Secret Santa Jam in progress!

I decided to do the Secret Santa Jam, just because I got a digest email from Itchio and thought it sounded cool. You send off a letter and get one in return, from an anonymous someone you are meant to craft a game for, and of course, someone crafts one based on your letter. Mine likes Resident Evil 7 but also mentioned Animal Crossing. They suggested a horror/Christmas story, which turned out to be a fantastic limitation to work with, in terms of storytelling especially. I feel like blogging to take a break from the coding mayhem that's got my mind whirling a bit too much. Mine so far is a bit of a walking simulator with a snapping camera that has defined the game's suspenseful vibe. Well, as suspenseful as pixel art can be. 

My game is mostly a walking sim so far, with some player options that will determine the final outcome. It is pretty obvious right now as my splash art, cheesy vibe and and temporary title spoils who the intruder is. But maybe that is for the best? Maybe it's ok to ham up the 'evil Santa' trope, and tell a story within a game the best you can. Currently, just focusing on dying if you get hit by Santa who roams a certain path. Then, hopefully will aim to have the character do a certain thing in order to defend herself and her wimpy partner.

I went into making this little house dumbly thinking I was be making a RPG, as I admit my terminology vocabulary is fairly limited. Then realised...the snapping camera my friend recommended, forms the core of the game! It is a walking sim mostly. Stuff happens around you, but the person whom I am making this for mentioned survival horror as something they liked, so I am still on-the-fly inventing things that could be programmed in to make for the stories climax. I mean, I kind of know, but it needs to be better.

Story is king. They used to spout that off at Pixar, but Pixar Story Internship didn't teach me that. Jojo's Bizzare Adventure and Berserk that same year did.

I am laughing a lot at my spontaneous use of royalty free music and SFX's recommended to me by people on Discord. Music and sound completely and absolutely can make the medium. I think it wouldn't be anywhere near as funny if I didn't have the capacity to get-in-the-storytelling-zone aka. creative flow state and come up with ideas. Ah, yes. Flow state. What I live for. Life has been painful without acess to flow state, and GML has been one heck of a steep learning curve. Only now I'm capable of understanding 'state machines', something which I was calling all this time  'sequentially getting from one thing to next' lmfao. Being self taught with code has been a long road, but with making this, I got into flow state more. I actually enjoy the challenges a bit more, instead of wanting to break down as past GML attempts have left me. I think this is just because I'm improving, also, because I'm making a simple game with a simple loop, and focusing on storytelling and art/animations once I have the game loop sorted.

I reakon I will get a smile out of my giftee with this. I mean, some things just make you smile. Dorky Christmas things sure make me smile. The game is in a very solid state and I have till 22nd 6:30am GMT, Greenwich time? Hope I don't goof up and miss it.

Blogging is still some form of venting, no matter how positive I attempt to be. This is because my mental health has been in the gutter since losing my art. I don't think it's that hideous a pastime now that I'm mellowed out and not questioning my gender anymore. God I wish I didn't do all that shit. God I just want to feel stable and normal and not get swept away by whims. Game dev is something I have done on and off during the years, in spurts, and usually all my content is broken, rough and ugly. Usually because my code isn't graceful and well thought out, but I think that is changing. 

I am trying to relish my improvements, as a feel like only midyear, I couldn't process so much of the code techniques that I'm FINALLY capable of doing on my own without my dad helping me. So my goal is to make a cute pixel art (mostly) games and learn and improve through my own resources, not getting stumped and crying. It's a language, it' a skill you need to approach a certain way and it's especially not like art, which I suggest to people is all about 'just jumping in and putting down some lines'. Programming is very different. So I have to slow down and plan what I want to happen. Anyways, I've waffled on enough, and am spoiling my game if I post too much. Self-taught-amateur-coder, over and out.

