20.09.2019 – “All I wanna do is making art.”

“I am tired.“ — Honestly I don’t even know what the point of this blog will be, but I’ll just go on and write. Maybe someone will understand.

I’m not about to say that this year is a bad year because there has been worth, but somehow I feel tired. I’m good but at the same time I’m not sure if I am.
“All I wanna do is art.“ — Of course no one ever said it was going to be easy and I’m not complaining about the fact that nothing happens overnight.
Probably I should be grateful. I got a side job, one that I can’t complain about, so that in the meantime I can focus on doing what I love and working on various projects.
You know this feeling of working against yourself instead of moving forward?
It feels like I am stuck. Stuck in … overthinking? Maybe. It sounds weird but all I wanna do is create art, write poems and stories, edit videos, share it with the world. I want to spent time in nature without having to worry about every detail I should to in the meantime. All I want is to live. Have fun and “work to live instead of living to work“, as a friend described it well last week. Can you understand what that means?
I am not unhappy, just probably unfulfilled and it kind of sucks. Confusion sucks.
I’m sharing this because somehow maybe I hope that I’m not alone feeling this way.
23. A friend from the academy which we both went to and I had a discussion shortly after graduating about how even the thought of having to work in a “regular job“ kind of pulls us down. If you love what you’re doing than you’ll have enough reasons to love your job, right? Sure. It’s just about finding the things that you love. So why am I stuck? Again all I want is to create and enjoy life even when the “brain is kicking in really hard“. This year is so weird because I know what I want but also it seems like I don’t.
It’s not like I don’t want to work and again I should be grateful, because there has been progresses over the year. They clearly are visible. But at the same time it feels like I’ve locked myself up in cage, lost the keys and can’t get out of it any more. I want to work for something that has meaning to me, for something that makes sense. Nothing makes me happier than spending days on an artwork to see people interpret it in so many ways, to them smile or even cry and how it even helps them go through hard times.

“When captured birds grow wiser, they try to open the cage with their beaks. They don’t give up, because they want to fly again.“ ~ Masashi Kishimoto (Author of Naruto)

When I was younger this quote inspired me a lot and it still does. Though somehow it feels harder than thought. What is keeping me from moving?
I’m sure I will make it and maybe I have to go through this to grow, still it sucks not to be sure what is going on with oneself. Is anyone here reading this experiencing similar feelings? (If you feel in a similar way than know that you are not alone.)
Does anyone even understand the problem hiding behind those words?

What was the point writing this blog post. Who knows?
Anyway this is it for today. Have a great day! ♥
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21.08.2019 – When I stopped eating meat …

Hello it’s me! I am back and a lot happened e.g. I have a new mini job, many projects that are up to come yet (stay tuned!) … and a lot of overthinking over everything and anything- lol. As said before I got a new mini job which I couldn’t be more grateful for. It is creative and has to do with illustration. Most of it can be done from home and it’s quite chilly. What it has to do with the title?

Inspiration was last Friday. For lunch break it came out that I wouldn’t eat meat nor fish and out of curiosity I got asked why. You’ll have to know that I am not vegan but I don’t consider myself as fully vegetarian either, since I barely consume eggs or dairy products. (Please keep in mind that this post is not here to tell you what you have to eat and what not)

Today I am going to share with you first of all why I stopped eating meat and fish and how it lead me to where I am today. I will also share with you what it has changed in me without me intending it. (Sorry for using “I” and “me” this xD Does anyone else also feels guilty when they use these a lot?)

I wasn’t always a vegetarian. It started in 2011 when I stopped eating meat besides chicken and fish which also stayed in my diet. This choice had two main reasons. One was my love for animals and two a friend inspired me. I decided to take things out of my diet slowly. After a mental break down in 2014 I decided to completely take out meat out of my diet. I’ve always been interested in spirituality but also articles said that it could help. So I listened to my guts and as it felt right, I stopped eating meat. I’ve always lived in Germany due to my mother who is German, but since my father is French my sister and I grew up franco-german bilingual and binational, which made us spend a lot of time in France, like being in summer camp but also in our little house in a small village at the seaside. This village being a fishermen’s village fish was a tradition which made it harder for me to keep fish out of my diet, especially when I was in France. As I realized though that it really improved my mental health I decided to go fully vegetarian in 2015. Of course loving animals from the bottom of my heart was a reason too. I couldn’t bare eating them anymore. As time passed I couldn’t even see myself eating meat nor fish anymore. Soon dairy products and eggs became rare too.

