Constant Unconventional Exploration

Let me preface this entry.
My last post was honest. 100%. BUT.
I don't believe in the hyperbolic idea that Instagram and Tumblr are ruining my life. In fact, in one very real way they are making it better*.

*Inspired I should say. Which leads to something better than the alternative.
I see other people creating things on Instagram and Tumblr. Creating as in scribbling, drawing, painting, writing. (Less of the Pinterest painted Ball-Jars and paper machete wedding decorum)
Real. Honest to goodness. EXPLORATION of the artistic thing. And I love that. It makes me feel like I'm apart of this greater mind of creators- outside of my own home. I get to see how others' minds work through an idea. I get to see what brain vomit spills out onto Moleskin journal pages. It's absolutely wonderful. And it inspires me CONSTANTLY. It's a source of force. It's pushing me to make. To do. To be more than someone sitting in their bed, in their jammies, watching re-run episodes of Dr. Who on Netflix. I am more than that.
 
I bought myself a Moleskin journal in March and have been drawing in it quite often. As of late I draw 3-4 pages a day. I've recently done some comic work and some sketched. I have 1 RULE: No Pencil. None. If you use pencil, you must erase and continue on with a pen. And I've gotten to some really great things.

With Ball-Points you can get to some really great shading that you can't really do with a Sharpie. Though, with my comic work I've been exploring the Dot/Line techniques to add different values or light and dark and it's been going really well. I finished a water colored piece I started about a month ago, it's got some nice Organic/ Natural things going on.

(Forgive the Filtered Nonsense. I.e. Instagram)

All in all, I am an advocate of inspiration. I don't worry about whether I inspire people. I just make to do it. I make to keep learning about what I like and don't at all. I keep going to learn the fundamental truths about a line and how to make it be what you want. I keep doing it because I know I can get better. So I look at others' work to get myself looking at things differently. In some sense, Instagram and Tumblr aren't BAD, They're just used in sort of an unconventional way.

Hooray for the unconventonal.
Now, get off the internet. And go make something with your hands. No one else, not even a machine, can make something EXACTLY like you. So go. And relish in that fact.

<3

The Pond

I recently laid low on blogging for several reasons:
1.) I could write the same things down in a journal, since I felt like I was the only one who ever read my posts.
2.) I felt like it was more of a personal-update sort of thing rather than a "Let-Me-Tell-You-About-This-Thoughtful-Process-Of-Reasoning-An-Idea"!
3.) After becoming "One" with all manner of social media apps, I decided that expressing myself through those was far easier than sitting down once a week to write something monotonous that I could inevitably say in one click of a gif reblog on tumblr.

What am I doing?
Words will always Always ALWAYS be more expressive than a picture. A picture is not worth a thousand words. We think that ONE picture of a thing is worth 1'000 words that can convey so much meaning and power? Really?

Gifs are fun. I'll admit. I even watch movies and think, "That would be the BEST gif! I need to reblog that!" And I think I'm ashamed. Most people in my generation are thinking and doing the same things. I even said to my big sister last night as she had the same impulsive word vomit "I want to reblog that!!" as we watched "Mean Girls", "I understand!!! I feel the same way! Don't be ashamed!"

Maybe we should. Maybe we should get off of Instagram and stop feeling like our happiness for the day rests upon how many likes, or favorites, or comments, or reblogs, or shares we get. Maybe we shouldn't worry about who follows us and who doesn't.

I feel like sometimes I live in a town where people want Sex and Booze. While there is nothing wrong with Sex (during marriage) and Booze (within moderation), It's become twisted. On a street where the average neighbor doesn't know how to reblog something on Tumblr I feel like a big fish in a very small pond.

Thus begs the question. Do I really want to be in this pond? Do I want to be a big fish? Do I want to write a short story for a class and have almost every other classmate think it's absolutely wonderful and flawless when I myself know it's not? Do I really want to be so different in a sea of ignorantly impulsive people? I don't live on a street of loud creepy rapist drunks, I'll make that distinction now. But, Most of them are perfectly content with standing at the Village Pantry checkout, talking to the cashier who calls everyone "Babydoll" about the latest knock-up in the neighborhood.

That's not me.
I want to go somewhere where conversations don't revolve around other people's love lives or job related drama NOR the latest picture/gif from iwastesomuchtime.com. I don't want to live in a world where people ask one another "Did you see my post on Facebook?" as a conversation starter.

There is more to life than following and unfollowing. There is more than rebloging and liking. More than $0.69 fountain Sodas. More than impulsive ignorance.

I'm ready to leave Muncie. I'm ready to leave the idea that my daily life revolves around the likes I get from people I don't even know, for things I impulsively post after it has go