setbacks and getting back on your feet

I'm terrified that potential and past employers will read me saying I 'can't draw' and then will never consider me to storyboard or anything ever again. If that's the case, I should do better and shut the hell up everywhere. I'm afraid, because the most consistent I employers I have had, essentially the golden ticket of working in animation, never reached back out to me after my dad told them I was 'unwell' in 2020. Maybe they're just respecting that statement. That yeah, being 'unwell', or in the loonie bin more like it, means you just plain and simply can't produce the goods. Oh, I'd give anything to feel competent in my art again. Some days it shines through, people still seem to react to things I do. I'm not talking shit about any employer, they have all been awesome and give me opportunities to work my hardest and make cool stuff. More than an employer reading this, I am even more afraid that I'll never be able to do the high caliber work I used to. As despite attempting to sketch and paint and animate every damn day since my accident, I have yet to fully heal over this 'art brain' which causes me immeasurable anguish. In the meantime, I have tried to 'expand my horizons' as everyone keeps telling me. That's all coming from people that've never found such ecstasy from a pursuit, as I have with drawing.

I don't want to be at poopy Adelaide Uni any long. I have never wanted degree and am always sickened by people that assume degrees prove some worth. I don't need a degree from them, but am working towards one anyways. What hurts most is, I have been forced down this path since semester one 2021. As when you're like me and psychosis means you can't excel at your one lifetime passion, you are forced to painfully branch out and try new things. 

But art has always been breathing. So take that away that breath, and you're suffocating, miserable and close to death. I didn't realize how much this breath had spurred me on throughout the years, until I entered the Google Drive album from art from 2016. I don't feel like posting heaps, but I'll leave you with this Berserk comic. People used to message me asking for it after I made my Tumblr private.

Humorous, lighthearted doodles tended to blossom from my fingertips like spring flowers around this time. That's what you get when you're so enamored with series as powerful as both Berserk and Jojo. I realize the power of even this simple art, something that can make a fan smile, or anyone smile really, but mostly, they're doodly things that made me smile. It is indulgent in the end, maybe? I have felt so miserable about my artwork since my repeated psychosis, as it's been three psychoses. Woah, that's a fuck ton! It takes other people years to recover from one but, like a shonen protagonist after taking a brutal pummeling, I've bitterly stood back up on my feet. Again and again, bruised and smiling like Naruto.

I used to use a textured pen to draw these doodles most of the time, yet when I try that Photoshop tool again in the present day, it feels icky. These days I am too attached to generic 'hard round' which doesn't have any texture--- but what am I talking about? What tool you use in Photoshop doesn't freakin' matter, it's a banal conversation reserved for hobby artists, who always get into discussing layer modes and 'clean' lineart, ignorant to the fact that true art is all about something higher. Below is a weird drawing based on Enigma's Oxygen Red album which was released that year. I remember being back home with family because I had recently been laid off from a failure of a game company (it was another Adelaide flop, not my fault). I remember drawing this, immersed in the music because I goddamn love Enigma. The amount of gradient layer modes and clipping masks is proof of the big crutches I leant on with digital art.

Art will always be a 'higher' thing for me. Even if I'm just doodling Berserk, it's all about the storytelling behind every line. It's about my attachment to these characters, which is a emotional and human thing. Setbacks like I have experienced harm your inner pride more than anything, because just what am I without an ability to just be my best? A nothing. A broken person who can maybe eat, sleep, poop and... what else?

:( 

It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

I just want to be my (artistic) best. 

This 2016 art above was my best at that age, at that time. Below is a painting I didn't exactly hate, because I was trying to express something more than just painting a crappy fanart of a character that has zero emotional resonance with me. This is a painting featuring two of me, past and psychotic. I realize the PTSD of everything I've been through is still crippling me. So when people joke about PTSD they wouldn't know how disrespectful that is, it slices neatly through flesh and bone. It makes me stand up and walk away from the conversation, that's how bad it is. Luckily, I hate people in general and can get through many weeks with limited 'socializing', so it's all probably its for the better. As I said a few posts down, bozos everywhere are keen to 'critique' my art or assess why I'd be living with my dad but no, it's not 'still' living with him, as I thrived on my own for many years, buttheads. Soooo maybe I'm not ready for more goddamn 'socializing', which aka. means to be confronted and judged by absolute morons with no empathy for how many setbacks one little redheaded girl can have. 

