When Pain Turns To Rage

A3, Coal and pencil on paper

As human beings, we experience a wide range of emotions every day. Some emotions are positive, while others are negative. The emotions around being stepped on are complex, with pain being the primary feeling that is often followed by anger. 

My drawing depicting a girl getting stepped on is a powerful representation of these emotions. The image shows the girl lying on the ground, with her face contorted in pain. Her head is being crushed by the weight of someone else. 

The pain that the girl is experiencing is clear, but there is more to the image than just physical discomfort. The look on the girl’s face shows that she is frustrated, upset, and in pain with what has just happened to her. 

There are many reasons why someone might feel angry after being stepped on. Perhaps they feel violated, or maybe they are frustrated at their own vulnerability. Whatever the reason, the anger that comes after the pain is a natural response to being hurt. 

I hope that by capturing the pain and anger of being stepped on, I have created a powerful image that will resonate with many people. 

The experience of being stepped on over and over again had a significant impact on my emotional well-being. The feelings of frustration and anger that I experienced as a result of being constantly disregarded or disrespected led me to feel demotivated and disheartened. It was hard not to take it personally, and the more it happened, the more I started to question my own worth and abilities. And the more it happened, the more my anger grew. It was difficult not to let this resentment spill over into other aspects of my life. It was important for me to recognize the impact it was having on my well-being. 

As time went on, these negative feelings started to spill over into other aspects of my life. I found myself becoming increasingly irritable and easily frustrated with those around me, and I started to feel like I couldn’t trust anyone. This sense of mistrust and alienation was incredibly isolating, and it made it hard for me to form close relationships with others. 

For me, one of the main reasons for these intense negative feelings, has been the experience of serving as a young female in the army. The world has come far, but sexism and bullying still stands as a great issue. I would say that most people certainly do not see themselves as someone who excludes and judge others, but it happens. This is a painful experience for anyone. When you live with someone 24/7 it hits hard when you constantly feel overlooked and left out.  

The environment I was put into never fitted me. Loud testosterone boys pecking at everything that moved. Over time these feelings led to hopelessness and despair. Informing higher ranked people was something I thought would help, but over and over again it was proved that the “serious chats” being held in the team and for the troop never actually changed anything. We recently had a survey concerning just these topics. The results were shocking. A huge number of people, both men and women have felt the exact same painful emotions as me in this very profession. This is not good news, but it certainly makes me feel a whole lot less alone. 

Healing from Trauma and Moving Towards Forgiveness 

It is very important to acknowledge these feelings. In order to address these negative feelings, I had to start taking steps to assert my boundaries and stand up for myself. This meant learning to say “no” when I needed to and advocating for my own needs and desires. It’s not always easy, and I often have to confront uncomfortable situations, but over time, I find that standing up for myself helps me to regain a sense of control and self-worth. For me it’s been important to release my anger and frustration in healthier ways, such as through exercise or creative outlets. 

Overall, the experience of being stepped on repeatedly had a profound impact on my emotional well-being, but by learning to assert myself and set boundaries, I’m working on moving past these negative feelings and start to rebuild my sense of self-confidence and trust in others. Healing is a process, and it takes time and effort to move forward. 

A Winter’s Fire

Every winter when the world goes dark,
All we need is a little spark.
From a fire burning steady hot,
I watch it from my favorite spot.

After making countless amounts of fires this winter, it continues to amaze me. There is just something so mesmerizing about a flickering flame. It’s effects relaxes me in a trance-like way. I’m no pyromaniac, but a pleasant controlled fire will probably always be something I’ll cherish.

Now a bit about the painting and the process; I started with some A4 watercolor paper. Hotpressed for a smoother result. In the beginning I chose to mainly focus on the firewood and the rocks around the bonfire. Slowly layer by layer, the piece was building up. It’s usually always hard at the start of a project, but it’s important to just trust the process.

The very first few layers.

As I proceed to add more and stronger colors, there is a lot to keep in mind; mixing of colors, the thickness of the paint, negative spaces, how the paint lightens when it dries, drying time, other methods for drying – a hairdryer, not over-working the paper and so much more.

Darkening the background.

If you want to work with watercolors you have to be prepared for a long and slow process. Not letting the different layers completely dry or throwing on too much color can completely ruin the painting. Of course a lot of mistakes can be saved with several helpful techniques, but avoiding them in the first place is always ideal.

The finished framed piece.

I added a larger black frame with some white space to enhance the artwork. The contrast between light and dark does a very good job at just that.

It was my first time proceeding to paint a fire. As much as a challenge that it was, I definitely also learnt a good amount of new things. Especially when it comes to creating something this dark in watercolors. Now I’m just looking forward to the next one!

Architecture

I think architecture is an interesting topic. I’ve always wanted to draw and design my own house. I think the idea of living in something you made yourself is very exciting.

