The forest always thrummed. Rain on leaves, lizards scuttling through the undergrowth. I wanted to make it sing. I planted rainbow seeds, watched colours soar. But the forest… now it screams. A rage of red, purple and orange. Poison berries rain down on us. Sickness seeps yellow. Forgive me.
I remember you, my old friend
Write about your first computer.
Ah, my first computer. How long it has been, my friend. Was it 1993 when you joined the family? ’94? I don’t remember.
You were a chunky thing, not like the slender beauties of today. You had a pixellated screen, and could be fed a thin plastic square called a floppy disk. You ran on the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS), and to get you to do things I had to manually type in coded commands into your blue screen.
I typed my first stories on you. Even then, I was a writer. I used your prehistoric version of Microsoft Word to immortalise my first “book” – a story about children who travel to a different world by means of a magical garden shed.
You were patient with me. You waited while my clunky fingers weaved tales of magic, witches, and hedged mazes where every pothole one falls into leads to a different universe. You didn’t complain when I kept you up late into the night.
Digital art was way beyond your abilities, but if you’re looking down at this from computer heaven, you’ll see the artwork at the top of this post. I painted it in Procreate, and named it For the Love of Old School.
Because, you see, while technology has whizzed forward and left you behind, you cannot be replaced. There is no other like you.
So thank you, old friend. For the stories and the memories, and simply for being there.
Till we meet again.
I’m my own biggest bully
What do you complain about the most?
Everything.
Just kidding 😅
My actual answer is a little weird. I kind of complain to myself…about myself.
I guess that deserves an explanation, huh?
As a creative, I can be very critical of my own work. Sometimes I feel it’s not good enough. I pick on little things. I see all the flaws.
That’s my complaint. That I’ve fallen short of some standard of perfection that I imposed upon myself. The story’s narrative sounds stilted, or the artwork isn’t engaging enough, or why can’t I get the lighting in that one photograph correct?
Then I get mad at myself. Unhealthy, I know. And a little stupid, if I’m being honest. I’m complaining to me about me. It sounds ridiculous.
In that way, I’m my own biggest bully. I’m much harsher on myself than I am on others. I wouldn’t have a go at someone else because their art was flawed, but I’m fine to berate myself.
I’m trying to be less of a complainer. Things can’t be perfect all the time, and imperfection is its own kind of beauty.
Also, despite my flaws, sometimes I have success! The other day someone actually paid me for my art. They downloaded one of my original mobile phone wallpapers from my shop and left me a small tip to say thank you.
In other words, they bought me a coffee. I was so happy I could have floated to the moon. That one twinkle of encouragement made my whole day, and motivated me to design another free wallpaper in Procreate.
The image at the top of this post is a cropped version of that artwork. I’ve named it She, and it’s available as a free download from my shop: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/isabelcaves/e/504257
Thanks to this anonymous person’s support, I not only created more art, but I might start complaining about myself less. And that’s a good thing!
If you’d like to support my creative work, you can do so on my Buy Me A Coffee page. There are free options to show your support too, like following my page or sharing my shop on social media. Even if you just wanted to grab a free wallpaper, it would make my day.
Tiny Story: Creatures of the Night
They waited for the moon to wane. Then out they came, one by one, in small hops of horror. Frenzied. Malicious. Ravenous. They destroyed my cabbages. Bloody rabbits.
Photography: Flower or Seedhead?
I snapped this little guy earlier this month in my backyard. I’m still not sure what he is. I thought he might be either a seedhead or an unopened flowerbud. Google says he is a juvenile orchid.
Digital Art: Watched
Ha! Who knew when I started arting in Procreate last night that I’d end up with THIS.
I was trying to create some nice, conventionally pretty artworks for use as mobile phone wallpapers. And I did, I did…
…but I also created this slightly disturbing (but, in my opinion, somewhat likable) piece that looks like some creepy space creature watching you from the void.
What can I say? I like to push boundaries. I also like more conventional art, but my mind can take me to strange places sometimes, and I just sort of let it.
You can get the weird one as a free phone wallpaper from my little shop on Buy Me A Coffee.com.
I have normal art there too, I promise 😅
Arting Around
What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
Arting, most definitely.
And by that I mean creative writing, photography, graphic design, painting, drawing, photomanipulation and composite art.
Last night I settled down to do some painting in Procreate, but my inspiration was running dry. I couldn’t produce anything that excited me. The art felt very bleh.
Then I tried my time-tested strategy of letting go of my inhibitions and painting intuitively. It worked! I made the above phone wallpaper, which is free to download from my freebie depository: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/isabelcaves/e/502715
It just goes to show that the soul loves to dance freely. (Or mine does anyway).
Fibbing Friday: 23rd January
Today on Fibbing Friday, our lovely host Pensitivity101 invites us to “fib our socks off” when answering the questions below:
Some of these may be familiar, but how would you define these words?
1. Verklempt. A German swear word.
2, Vittle. Very little.
3, Vuvuzela . The part of Venezuela where everyone does flamenco dancing.
4, Vexillology. The study of why people get angry.
5. Velociraptor. An ancient chicken with sharp teeth.
6. Vamoosinator. A vacuum cleaner designed to suck up moose.
7. Vicissitude. A vicious attitude.
8. Voce. The voice of Vogue.
9. Vagary . The art of being vague.
10. Verbose. A person who uses verbs a lot.
So…did I get any of these right by accident? 😆
Photography: Beautiful Accidents
This photo of a hibiscus blossom is straight out of the camera, like almost all of my DSLR photography. The soft, dreamy colours are the result of a screw-on soft focus filter and overexposed camera settings. The soft focus filter, which diffuses light, resulted in the colours being lighter but not brighter.
I want to tell you that this was a creative choice, but the truth is I overexposed the photo by accident. I was shooting in full manual mode, and it took a few tries to get the light settings right. While I was tinkering and testing, I got this photo and I rather liked it. I decided to keep it. It’s my beautiful accident.
Listen up, kid…
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?
If I could make my pet understand one thing, it’s that I would do anything for his fluffy little butt.
So listen up, kid… I love ya, okay?
The character in my comic above is what the fluffy-butted kid would look like as one of my chibis.
(Short post today, because some “stuff” is going on in my personal life. But I’ll be back to do my usual blabbing later.)
If you would like to support my creative journey, you can Buy Me A Coffee. I also have free phone wallpapers and Instagram templates at my shop https://buymeacoffee.com/isabelcaves/extras