This little redheaded girl has seen hell. It maybe hasn't all been without value and heavenly apparitions, but in the end, nobody wants to understand. I have been told to 'not expect to be understood' because that is naïve and narcissistic. Well fine, then these are my stories that I can barely can convey with the contemporary dance I do in the twilight at the back of the house, avoiding dads unused drum kit with every leap and bound. I don't want to focus in on art I did over 7 years ago, because it's sad to think I've had so much taken from me. I'm still myself. No matter what grief and psychosis life chucks at me, it can't steal this core. Doesn't matter if you have had setbacks that mean you can't work, you are still worthy and deserve to feel proud and happy. I guess I'll try drawing 'like me' right now. It may not be a textured brush-funny-Berserk-joke, because that isn't me as she exists in this present moment. Hope people aren't still reading this just out of curiosity of my gender-postings, I'm a woman. Leave me alone. Goodbye.

Kangaroo Island farming game by a self taught dev

As I mentioned in previous recent posts I'm making a farming game. So I had my game working great for awhile but then made some tweaks in hopes of improving and BLAM. Something broke. Now I can barely water the plants and complete the growing crop cycle because somehow I altered one line that messed up another. I'm giving it a break for a few hours because I need to be fresh when I attempt programming, otherwise it all ends in a Vela tantrum.

I understand I sound really angry at the world in many of my recent posts and well, it's because life has been pretty damn hard and I can't find a semblance of normalcy due to all the weirdness I've experienced. Of course, I'm still animating, but it sure is hard. It's more the emotional hurdle of booting up my desktop computer and facing that Cintiq display. It reminds me of better days and to sit there often causes me great anguish. That is why I prefer my Surface Pro for game dev and even the Surface Pro pen comes in handy for pixel art.

I have never formally learnt how to code, so I tend to be a bit like a bull in a China shop in my approach to it. I've gotten better, I think. These last few days I really made a lot of progress, I think? Here's a screenie gif of the tediously watered plants in their second sprout stage. something is up with the watering not working, bah. I'm gonna fix it, I will just take my time and ask dad for help, lol. It looks a bit nicer as a screenie. The clumps of tall grass look a bit like the weeds on our property on Kangaroo Island, which is a landscape that I'm inspiring the game off of.

I started the game out with tiny 32x32 pixel character art, but since the recent Slam Jam 3, I realised larger pixel art is much easier for me and probably, something that gives my game more artistic charm. For that reason, I'm working on making 128x128 sized character sprites which will take heaps of effort but will probably make my game pop out from the hordes of pixel games. Nothing wrong with them, I personally adore tiny pixel art, but I think bigger is better for my style personally. I tried to observe well-sprited tilesets because you can't just larn pixel art in a void. My mouth fell agape in wonder at the detail in this one below. It's not like I can get that much skillful nuance into my own tileset but hey, you know what they say, shoot for the moon! 

Kangaroo Island is the predominant inspiration for this game, because we have vistas of the ocean and wide sprawling grasslands (of unwanted weeds) taking over native vegetation. In this game the player grows muntries, a native Australian berry.  On this property we get feral sheep which squeeze under the gaps in the fence between the neighbours farm. They are are pests and to be shoo-ed away. Native animals aka. kangaroos are of course somewhat welcome, but will still eat your crops! Same with possums, actually, especially possums. The wizened casuarina trees grow windswept to one side, their frail roots clinging to deal life in the sandy soil. It is a brutally tough landscape, but a poetic one that inspires me in countless ways, and we're headed over there tomorrow! I have attempted farming games miserably in the past, but this is the culmination of two other (broken) GameMaker Studio games that I never understood the core loop well enough. Here is a screenie of the predecessor, I admit, I put in the most effort with the relaxing hot tub feature rather than the crop growing. I will bring it back, but only if the player earns enough dough for it!

