With every high highs, come the low lows. Why not days of riding middle? It seems the 3 modes my brain likes are: amazingly laser focused time wizard, rabbit holing randomly into something else entirely, or releasing vast amounts brain fart fog that I wonder if my room has its own ozone layer. I’ve probably lost a good % of brain mass to this or its just ADHD. Case in point, I spent a good 15 minutes spacing out while writing this to lyricize a more relatable rendition of The Zombie’s “It’s the Time of the Season”:

It’s the time for the seasonal depre~ssion

[dududu, tch-ahh, dududu, tch-ahh] 

What’s your shame? Are you crabby?

Are you a lich like me?

Do you wake up, every night - 

with-out get~ting any proper sleep?

I don’t know if its post gig tiredness, financial/familial stress, burnout, my period, or whatever negative crap my mind likes to latch onto (all the above) - but it’s been an uphill climb since the latter half of April. I did give myself a week to only do absolutely necessary tasks and nothing else. It was a blessed week of no thoughts, head empty (take a break when you need it folks!). 

Unfortunately, it wanted to stay that way. And life must carry on. Things became harder. Things I usually cared about or had fun with seemed so distant from me. It was as if whatever life train my little carriage car was latched to,  detached. 

Whatever momentum I had built was lost. My joy, sadness, curiosity, feelings .. slowed to a complete stop.

When I think back on these experiences it’s a lot like the period of unending nausea before you throw up. Instead of stomach acid it’s unemotional void. And sometimes you are aware of it which can be as fun as a sleep paralysis dream. I usually get through it knowing it will pass. Things always do. A good cry and joke later I felt a good calm and found some blissful sleep.

It doesn’t ever fully go away but like Yzma you sometimes you just gotta smash that unintended compartmentalization (what a word):

SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!

In those in-between hours of sweet clarity or enough work to keep the worries away, I done did a few things:

The SA Book Festival was a fun experience!  I learned much, got to work with and meet some inspiring peeps. I have nothing but respect for all the hard work it takes to make it all happen, like an orchestra of series of events that must harmonize separately but altogether. I am thinking of making a short comic or zine of that experience sometime soon. I’ll come back on this topic at a later time, but I will remember fondly the days working there anytime I see these lil guys. 

We had boxes of these at the office and nowhere for them to go! I may paint one into a sad clown chicken.

Flower hour! Some sweet nature pics of the month:

prickly pear in blossom :o

prickly poppy

texas paintbrush

sir schtick

a brunch gathering

sir grack is taking it to-go

I made a little more progress on Broomcrow. I really missed my watercolors and began painting this. The first sketch I made I realized I wanted it larger, so I replicated it on the larger pad, without a grid! Not a bad job eh?

original sketch is on the left

progress!

I cleaned up the next few spreads so here is a peek at chapter 1!

Bonus:

Last note to leave you on is a song that is now stuck in my head by the great BDG:

-Jade