Lots of sketches & quiet home life (Patreon)

The doomscrolling got to me last week. The line between "stay informed" and "stay sane" is often thin. I'm getting the feeling this year might feel like a struggle even if nothing monumentous happens.

It's hard not to feel sometimes like the whole "worst timeline" thing is quite true. But I just plain refuse to surrender to it. I've been buckling down on the things that matter to me. I went to the local produce market yesterday. The produce just looked so pretty, with the first onions of spring, so I bought onions, peppers and yellow squash and as it so happened, there was a tasty little recipe in the manga I was reading, Giant Spider and Me.

Giant Spider and Me is a cooking/slice of life manga about a 12 year old girl who is living alone after an apocalypse, but in a setting filled with charm. She comes upon a giant spider in the woods who loves to eat her cooking. In the first volume she makes sort of a ratatouille: eggplant, onions, summer squash, peppers and tomatoes cooked in olive oil until jammy and then she added miso paste. Very simple but it sounded so good...and it was! (I didn't have eggplant or tomatoes though, but it was still delicious.)

I've also been drawing a lot more, as I mentioned in a recent Youtube video...I've been sketching a picture every time I take a writing break when I'm sprinting. I'm working on the Potion Dealers and I'm nearly done. This has been so fun. Here are all the little sketches I did last week.

This is Tarran, who is a prominent character in the Una/Varrie book and also appears in the Potion Dealers:
Tarran's unruly children: Alfred and George getting into a faux battle on an airplane while Livonya looks on with that little "why are dudes like this" eyebrow quirk (I still need to erase the pencil lines here...I often don't do pencil first but this pose was hard!) Alfred and Tarran (I won't mention what is going on here for spoilers, LOL) Alfred and Livonya at the grocer: And then I did rough sketches of all the characters sort of chibi style with their astrological sun, moon and ascendants:

 This is SO MUCH art compared to an average week!! I am so so proud of this!!

Now since I am feeling hormonal and tired as all get out I'm working on a big spring clean instead. Last year I ended up feeling especially draggy in the summer heat, the joys of my 40s I guess, so I figured while it's still cool in the house I would scrub and tidy everything. It's been chaos here for quite a while with all the decluttering and Ebay selling but, while I am far from done with all that, it is starting to be mostly contained in the basement and on shelves and in closets and NOT on tables! Little things to make me happy! So, happiness for the week:

1. Home cooked, nourishing food

2. Sketching with abandon

3. Clean(er) house

What's bringing you small joys this week? I am wishing you all well!!