Well, I got my head around for loops, if statements, structs, arrays, arrays of structs, switches and assigning variables and whatnot. Finally, at long last, it appears all the programming has begun to sink in! I don't think it's that pretentious to say that a few years of dabbling in GameMaker could finally pay off.

Speaking of paying off, I just bought the newly announced one-time purchase Professional license, which I personally got discounted for $29 dollars because I had been paying $7 every month for so around a year. This means I can put my games up on my website and Itch.io as HTML and do ever more than before. Wow! Pretty pleased they have decided to create a one time purchase option that rewards creators who have been using GML for awhile. I think I'll be definitely stick to using GameMaker from now on, I mean, why not? It's so good. Thanks GameMaker, you're helping this lil' artist learn programming and game design!

On a panel at Avcon + met Hiroshi Nagahama!

So Avcon 2023 was super awesome for a few reasons! One of the guests was Hiroshi Nagahama, known for being the director of Mushishi. Just the mention of Mushishi takes me back to days spent in my room as a teen absorbing every anime I could get my hands on, always through early 2000s YouTube.

Its Saturday around 1:30pm. Nagahama-san is doing his first talk, creating a live drawing of Spiderman versus Venom and is aided by an interpreter. He obviously has ample respect for Western comics and culture, evidenced by his praise for American cartoons. I found it hard to relax and enjoy the moment, for I was scheduled to be on the panel directly after this legend!

We were instructed to be next to the stage 15 minutes beforehand for our "Women in Gaming" panel at 2:30. Before walking up on stage, the nerves hadn't really began to take effect of me just yet. A man in a blue Avcon volunteers tee then approached us. 

"Mics are on, you can go up there now."  

I teeter out as the second in line and took my seat. When the time came around to say my name into my mic, my hands began to shake despite my best attempts to stop them.

"Hi...I'm Vela."

The entire time, I found it hard to lift my head up and look at the audience, as honestly I was very awkward but hey......that ties into what I said on the panel.

(Photo credit: Rhomenka Vallance, Team Avcon)

The only things I felt like I was proud of mumbling was; my hopes that the industry can begin to accept the stories of people on the autism spectrum and/or with mental health conditions. Stories of neurodivergent people matter as they are usually quite vulnerable, and I'd love to see more characters and stories based directly off of these lived experiences. Basically, fresh outta' the mouths of people who've actually lived such things.

Also, I got a mention of Touhou Project in, which was fun to say. I'm certain I was zoning out staring at an Alley stall in the distance as I said everything in my strange American accent which seems to disarm everyone. After I stepped down from the platform, my friend hugs me.

"You we're amazing!"

I'm certain he was just being nice, as he always is. We scurried away and tried not to loiter, out of my sheer awkwardness. I was thrilled but also extremely anxious I might have said something wrong or held the mic the wrong way. When I get home that Saturday my dad immediately asks me:

"What? You need to get the anime director guys signature! Give him your business card!"

"There's a guest signing tomorrow afternoon! I don't think I should be handing him my business card..."

That night, I didn't sleep a wink. Over and over in my mind I thought, oh my god, I mentioned that company that flopped and maybe someone in the audience thinks I'm being a bitch. I didn't make eye contact when that girl in the audience who asked what our fave games were! Oh my god! I can't go an hour without being doofy and wrong!

Its 3pm Sunday the next day at the "Friends of Avcon" booth and Hiroshi Nagahama is there half an hour early. There is a non-existent line to get a signature from him, I can't believe it! I wait for the two people in front of me to get a custom drawing, the longest 10 minutes ever. He explains to the four or so people in line that one Sharpie was gifted to him by the late Stan Lee, so it is a precious Sharpie he must bring with him to conventions, or something along those lines. I prepared by muttering to myself the formal Japanese introduction I was told to say. Now its my turn, I swiftly bow and say:

"Dozoyoroshikuoneigaishimasu."

