New calendar piece! April showers bring May flowers... (Patreon)

Happy May and happy Monday! With the new month comes a new calendar piece. For May I wanted to focus on growth, life and calm. I've been seeking a lot of calm in my life recently since my home environment can be quite hectic at times. To combat the noise, pollution, and noise pollution that I'm surrounded by I find refuge in the scenes that I draw. It helps a lot and makes me believe that peace is achievable even in times of distraught, whether internal or external. 

I have several goals in mind with these calendar pieces. Obviously I want them to represent the individual months. I also want to push myself to draw backgrounds, something I still have a lot to learn from. Every time I start one of these pieces, it feels deeply unfamiliar as if I'm solving a 10,000 piece puzzle that I've never done before. But as I work through it and deal with problems one at a time as they come up, it becomes manageable and the piece almost starts to unfold itself before me. It doesn't finish itself by any means, but I think I'm starting to better understand the process of drawing full illustrations. It's not about knowing 100% what the end will look like from the beginning. Rather it's a process that evolves as you work through it and that's an approach that I can appreciate. 

As I get older, I can more clearly see how art is an expression of the self. True, sometimes you just want to draw silly things that don't necessarily have a lot of ~meaning~ behind them. But at the same time I find that what I create is distinctly tied to who I am, how I'm feeling, and what I'm learning. I'm not saying I fully understand myself, I don't know if anybody ever reaches that stage, but I can see how my creations good or bad reflect a part of me. 

If you're having trouble with art because the subject is unfamiliar, try to see it as a process rather than a linear path. You may make mistakes along the way, but that's a good thing because we learn from mistakes and improve as a result. Mistakes aren't failures, they're lessons and being kind to yourself is one of the biggest lessons I've learned as a result. You don't have to make an amazing drawing on the first try (trust me, this piece went through multiple revisions) because there is value in making mistakes and there is value in learning. 

Thank you all so much for your support, I hope you enjoy this piece! I'm grateful every single day for your kind words and support and know that I appreciate it with every fiber of my being. I'll see you tomorrow with another art post and until then have a great day/night. <3

Much love,

Vicki