Something that’s very challenging is perspective. There’s a lot of helpful videos on YouTube. I watched some nice educational ones to manage drawing this, but it takes a lot of practice to get it right. The rules of perspective and the math behind it is very interesting when you start digging into it. I’ve learnt that with some knowledge and a ruler you can come very far in mastering it.

I think this is the furthest I’ve ever come with drawing a proper house. I’ll hopefully continue and improve. Especially with the perspective part!

The Toucan

I was recently challenged to draw a toucan. I never knew that was the name of this bird. It looks so exotic and has the most beautiful vibrant colors. I wanted to recreate this as best as possible.

For this project I had planned to use watercolors. Not long ago I got this new set of aquarelle pencils from Cretacolor. I thought they would be perfect to use. After sketching the bird, I started filling in the colors. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the pencils worked great on their own. I was scared that adding water would ruin my work. So I kept using these water activated pencils as normal drawing pencils. I’d say that they worked better than I had expected. It feels like the color is thicker on the paper. I didn’t get the same dry feeling as with normal pencils. It was more satisfying to draw with and I will actually keep using them a lot like this.

Recently I’ve been working on some other projects. This has been making new websites and web games, like this one. I’ve been picking up a new hobby, which now has been coding. I can’t wait to work on bigger projects! I’m also so thankful for my friends who keep helping with this and staying patient with me xd

The rain

It’s been raining here a lot the past few days. It’s the perfect opportunity to sit inside and make art. I love to draw, but I want to improve my painting skills too. I’ve been watching a lot of tutorials on YouTube and tried researching different techniques. I find painting a lot more challenging and time consuming than drawing. I think that has to do with what I’m used to and not.

I wanted to keep this painting a bit dark and cold. I’m happy with how the different layers turned out. Something I think could be improved is the white highlights on the leaves. Next time I’ll use an even smaller linear brush. Other than that I’m happy with it and I’ll keep painting.

Having to try out for the army!

I drew these weapons past the last days. I don’t know a lot about guns, therefore I just chose the ones I thought looked cool xd
I think they turned out alright.

The reason I went with this theme is because I recently got an announcement.
Every year my country choose 25% of people of a certain age. These are individuals that gets obligated to try out for the army. The ones who seems to “fit” the best gets picked.
I never imagined I’d get picked…
It’s required for everyone to apply in the first place. In the end, 12% has to serve.
Conscription counts for both genders. The national service is equally compulsory for both men and women.

I’m not so sure if I want to risk serving a year in the army. I enjoy exercising and the outdoors, but I’d rather proceed studying art and design, which are my true passions.This was the hardest weapon to draw. Here I had to watch a lot more out for the lenght. I tried getting everything to fit in it’s place. A tip to get proportions more accurate is to sketch up and measures out what hits where before you actually start drawing. I also like to enhance the shadows. I feel like this gives more depth and life to the piece.

Unfinished artworks

I like starting new projects a lot. So much that I don’t finish the old ones before I start new ones. These are some of the works I’ve started, but never finished.

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These are all watercolor pieces with flower themes. It’s no secret that I like this topic.

The first flower was going to be a water lily. I went with a color range that was a bit dark. This could help indicate that it was around nighttime.

The second piece is a still life painting. I wanted to practice by painting a few different objects in the same work. I usually go for very simple artworks where I focus on one object. This was a bit of a challenge for me.

The last picture is from a rose I began painting. I’ve painted quite a lot of roses before. This one was smaller than I’m used to. Therefore I had a bit of an issue getting all of the details right. It’s far from done and I wonder if I’ll ever get to finish it.

 

I also hit one year on Duolingo!
I’m learning French as my 5th language. It makes learning into a game. I wish learning art could work like this too X)

Objectsオブジェクト

I love realism. This is the art type I want to work the most in. I’ve been practising by drawing random things lately. I asked friends to suggest me any object so that I could practise with it. This motivates me more in a way. I think it’s nice when it’s someone else’s idea. It makes me want to finish earlier and better so I can show them and get their personal opinion on their own suggestions.

The first suggestion I got was a shoe. I chose a kind of classic style one. I wanted to practise many objects, and therefore I chose to make the drawings a bit small.

The second drawing suggestion i had was a katana. The details I wanted for this turned out to be a bit difficult to illustrate. That is mostly because the drawing is only around 6cm*8cm.

I really liked making these small practise drawings. I’m planning on doing a lot more too. Maybe I’ll even create my own little collection. I’d love to hear more suggestions from anyone here too.

Thanks for reading :3

Animalsどうぶつ

Lately I’ve been drawing more animals. I’ve practices both traditionally and digitally. I also worked on illustrating new textures.

The first piece I made was of an octopus. I chose to draw a tentacle. This was made digitally on a phone app. I’m very happy with how I managed to blend the colors and get my idea to life the best way possible. It’s easier to get a cleaner look when it’s digitally.

The second drawing I made was of a lynx. I made this traditionally on paper. I’m more used to drawing on paper and therefore I often enjoy that more. I’ve never drawn fur before so that was a challenge. I’m planning to draw more animals in the future to practice new textures like this.