He mimics me but looks confused, maybe I said or timed it wrong. He readies his pen and gestures to the paper in front of him. I confess, I had just Googled the characters name, since it must have been decades since I first watched it. 

"Eehto...Ginko onegaishimasu.(Um, Ginko please)"

"Hai."

My friend nudges me to open my sketchbook so I do quickly. I brace myself and take the plunge.

"Watashi wa, sutoriboodo aetisuto desu.(Im a storyboard artist)"

"Honto?"(Really?)

He says so in typical exaggerated Japanese fashion. I flip through the pages of my drawings.

"What? It me?"

The other interpreter calls the Japanese interpreter over and they point to the lady in my sketches.

"Look it's you Hanako!*"

*I don't remember what the interpreter's name is but I'm 55% sure I overheard something similar. 

He turns back to me.

"Donna Sutoribodo desuka? (What sort of storyboards?)"

"Eeto...nettofurikkus (Um, Netflix)" 

"Honto!!!? Sugoi.(Really, awesome!)"

He then asked me what stuff on Netflix. I said in English: How to Train Your Dragon since I worked on a spinoff in series. The other guest, Lisle Wilkerson, who is bilingual, translated for him. His reaction was as expected, the equivalent of 'holy shit' in Japanese. I let them hold my sketchbook, of course. He points at the gesture I did of the crouching photographer.

"Umai desune...(Super good)"

He buckles down and starts drawing Ginko from Mushishi. The voice actress Lisle Wilkerson is sitting nearly right next to him so I show her the silly caricatured drawing I did of her. I wasn't expecting I'd ever be showing it to her!

"Sorry, sometimes I can't get peoples' faces right the first time."

She smiles coyly. 

"No problem, I'm a woman of a hundred faces."

She also seems to have a wealth of expertise so I ask her...

"What do you recommend for someone studying Japanese, other than just living there?"

"Hm. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Lots of Japanese people are really afraid, that's why they rarely leave Japan. You gotta' goof up a bit to learn!"

Nagahama now has finished the drawing by now, and signs it in English. 

"Sutori-aitisto ni Storiboardo-teki na e wo kaita. (For the story artist, I've drawn a storyboard-like picture"."

"Subarashi tomoimasu. arigatougozaimasu.(I think it's wonderful, thanks so much.)" 

"(Don't mention it)."

I leave the convention right after getting the drawing, since I had a family dinner that night. With my mind whirling and an original Sharpie drawing in my little clear bag, I slouch down into my well deserved train seat.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes, that is what that confident bilingual voice actress said, huh. Whether its through speaking Japanese to one man, or speaking English to an entire convention hall, I feel like I've started to conquer my fear of goofing up. What an awesome Avcon. Over and out~

Drew 21 faces at the Willunga Artisan x Quarry market!

I busked at the Artisan x Quarry market Easter event from 8:30 to 12:15 and drew 21 faces! Wow! Mostly kids, only three adults out of all of them. Compared to last market where   As we had surprise social obligations x2 immediately after I was done with market, I was very exhausted.  

Before I get into the art, I need to say, life drawing is life. Caricatures are life. Sketching from life is life. Copying existing art will get you some draftsmanship, but you could always just be doing the ultimate copying, which is life drawing, like real classical artists always have done. The reason I say this is because a lot of people don't see value in life drawing. They can draw sparkly elf and orc concept art all they want, nothing beats giving a drawing to a little smiling girl who is over the moon with being cartoonified. Despite everything I've been through, I have always had a hankering for life drawing, and being capable of doing even the smallest sketches, whether its on the train into uni, or sketching a portrait for a cute little girl, means the world to me.

First game jam in GameMaker AND all by myself!!!!!