The main reasons for me stop eating meat and fish were:
1. Loving animals
2. Inspiration by a friend, spirituality/faith and blog articles
3. Mental Health Issues
4. Contradiction between e.g. “not eating rabbits because their cute but eating cows”

Now what changed within me:
Before I stopped eating meat and fish, I didn’t really enjoy cooking. It was more of a “making noodles and that’s it” thing. This means the approach to food changed not only because I would cook a lot more but also the way I cherished food. Spending time in the kitchen to really cook meal and savor it became more enjoyable. Of course as previously said I loved animals but it’s so hard to describe how deep this love changed. It sounds weird but it’s as if you can love someone but not realize how much you care for them until you really embrace them into your life. If that makes sense?
Also, how much it had to with my beliefs wasn’t something I’ve ever realized until last year.

Let’s talk about mental health issues. As said before it was clear that it could maybe help improve them but the time I realized how much it really helped was during another mental breakdown in 2017, because yes it sucked but the way I handled it was way different from before in 2014, like in a positive way. I felt horrible but I approached things differently and I experienced them differently. I’m not trying to say that eating no meat was everything to how I perceived this situation but I definitely experienced how much your diet can affect your mental health which I really wasn’t that conscious about before.
It’s so interesting to see how one can make decisions for various reasons and how sometimes they’ll benefit from it even more than what they’ve expected to gain out of it beforehand.

My view of life changed and changing my diet was part of it but my mental health issues played a big part in it too. Would you be interested in me talking about mental health and how it changed my view of life in another blog post? Did you also make changes in your life that you benefit from more than what you’ve expected them to do? Share your story and let’s get inspired.

Hopefully you enjoyed this post and have a great day … or evening (xD) ! Wherever you’re from.

16.07.2019 – The job and the exhibition

I am a sloth. No seriously the last weeks have been quiet on this blog.

To be honest with you the last months felt like roller coasters. I had a mini job which I quit because of a few reasons which I’m not going to complain about here. I don’t know if it’s because I’m still young which is why I struggle with having a job so much or if it’s a general thing. The mere thought of having a job makes me extremely unhappy and miserable. You’ll probably tell me not to complain about it or something like that which I can understand, but see I was never someone who wanted to do this one thing for the rest of my life. I studied Illustration and Graphic Design which was amazing and to be honest with you this school knew that a lot of us were planning on becoming self-employed. I love making illustration, doing art and also designing — yes! — but also do I love writing poetry or editing videos. For me having a mini job or a part-time job is for the purpose of paying insurances etc. but somehow having a job is tiring me out so much. All I want is to do what I love. Why am I telling you this? Because talking about it made me realize that in my surroundings there were others having similar feelings and maybe you can relate too, also did help me to get to know myself better.

I’ve been running in circles for months now and I still don’t know how to deal with it. So if there’s anyone self-employed or someone who struggled with similar problems out there reading this then you’re welcome to give me some advice or tell me about how you did it.

Actually the lasts months surprised me. I got three storyboards in commission two of

them are for the same person. There was a flyer to do. I had an exhibition with now three upcoming ones. There’s eventually a collaboration coming up and I mean things are slowly building up. But I don’t know what to do about the mini-job or part-time job because it feels so wrong. It’s really depressing.
Do you have any advice on how I could still do it?

Next upload will be more uplifting I swear but right now I’m really stuck. This is it and as I said you’re welcome to give some advice or tell me your story.

Have a great day. And whatever happens enjoy your life. All you can do is learn from up and downs and grow. You’re loved.

 

04.06.2019 – Animatic Resurrection and Video Series

When I was studying (Illustration and Graphic Design) there was this semester where we had a class called “Motion Graphics”. The first exercise our teacher gave us was to choose a song that we relate to a lot and create an animatic for it.

For those of you who don’t know what it is. An animatic basically is a video that contains a series of drawings with audio in it. It’s not automatically animation or stop motion. 

What I did was an animatic about an original character of mine that is based on the universe of “Durarara!”. Since the musician I would have loved to use a song for back then hadn’t replied, some years later I decided to resurrect the whole project and make something completely different out of it WITH royalty free music, because that’s what you gotta do when you don’t get the rights to it, don’t you?

The result is to be seen in the video above and with that a new concept for a series of videos awoke — How does it sound “awoke”? As if the video series had some sort of spiritual awakening. Haha. —

Anyways, this series will be called “OC Aesthetics” (OC = Original Character).
The main focus will be on giving you a feeling of my OCs personality. It will be more about emotions than about storytelling.

