I Love Rainy Days

Good news morning pages, I keep getting distracted by drawing and forgetting to write you. You could say things are going well. How are they going for you? Today was pretty interesting for me. I just felt beat up today, so after I took care of my wife’s breakfast I went back to sleep. Even after that extra sleep I wasn’t feeling better, so I thought it might be allergies. Maybe it was because I put in eye drops, took a nasal spray and felt better. It didn’t hurt that I also made myself a pancake for breakfast. After I got situated it was time to figure out my day. I knew I had to draw but decided not to go to the gym and it’s raining here, so I figured I could take care of somethings on the other side of town. I wanted to experiment with going to a coffee shop and drawing for days when I won’t be able to ride my bike to the library, rainy days like today. 

I drove to the coffee shop Stone Cup Cafe if you’re ever in Chattanooga, they have a pretty view of the river and I love looking outside in the rain. I got my coffee and was getting things situated, when I found out I have a wobbly table. That’s the last thing you want with a laptop, sketch pad and a big cup of coffee. I switched to another table and had a pleasant drawing experience.

A few doors down from the cafe is the local art association I joined recently, I wanted to stop by and start building a relationship as well as ask questions and look at art. That was an exciting experience and I hope to be going there to meet other artists and do art critiques with them. When I got home I was so pumped by the good day I was having, I used that to go to the gym and did the workout I should have done first thing this morning. On the way to the gym I saw a girl standing at the cross walk that I thought had a very artistic image, so when I got home later I did this drawing. I think it could be really good if I did it in ink and water color, maybe even adding an effect of rain.

Woke Up Cold

How are we already a third of the way through December, it seems like Thanksgiving was just a couple days ago. I went to the store yesterday and thought they might be low on supplies because of black Friday, but that we apparently forever ago. Quickly approaching the end of the year, celestial dates mean a lot to me for whatever reason. What has happened in 2019? A lot of things have changed, a lot of things have not. Hopefully every year brings new fortunes, ideally I would get healthier every year and it may still be the case, but someday that will be impossible. The new year is weird, it is pretty meaningless aside from the reminder that time will keep passing regardless of what you do. 

I was thinking in the shower that I used to wait for the time to be right to do things. I’m sure I still do that to some degree, but I try to say that there will never be a perfect time and if I start now then I will be better prepared to take advantage of the perfect time. For me, like most people, the new year is a perfect time to do something new. In the past couple weeks I shifted more to art and I hope that’s what 2020 has in store for me, but even if 2020 doesn’t want to cooperate, I will try my best to work towards my goal. I think about drawing a lot now, it was something that I knew would happen after the first few days. My mind is like a cave, when a noise is made inside it will echo through out, so now when I close my eyes there are echos of the drawings I work on. I like drawing in my mind, but I’m sure it isn’t as helpful as drawing with the hand so when possible I have to remember to switch over.

Lets Get Lunch

A master photo bomber

Sorry I wasn’t here for you yesterday morning pages, it was mainX24, so you should have expected this. I was so excited yesterday that I managed to leave the house, take an Uber down to main st., and get out of the car before I realized I was still wearing my house slippers. I don’t know how that happened. Drives me zanny, on one hand it should be good that it forced me to act not according to a schedule, but I think that was a test I didn’t do too well on. It’s hard for me to adjust what I’m doing if I had my head set on doing one thing. For hours later and even still I was think in loops about how I left home in slippers. I don’t know, probably best to ignore it and let the thoughts and feelings fade from memory a bit since the thoughts I have about it aren’t constructive.

Yesterday was a good day for me in as far as taking care of personal business before having fun. Without an alarm clock my body woke me up as 5:30 am. I didn’t mind too much since I was feelings refreshed. There’s some sort of scale on how awake I am when I wake up and sometimes I immediately know I won’t be able to go back to sleep, so I got up, had a little food and started drawing. After I got my daily goal out of the way, I went to the gym. This all happened so fluidly, it’s what I’ve wanted for my life for so long that honestly I thought it was impossible or just not for me. I feel like I have to recalibrate my life because this isn’t the way I live, but if I were to describe what I think a typical day for me is I would probably spend most of that time wallowing in despair that my life is pointless. It’s really wild how much I currently benefit from the practice of fake it till you make it. If I encounter something scary, I’ll just keep on working as though there’s nothing there at all and the scary things almost disappear on their own. To me that’s the power of a positive mindset.

Clean Sheets

Part of my sad plant series. I brought this one indoors from the greenhouse.