The game is up here on my itch.io! It's a zip file but I promise it's not a virus! What do I have to say about this short project in which I only used thirds of the 9 day jam?

 

The post mortem from this project is, don't expect to do stellar with your school work AND do a fun jam, one will have to suffer. It could be maddening, watching the 'ball' hit around and spear itself onto spikes while you can only watch. Still, that's what the original game 'brick breaker' is about, enjoying the bricks breaking...It's only fair when the spikes can be avoided due to SKILL (moving left and right) soshite, it's a bit cruel. 

I struggled with the level progression, it's very clunky. I struggled with the 'resetting' of the rooms when dead and yadda yadda, all the linear stuff drove me batshit. I wonder why.

I enjoyed making the animated bricks and designing the strange levels. I admit for time reasons (and sanity) I didn't play all 5 stages through without dying (those ceiling spikes are brutal...) before submitting to jam. I removed ceiling spikes before submitting and hope that makes it more fair a game.

I wanted to focus on the delight of hitting the different bricks, so focused a lot on getting the corresponding color coming out of the exploding animation, wayyy too much time spent on that but hey, it's worth it. 

The local Adelaide game dev scene (AGD) has often made me self conscious, a bit of imposters syndrome involved there because of my trauma, but I'm really pleased with the vibe I felt on their discord and although it was a jam of only 14 games, that pretty great turnout for Adelaide. It makes me proud to be a part of something local.

Anyways, my hands are aching from all the coding and writing I've done today, that is a good sign. It's a familiar ache that says, you've worked pretty damn hard. Invertebreaker(s) may not look like much, but I hope someone enjoys it! Cheers!

AGD Slam Jam 2 progress

 I decided to join in the AGD Slam Jam 2 a few days late since it's run by local Adelaide game devs. I was considering, heck I need to get back into GameMaker programming, since it's been a few months of avoiding it altogether.

I turned back to FriendlyCosmonauts tutorial for a 'brick break' style game. I had followed her tutorial word-for-word to make a pong game years back, it maybe must've been 2021 I think. I failed miserably at implementing any sort of charm into the game, as I barely knew if and switch statements etc.  

This time, I started with chat GPT since I wanted to see what it could teach me. For better or worse, it taught me nearly nothing, as much of the code was broken or outdated GML from 2012 and such, using view_xview and other unused functions. Well, I had to suck it up and code it myself. 

 I found it easier than I had anticipated, as many of my previous GML games were fairly broken. I kept it simple, using brick objects I painted on per level. The creature bounces off of the walls using a formula that reversed the hspeed and vspeed. If I just dumped it here well, that would ruin the mystery.

move_bounce_all(true) truly proved very useful, as all the bouncing is due to that, I think it's convincing enough for a pixel art game made entirely by me. I've even managed to spit out some dumpy music just for fun, but it'll probably end up more a maddening contribution than anything.

Anyways, I should probably get back to it. I have yet to make it progress to levels as it jumps to level 3, the smiley face one. All the somewhat linear things are the ones I find hardest to conceptualise, how one thing links up to another. Might ask my dad for help, or plan it out like real devs do. Once that's done, maybe I can design some powerups for speed, enlargement and something else fun.

Procrastination bloggin' over and out. I should be working on an essay or Japanese damngg.

Goodbye Mom. We Fed the Lobsters.

We held a memorial event for my mom two days ago. She passed away from brain cancer in early 2020  and my life was changed forever. At our property on beautiful Kangaroo Island, around 20 people turned up, some from the USA and some from Adelaide. 

After tributes, my dad and I kayaked out to sprinkle moms ashes into the bay by our home on North Cape. She had wanted us to 'feed the lobsters' with her ashes. They will be happy.

Kangaroo Island is a very special place for me. I have roamed the hillsides and stumbled the pebbled shores many times in search of adventure. In the twilit magic hours, I feel the power of the landscape beckon me across the dry grassy knolls, finding majesty in every thing, living or not. 