But honestly I don’t want to tell anyone what they have to interpret in these videos, because that’s what’s so beautiful about making art. Two people can look at the same artwork, interpret different background stories in it and feel something completely different.

If you’re interested in the topic of original characters though and how they have an impact on life, I’d be really happy to write a blog post about it. Same as I’d be to tell something about my original characters so don’t hesitate to ask.

I hope you enjoyed the video and if you want to see more of them then follow me on youtube, be patient and stay updated.

Have a great day. ♥

27.05.2019 – Time to move on.

It’s easy to get lost and forget about what makes you – you. To stop listening to your feelings or rather to stop listening to your intuition, because what bothers you the most is that you’re doing something differently than everyone. At this point it’s easy to force yourself to do what everyone does out of … pressure maybe?
But where’s the point in doing something that doesn’t make you happy? That just doesn’t feel right? Seems contra productive, doesn’t it?

Sometimes we need a reminder to take steps forward and not backwards.
You choose your path because you want it, not because everyone takes it.
And if there’s one thing that I’ve learned in the past then it’s that if your intuition tells you something then you better listen to it.

You’re stuck and it feels like you’re running in circles, always coming back to point zero. How do you move on? In fact it’s not that hard:
Sit down. Take a deep breath. Take your time. Listen to your heart. Once you know … once you remember who you are, what it is that you want and what feels right to you it’ll be time to move on. Some are going to try to prevent you from walking your own way and don’t expect everyone to understand your actions, because not everyone will. Also don’t expect everyone to accept your choices, because not everyone will either, let it be their business though.

What matters is how you feel about it and if you feel comfortable with it then just move on. Don’t let anyone or anything keep you from walking forward.

13.05.2019 – Experiencing Storyboard Commissions

Design by yukiryuuzetsuart – Tools: Snapseed + Medibang

Almost two months ago was my last blog post, for which I deeply apologize. It became very quiet here which isn’t what I had planned by starting a blog.

The last months I was given the opportunity to work on three storyboards. Two of them are still in progress. I am grateful for those tasks, especially because two of them are from the same customers which means there is a customer which I could persuade enough with my latest work for him to come back. The third storyboard is for a bigger project and I am glad to get to see the progress of it. All in all I find it interesting to see how, even though the tasks are quite similar, the approach is very different. It’s nice to work with different people and to get to see different characters.

By now I can only say that I really enjoy working on storyboards for other people and I hope that I will get to do more of them in the future.

I am grateful for these experiences I am allowed to make and the lessons that I gather from it.

What about you? What are you grateful for?

21.03.2019 – “Animation Journey” and the silence

 

Exercise 3: Simple Character Head Turn
“Auron Twins” (Original Characters by @_dragonmummy on instagram)

No worries! The journey goes on.
Somehow currently I find it hard to upload consistently. I realized that it doesn’t only have to be blog posts, but also on instagram or youtube do I find it hard. Maybe you can give me some advise on how to be consistent? How often do you share content?

The last animation I’ve done was the character head turning. That’s not much but you know what? Instead I made a friend happy by illustrating her characters as a birthday present. Also do I really have a lot of nice projects in future and also some that I’m already working on. I just need to get back to myself, to clear my mind, heart and soul. Because currently I’m a little confused and when I’m confused I usually just take a break and try to spend as much time on my own as I can, like going for a walk and spending time in nature or just chilling, read a book or something, so that I can soon follow my intuition again. Still a happy wolf though! Do you know what I’m talking about? If you do how do you deal with these types of situations?

09.03.2019 – Animation Journey: Day 1

Exercise 1: Ball bouncing
Exercise 2: Ball bouncing across the screen
Exercise 3: Book falling from the shelf

I finally started practicing animation and guess what – it’s funny.

Before I’ve only made a few experiments (e.g. my youtube end screens or little birthday stop motion animations) and it never really was something big. I just did it. But now I decided that I wanted to dig deeper into it, because I really want to animate more which I can’t if I lack the skills, right? So for anyone who’s interested in following me on my animation journeys, here you can. I will keep you updated and who know’s maybe one day you’ll see a whole movie. lol. xD (p.s. I’m actually about to work on a motion graphics project so stay focused)

Besides my mom and I watched the movie “Song of the Sea” by Tomm Moore a few days ago which really motivated me to learn how to animate. Not only did I love the artworks but also the whole story was really heart melting. I really enjoy deep stories like this one. Have you watched this movie, too? I really recommend this one. Is there an animated movie you can recommend me?