It’s still morning pages. The conclusion to yesterday was that I let the guys know I won’t be coming back to woodworking, they were all very nice about it and supportive, I appreciate that. Moving forward my plan is to replace woodworking time with going to the library. My drawing set up can be very small, so I only need a table to be in my own world. If I can be going to the library for learning time, I don’t need to be drawing that whole time though I wouldn’t complain if I were. I want to look at it more like college, I’d go to classes through most of the week, but at that time I wasn’t actively reading or writing. The similar situation would be watching the videos on New Masters Academy, they will be my lectures. I’ll try to take notes during the lectures and there are practice parts and assignments I’ll do. For now the big thing of note is the library doesn’t open until 9am when woodworking used to start at 8 am. I’ve got a whole nother hour to do stuff in that I’m not used to. I think what I’ll plan to do is go to the gym at my normal time and then I’ll go at 9 hopefully. Luckily, I’ve been writing down the times that I do everything this week because I just bought a weekly planner for 2020, it’s paying off already because I can see what time I usually finish breakfast. Anyway, maybe I’ll have to start after 9, but it doesn’t really matter as long as I do 3 hours, lunch, and 3 hours. That’s the block of study time and if I’m accomplishing the gym as well, those are some really great days. First step is to see if this library is useable for my study area.

Soaking Wet Boots

Good morning pages, I don’t even know where to begin. I didn’t go to my woodworking class today, I have to sort out a bunch of thoughts with that because I don’t know what to do. I know what I’m going to do and that’s stop going, but when am I going to stop. A couple of weeks ago is when I realized that I don’t feel the same way about anything as I do painting, so that’s where my focus should be at. After that realization happened I just felt like every second at the woodworking school was a waste of time. Even now it’s wasting my time because it’s weighing on my mind. I think the smartest thing to do for my future would be to let them know that I’m done with the school and not coming back. I haven’t done that and planned to go to class today because I feel like I’m quitting. Basically it’s quitting on someone else’s dream, so why should I care, but it’s quitting none the less and that feels bad. 

After not going to class and sleeping in, it felt good to have that time to relax, but emotionally I felt like a loser. That this is another thing I failed at. I don’t know why I put that burden on myself, that failing at this some how matters, or even that it makes me a failure for knowing I don’t want to be there and going somewhere else. That’s what I should be doing, but something in me holds me back from making that jump. Perhaps because I’ve made that sort of jump so many times in my life and I feel like jumping too quickly holds me back. It’s just a matter of knowing when something isn’t for me. I’ve left painting classes because I knew I couldn’t work with the teacher and that didn’t mean I quit painting. I guess you’ll find out the exciting conclusion tomorrow when I either go back to finish the semester or give my resignation.

Wow, This is a Great Article

Morning pages, I am so pumped to be writing to you today because last night I learned the secret to untapping an unlimited source of power that resides in every human being. The power is going to seem to be in different amounts for different individuals but that’s only because the individual puts a limit on themselves. The number one problem people suffer from is that they set their goals too low. I know what you’re going to say, “I know a person who does nothing but dream and they never go anywhere.” Well the number two problem is that they don’t plan a road map to achieve those goals. The third big one is not committing, but before that, I want to go back to number two. I know tons of people and I’d say most people fall in this category, that they live well structured lives and steadily move up accomplishing their goals. They don’t seem to be struggling in this procedure. Maybe they don’t want to take on any struggles in their life and that’s fine, but I believe the human being is shinning at it’s brightest during a struggle. Fighting or hunting is built into our DNA, this also contributes to “the sky is falling” attitude so many have taken on and is exacerbated by the digital age. We are looking for a challenge and when the lives we build around ourselves are too comfortable the brain will create a narrative that something awful is just around the corner. We can take control of our lives by choosing what mountains to climb. That’s how the unlimited source of energy is released, you realize that so much time was wasted and the body wasn’t really recharging like a device. Humans are special, there’s no telling what limits we can reach. Think about it, no where in history is someone pointed at and said, “This is the best a person could be?”, “This is the most passionate”, or  “They were the limit for courage”. Everyday is an opportunity to make your life better and subsequently make a better world.

Oh Happy Day

I figured yesterday that since my name is Drawing My Life Away, I should probably be sharing more photos of drawings. I’d mentioned before that I’d like to share more photos in general, but the plants aren’t doing much these days. Actually it’s more like I’m keeping an eye out for any plant that is obviously suffering and then I move it indoors, but I don’t know if I want to take pictures of sad plants. Maybe I will because one of the things I don’t like about media is only the best and beautiful are shared and I’m trying to be genuine. This is real life, I’ve got to learn what plants can handle what environments and unfortunately some plants are going to die in that process. Along the lines of the gritty truth, the drawings I decided to share are of my random sketches. Remember I’m trying to keep my pencil moving for as much of the day as I can, so that leaves me with these pages of things that I normally wouldn’t show anyone. If you want to following me on instagram at drawingmylifeaway124 there are pictures of what I’d call cleaner drawings. That’s where I post the focused work that I do to improve my skill, right now I’m just copying drawings from Bridgman. I guess that’s all I have to say to explain posting more pictures of drawings.

