Housewife short manga last year that I finished a few days ago.

I was really, really excited about it when I finally finished it, but then I realized I had made several mistakes...  #1 was that I drew the whole thing on a paper size that is too big to actually fit my scanner. So it was a forty minute project just lining it up, scanning it, seeing what needed to be adjusted, then scanning it in again until I got it close... Then editing in Picasa to try to crop and adjust the colors because I couldn't close the top of the scanner and it ended up looking really shadowy in spots. 

Also, some panels ended up looking crooked. Part of that was because I couldn't line it up right in the scanner, and part of it was that when I went back and looked at my original drawings, the lines were a little off. And so. It ends up being more of a really nice rough draft. Which, I admit, was discouraging to me. I was really excited and put a lot of myself into this little silly project. But, it's another learning experience, and another step in the direction I want to go. So though it's not perfect, I learned a lot from it. And I didn't throw a sketchbook or hurl a perfectly good drawing pen across the room (Yes, this has happened before). I had a brief time of despair over the whole thing, then I had another cup of coffee, took a deep breath, and decided it would be worth it to keep going. And so that's what I'm going to do. I've already invested so much of my heart into this project, I can't imagine quitting, no matter how inadequate I am!!

So, this ended up being a longer post than I intended. I mostly wanted to say this:   I am sorry for not posting regularly... I know I fell off the boat again, and I would like to get back to trying to post more consistently again. We'll see how this goes. I have a very busy schedule coming up this month!!  

I'll end with the inked version of my upcoming Miyazaki Monday. I chose to draw Howl this time (Howl's Moving Castle). I've been working to make more detailed backgrounds and landscapes in my pictures lately. The landscape scene here is based off one in a Chris Hart anime tutorial book, but I made my own adjustments and of course, changed the character to Howl.   

I hope to be blogging again soon!!!

-Stasia-Chan '16