Seasonal Depression, anxiety and an inability to complete creative projects.
Fun title right? Haha Its my reasoning for being so quiet these past couple of weeks. I'm sorry about that! I was hoping to use this platform to document some of my projects of which there is many... Which happens to be the problem. I have so many ongoing projects but I've become seemingly unable to finish any of them.
My studio currently is home to a wizard frog with no hands, I cannot confirm nor deny that I left the hands while last because as any artist knows; hands are the devil.
A half naked business badger. Who needs pants in the office anyway?
Dapper Tiger on an invisible chair anyone? How do I even shade a chair? What colour do I make the chair? I had planned on green but it didn't look right.
Beyond that there's also an half built cardboard tree stump, a broken sculpture that needs repairing and multiple unfinished illustrations and things I want to list on etsy!
And I have so many more projects that I want to do!
How do I fix this?
I really don't know.
Last year I developed this really weird habit of loving my artwork until the point of finishing. This made it especially difficult to stay motivated on longer projects (such as sculptures) because so much time gets invested in the process only for me to end up hating them and feeling like I've wasted my time.
I've been trying to work on this and did seem to get somewhere before Seasonal Affective Disorder hit me like a truck this winter! And I seem to have fallen back into the bad habit of being too scared to finish a project.
I've been thinking about my targets for the next week and I feel like there's so many it's really overwhelming.
So I'm going to write 5 goals here in the hopes that it helps me feel a little less overwhelmed and more motivated! My tutor in college once told me that I preform better when I have someone to answer to so you are going to be the people I have to answer to. 😂
My list:
- Finish my Wizard Frog - he needs some dang hands!
- Finish the frame work for my tree stump
- Complete an illustration commission
- Make a tiktok
- Finish the dapper Tiger illustration
And a bonus would be to make another post here!
I'm very close to my mother in law, I have been since the moment we met. She was a young mother so there's not a huge age difference so maybe that's why we connected so well, but anyway I digress. Shortly after @rubido and I got hitched I can remember a conversation with my MIL. She crocheted to pass the time, and had taught me the basic stitches. Basically the long and short of it was, in return for teaching me I had to make her a blanket before she was 'old' as she put it.
Fast forward 14 years. I'd been practicing stitches and short crochet projects, our son had just turned 3 and it was his first day at school. As many mums find, the first day of school is a tough one. I didn't know what to do with myself, and picked up a crochet hook and a ball of yarn. The promise I made all those moons ago to my MIL in my mind, I thought what the hell I'll give it a go. Over the next few weeks every school day an hour was spent working on it. It grew eventually large enough to use as a lap blanket, but I was exhausted by the repetition, so I put it away.
A few months later, I found myself in a down and out state of mind, so i picked it back up, using colours I had on hand, it grew once more until again it returned to its project bag, when my need for positive emotional change was filled by the creativity it provided.
This pattern has continued for 4 years. I found the blanket (it's huge now) when I needed to work on something, putting my love Into the stitches, and receiving in return something greater.
The blanket now has 1 row of stitches left. The last row until it is finished. However I cannot bring myself to make them, as the blanket has become something bigger than the sum of its parts to me. One day I know I am going to have to do them, in order to fulfil the promise I made back then.
Tldr I too have unfinished projects but the blanket I am making for my MIL is the most special.
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These are awesome!