What else is new? I’m surprisingly beat this morning, such is life I suppose. Yesterday in looking for a notebook to take notes from the New Master’s Academy videos I watch, the book I found had some old diary entries from about three years ago and I was talking about being sick. Maybe I was sick, but I feel like at that time there was a lot of “feeling sick” that now I’d think would be linked to depression. It’s almost like there was an idea in my head that I couldn’t do anything, but that’s ridiculous and no one would normally listen to it so my body or mind gave me this excuse. Part of me knows I could have pushed through what I was going through then because I feel like I push through it now. Life is tough and full of pain if you focus on it, but it can also be filled with beauty and satisfaction. We choose where to turn our attention even if it feels sometimes that we’re just animals responding to signals. Take news for example, because we’re in the age of click bait, many news organizations focus on the most outrageous stories and usually give a more outrageous headline. It leads to some people being surrounded by doom and gloom. They choose to keep seeking out those headlines when they might be able turn away and improve the way they feel. I hope this adds value, I’m just trying to keep myself oriented in the direction that’s best for me.

The Sun is Shinning Inside

Alright, I’ve got my Monday workout in the bag, only things left in order to call today a good day are writing this and doing my drawing. I woke up around 5:45 am this morning and my wife’s alarm doesn’t go off until 6:20. She then has an alarm go off five minutes later and that had been my unofficial wake up time for awhile. The coffee starts at the first alarm so five minutes lets me walk out and it’s done. Since working to get more dedicated to drawing, I decided to wake up with the first alarm and draw until the coffee is done. It’s not much time, but making drawing the first thing I do in the morning sends a message to myself that this is important to me. 

Back to waking up at 5:45 this morning, I’ve been waking up around then without an alarm clock and basically waiting until it’s OK to get out of bed. I think I’m going to try and get out of bed when I wake up, that could give me a half hour of drawing before the day starts. Do just that everyday and I’ll still be making some serious progress. I signed up for New Masters Academy this weekend because they had a 40% off sale for black Friday. NMA is a really good online teaching site for art and I had been planning to join soon anyway, so that’s really exciting. Now instead of wasting time on youtube, I’ve got thousands of quality art education videos to check out. Today is also the first day of my new diet with increased protein. It really is hard for me right now to eat the quantity required when eating meat instead of nuts. Nuts have a ton more fat which makes them more calorically dense, hopefully I don’t feel as hungry as I was before. The path is laid before me, all I have to do is walk it.

Day Late and a Dollar Short

Good morning, look I’m sorry I snapped at you yesterday, I was grumpy and tired. I appreciate you being here, but you have to understand that writing this is work and people are not inclined to work for a metaphysical goal like metal health. It’s the same reason I struggle to do my daily mindfulness activities, and I really should be meditating everyday. Maybe I’ll ensure I do once day a week and work up from there. Today is Sunday which means lots of getting ready for tomorrow. I’ve got to go food shopping and do some cooking to add protein to my meal prep. It’s not a terrible amount of work but it’s still technically the holiday weekend, so my lazy side will need to have it’s arm twisted. I could go to the store right now and it’d be empty which is good, but I don’t know if my wife has anything she needs from the store. Oh well I think what I’ll do is finish this, then cook breakfast and go food shopping. I’m watching a documentary about Edward Berneys. If you don’t know who he is, you should because unless you’re a psychologist he’s the reason you know the name Freud. He transformed America from buying products that they needed and served a purpose to buying what they wanted because of how it made them feel. Just going into the food store I’m going to be hit with millions of stimuli that have his fingerprint on it, especially now that we’re in the Christmas season. It’s whatever though, I’ve had my material goods appetite under control for a long time now. I get discourage at helping human beings when I see how far some of them are from taking control of their lives and those people are the overwhelming majority. What can I do when every corporation uses every media outlet to control the public? I don’t fight to make a difference though, only because I know it is the right thing to do.

Whats in a Line?

Alright I missed yesterday, get off my back I’m here now aren’t I? You know what I might decide to skip tomorrow if you’ve really got a problem, maybe I’ll skip all of December as a reward for doing so good all year. Nah I will try not to do that because if I did I’d probably never write a morning page again and I know they’re good for my mental health. Thanksgiving has been good, yesterday we went out for brunch and I think I had a ton of champagne. The server said they put about a bottle and a half in each carafe of mimosa. I choose to not believe her and ordered a second. I was hung over all day. It’s nice to treat the holidays as a holiday and enjoy myself. Hopefully it makes getting down to work during the week easier because I get the laziness out of my system, in reality it probably just makes it harder because I get comfy and work is that much further from what I’m currently doing. Anyway I’m currently looking at AirBnB’s I think I’m going to go on a little weekend trip before the end of the year to seclude myself and only have drawing available, sort of give a kick in the pants with the focus I’m asking of myself. I know things are going well. I’m drawing more and I’m getting better, there’s just that voice that wants instant gratification that has to be controlled. If that voice doesn’t get what they want, which is impossible to please by the way, it can get destructive. I guess that’s what makes everyday a battle and also when something is accomplished feel rewarding. I have some tangible goals for drawing, I might need to right down some more and also figure out rewards for when they’re accomplished. I have a list of pre reqs for calling myself an artist that would be nice to finish by July 1st 2020, I’ll have to have a big reward for that.