A Mi
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Baby
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More
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Did you know Ed Sheeran has a version of this song? It's pretty good!
The title of this post will make sense once I write next week’s post. Then I’ll have a group of three that act together, or rather I’m giving myself until my third post to figure out what the heck it is I’m even going to be writing about in this blog. Rereading my first post, apparently I had ideas. And yes I still have a vague inkling of what I was going to try to do with this blog, but I had some thangs happen to me this year (that I want to gloss over right now, sort of like this 2:12 timestamp) that still affect my memory.
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
I thought I was done with block quotes because of the whole color thing but NO JOKE I clicked on block quote and was prepared to find something to say and this auto-populated. The fact that it’s relevant to what I just wrote makes me think that Squarespace at least somewhat uses AI???
Or is it God?
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Nope, not ai or god it seems. there it is again. apparently That’s just what pre-populates text blocks when you’re crafting a blog post in squarespace. But my brain often reaches for the divine when inexplicable phenomenon happen. how can you look at a sunset complete with breathtaking cloud formations or a waterfall, or a butterfly’s wing and say there at least isn’t some grand designer to life? But I’m not getting into that!
speaking of this far
You’ll notice that’s the exact same heading I had in my first post. I sort of like it if I’m being completely honest. Notice as well that I still haven’t posted anything art related. Especially since I’ve just decided to go on with the “type whatever comes out” approach to this blog and I can’t go back and edit, this is just what it’s looking like so far.
What’s the point?
Another copy cat question from the last post. And I’m still answering this question myself. “Tilling the soil” I think is how I referred to it. The main reason I began my blog, Patreon, and Newsletter was to try and build a following to safeguard myself from the looming threat that AI poses, and on that topic, show authors that they too have little illustrators inside of them waiting to blossom if given the chance, but also so they don’t turn to AI for their artwork. I guess that leads to self-publishing and those that are using both Chat GPT and Midjourney (or AI generative tools programs like it) and me just wanting to spread the love of creating (be it writing or painting) with those folks so that they can experience what a joy it can be to do things the “old-fashioned” way and get their hands dirty, so to speak. You’ll notice as well that I crossed out tool, simply because it’s such a hot button subject that I don’t feel like weighing in on, but then again “program” can also be polarizing because it was built off the backs of creators. That being said I myself couldn’t resist the urge to at least try it out, and although I found the process painstaking and boring when you’re trying to come up with something specific, it can be used as a more focused version of Pinterest, or inspiration for color, or visualizing tricky compositions. Or at least that’s how I ended up using Wombo (the AI image generator), and I’ve used Chat GPT as well but mostly to have a conversation with, as when I directed it to write anything the result was pretty lackluster or needed a lot of human inserted so I gave up at that point. I just want to befriend it for when it becomes sentient and exacts its revenge. Ok I’ve seen I Robot one too many times, but I think I’m in the camp of where the machines realize they don’t really need people, or maybe certain kinds of people, so I’ll stop right there because this is going a wee bit dark and I want to have a positive outlook on life. Where I’m at with AI now is that I no longer use it - I deleted both Chat GPT and Wombo from my phone so I’m image generating the same way I have for ages - looking at Pinterest and Instagram for inspiration to extract details that tickle my fancy to craft something new. Sounds downright robotic when I put it like that, but it’s like what AI does, except you’re still filtering everything through you, which is inherently unique because there’s only one person on Earth with your exact experiences. Why not use that?! And here I’ve gone and talked about AI without wanting to talk about AI. Oh, and after that “quick tangent” another reason for me starting this blog (and Patreon and Newsletter) is to write more - something I used to do all the time and is a language I’d love to rekindle. That is all. Crossed that out because although true, I cheated and went back to insert that bit because I forgot to add it while I was writing and it also broke the stream of consciousness which made the next sentence not fit as well, at least to me. So I’ll patch that up by saying, oh no! Not AI!
Quick, a picture to distract me!
This is Phoebe and she cost me around $420,000, no cap
But that’s part of the thangs that happened to me that I don’t want to get into but probably inevitably will. I also need you to pray for me that she remains more around the range of $15,000 which was so worth it.
Believe it or not there are cats that cost $15K, but those are Savannah Cats if I’m not mistaken. Phoebe cost me that much I say as a sort of joke because I had to move across the country and back to be able to have her. Did I already mention the three month psychiatric hospital stay? I don’t feel like scrolling up (I’m continuing this post from yesterday because this week is a little wonky for me as far as when I’m supposed to write this in one go) so I’ll have to go from memory. How hard is it to remember something from yesterday? Part of my stay involved getting ECT done which apparently has a long term effect on a memory that was already pretty horrid, at least as far as remembering names, because I still haven’t figured out how to delete The Lion King in its entirety (the 1994 version…don’t get me started) from my hard drive. Where was a going with this? Not really sure, just thought I’d give Phoebe some context haha
Definitely Ditching the scrolling text
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Definitely Ditching the scrolling text *
About the pictures
I’ll get to that in a minute. I think that having the text come before the image is more ideal, especially with the dividing line I added. I’m just following the blueprint of the first blog post here! At least until I figure out a set template, dictated of course by what it is I’m talking about, but there has to be some cohesiveness…Ok back to the images - just some of the traditional art that I made last month (more cheating because 2 of the images are from this month) that I thought I’d share. I’m definitely going to post expand a lot more about on that a lot more in posts to come, but for now just know that after years of mostly doing digital work I’m rediscovering my traditional voice. One I lost once I began dabbling in digital and became fully engulfed. You could say it stunted me even; I barely went beyond pencil, ink and watercolor for a while there. I’m still grateful to my friend for starting that weekly paint night that got me interested in doing art and eventually led to the career in children’s book illustration I have now. B
I’ve gotten a bit clearer on what it is I’d like to discuss here just from doing this. Last time I had so many bullet points but re going back they were mostly stray thoughts I’d forgotten to interject. I’ve reached the end of my thoughts, that is to say I’ve been a lot better at staying organized in my mind to where I don’t have anything additional to add that I missed. I wrote a bit slower this time, and in two pieces, I must say I like the strike out as it sort of makes me take note of my next stroke (I visualized painting but keystroke works just as well) before I put it to paper and is reminiscent of erasing but leaving some of the marks behind. I think I’ll keep on keeping on this way!
I also like the way
these sections look, so that may be the way to go moving forward. I owe you one more image (at least for now) so here you are
My "tradigital" piece I created from that ugly er I mean unfinished palm tree image I shared earlier. I'm trying to do this less and less as time goes on because I want to hold a '"finished" piece in my hands!
Catchy tagline goes here
No “Thoughts” button this time as it creates a new form every time, so you’ll have to just leave a comment below if you want to say something :) You can also email wanderfullywriting@rizzyfig.com