I don't know if all the guests felt this magic, as they seemed concerned with the amount of walking required to ascend back up to the house from the beach, but I am grateful for whoever decided to show up. Around half of them waited for a car trip up instead of the hard climb, but I raced ahead. Needing to be alone amongst the impassive bleached white rocks and dry grass for a moment.

Weirdly, somedays the pain fades down to nothing, on those days I accept, hey, I eat, sleep and shit like everyone else. I decide then to put up boundaries that say, hey I've been through hell. I respect myself where others wont understand this hurt. I need to go about life with cloth dressings on these wounds and armour on top, just to survive in a world that doesn't understand how to not 'press buttons' which hurt me. So I have to be strong in navigating this world, not getting triggered when people use the word 'psychotic' unbelievably wrong, in the fact that people ask why I'm not doing animations, blah blah more petty shit that isn't worth the words on the screen.

Yet my mom was unbelievably strong in the face of cancer, something to truly cry about. I know she would want me to be tougher. If I couldn't draw, she would remind me I'm still Vela. She would probably tell me to do crocheting or underwater basket weaving, something new, or she would probably tell me my art was still great. I don't know. 

It feels like she is with me till this day, I have moments thinking "Oh shouldn't mom be here right now?" more often than not. I thought this when we gathered down at the beach. I also am a spiritual person now and tentatively believe in the afterlife, but I won't get into that. 

I have witnessed mystifyingly beautiful things along this journey called life. I'm especially grateful for every day I can do a little doodle like the ones below, it may not happen every day but that's all it has to be. When I was out there kayaking, I remember I'm not the labels I keep torturing myself.

I'm Vela. The little feisty redheaded daughter of Susie and Alan.

 That, I'll always be. 

Art busking & the challenges of putting yourself out there

Dad reckons to stop pulling myself down into the past, something that is 2 or 3 years ago gone by by now. He is right, I need to focus on things I've done now. The issue is, I ruminate constantly on my past. I wanted to try 'art busking' as in, drawing free caricatures of people for them to take.

People understand music busking because it is an established thing. Sitting down on the street with a small A-frame sign and say "I'll draw you" however, is something new. I asked a local Saturday morning market in Willunga if they would be ok with it and they were very enthusiastic. 

The first person I drew was a little baby. The grandma seemed very pleased with it. 

A feeling (I forgot) I live for is that, kids tend to see the sign before their parents and tend to gasp and say "Mum look!" and proceed to tug at their mum or dad. This is not always successful but I take delight in seeing a positive reaction to my work. I started to feel a confidence blossom in me, that said, wow I can do this! All these miserable years of saying I have some 'art impairment' is maybe something I can set aside me?

Yet trouble began about 4 drawings in. One lady came up and wanted to be drawn (not depicted here) When she got it she said "This doesn't really look much like me though..." with a smile. 

I was taken aback. 

People usually love my caricatures?

I felt insecure because of my art skills being impaired in recent years, maybe I really had lost it?

She proceeded to ask me about doing commissions! Out of all the things! She blathered on about 'clean language psychotherapy" and needing some illustrations done. I tolerated her but wished she'd get the heck out of my caricature camp chair. 

I felt a bit miffed by this encounter, but more people came over to be drawn. The guy who was helping manage the market was drawn (below) and bought me a coffee! The last people I drew didn't have money but gave me two nice peaches. In total I made $13 over a few hours but also gained peaches and a coffee for my efforts!

The challenge of putting yourself out there drawing caricatures is you have to really have a self confidence that says "I can draw" and "My work is good". Something I have not been able to say for many years. Still, I am proud of these few drawings. I think they are charming. It has taken immense mental strength to begin to say my work is good. Some people may not appreciate it, like the weird lady that dissed it, but I have to have the self kindness to remember they are a weird anomaly and most of the art I do is loved by the recipient. I don't really know what else to say, this journey of healing with art sure is hard.

Over and out!