Happy Halloween! (Ah! I'm not ready!) For Inktober this year, I reimagined drawings from previous years, as paintings. I used acrylic inks and Posca markers.
I'm working on getting a service dog and set up a website, an Instagram, and a fundraiser. This comic was my quick explanation of WHY I need a dog. There's a full color version, the pencil sketch, the inked comic, and a cute sticker of Theo, my service dog.
So some of these images are concepts covers for Monster. I'm done setting dates. When I finish it, I finish it. But until then, concepts.
Monster is going to be story based on mental health with a mix of religion. I have stories inside and they are scratching to get out. But the struggles are real and I'm trying to get the images out and onto the screen, paper, and ink.
Shadows follow but I will move on! I have PTSD, so I am tormented by my past. Anxious for what's behind me. But I won't let that stop me! I may have "Lead in my shoes" (Dutch "Lood in mijn schoenen"), sometimes feel empty while on other times I am red from anger, nothing will stop me moving on. There will be temporary throwbacks, progress is not linear, but I will get there. I won't drown in self-pity this time.
This is a work I made as a reaction to a questionaire about suicide. I got over it, but I have been there, done that. Despair, the feeling of drowning, reaching out but never getting the help you need, deep dark depression, the grey-brown brainfog. Yet: there is some light, there always is, but I'm too scared to look at the light. I didn't varnish this pastel-drawing, just to accentuate the fragility of mental health. What you need to know it that I got out of this and so can you if you are this deep in trouble. I'm doing much better. January 2020, pastel on A3 paper.
I made this as a reminder for myself. My past and my environment might hurt me, but inside I am safe, I am enough, I am okay, I am minee. I'm experiencing hard times with trauma and other stuff, so I needed a reminder for myself. This is on my door now. I covered up some personal details, the white blobs. March 2020. Pastel on paper.