Making It My Own Way

So the last month has been an experience. To sum it up: I have learnt I can make my own job, my own career, my own life. There are definitely barriers in the way that will be a while to break down or climb over, but they don’t seem too bad in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, I still panic from time to time that I am not going to make it, but I got my whole life to hurdle over it all. I just need to calm down my mind and realise my potential, and keep to my plans with the expectation of them changing due to external factors.

It’s nearly been a whole year since I finished university and came home. The whole year has been so slow and mostly boring, with the last two months being the peak times. I look forward and am nervous how the nearby future will pan out.

I cannot reveal much at the moment, but it’s looking good. I just need to keep my feet on the ground and remember what good I got going for myself.

As usual, check out my Instagram for updates and artwork! (Feltminz)

So Close I Can Taste It… It Tastes Fluffy and Successful

The past week has been one of the best two weeks since leaving university last June. I have learnt so much and have gained the confidence to go ahead and start being serious about being a part-time business. I can’t thank Alan and his team from PopUp Business School for all the advice and tips. If YOU are someone thinking of starting your own business, look them up and join their free workshops. It will change you, and that I am serious of. So many of us that attended were unsure of ourselves when we started, but now we have a set of skills under our belts that will effect how well we will create and make our businesses.

Tomorrow we are all presenting ourselves to the public in Newport Market 1-4pm. Myself will be there to exhibit my art, and also doing a demonstration on needle felting.

So many ideas and opportunities are ahead of me and I cannot wait for them to all come at me. I am ready.

A Little Bit of Progress

Not a lot to update about, so I’ll keep this short:

I met with people from Welsh ICE, a company about helping small business starting, may become a member once I get my ideas and plans going and in a clear path.
Have signed up to two different workshops that last a few weeks. One starts tomorrow and helps with starting up a business for free, networking and business plans. The other helps with focusing your passions and ideas into action.
Still trying to start up my Etsy shop, but I keep running out of time in the day to do anything I want.
Currently learning to read Egyptian hieroglyphs as a side career. I definitely want to be a researcher, and this will be a good start in that.

Honestly there is not a lot to be said, as everything is going a mile an hour. Main focus is to attend these workshops and get started with my own freelancing/self-employment with the online shop/stalls/etc.
Second priority I guess I should say the driving lessons, but my research projects are more fun to do.

You can see more updates on my Twitter when I can be bothered. Keep an eye out for updates on when my store is open!

New Year and Still Waiting

Three months ago was when I last wrote here. So much has happened yet not enough to write about. I can give you the short version: I celebrated six years together with my boyfriend, yes I had a nice Christmas, no I haven’t started my business or selling online yet, and somewhere along the line I have been having a mental breakdown, very slowly. Art progress has suffered and I feel like I am holding myself back because of any excuse. Yeah, so I have been doing bits here and there and posting on Instagram etc. but I can never be satisfied until all that is making me feel the way I am is resolved. And unfortunately I will have to go down a very long and hard trail to reach what I need. I know everyone says it’s more fulfilling to do things the hard way, or go the long road, but it’s proving to be more mentally challenging than physical, and it’s damaging me.

I WANT to live stream on Twitch my art work, upload the videos onto Youtube, do some tutorials, get more interactive with the community and viewers, maybe do a little vlogging, make and create everyday, and sell my art to you all. But there are things that hold me back, such as financial issues, location, and what I assume is anxiety. I don’t know cause I’ve always been told I’m ‘too young’ to be anxious, so can’t really say that’s what it is, but it makes me nervous as hell over everything. There is a comfort bubble I found myself in, and it’s to the point of getting boring. I need to be active doing what I love, but can’t do anything about it until I have financial stability, a place of my own, and the time to do what I want to feel happy. This all starts with doing a work placement experience in some offices, as of next week. Totally different than what I want to do, but I need to start getting out there and getting some experience and getting a job. Only then will I feel comfortable and can I have the funds to move out of my parents place, and somewhere where I can indulge in my art at last.

Until then, I will keep doing the occasional piece and upload to my social medias for you to see. Wait for me on the other side of this block, ok? I promise it’ll get better.

Christmas! (Already? But it’s only October!)

A little catch up before I carry on: Since finishing university I have been doing the normal thing of finding a mundane job while panicking that I am now entering the real world, all while still trying to find out ‘who I am’ within different aspects of my life. Who am I as an artist? Who am I now I have no friends around to be myself? Who am I to my parents now that after four years of growing up and becoming more myself, I move back home to be how things were before and can I still maintain who I have become in this environment? Who am I in the work world, a retail assistant? An administrator? A shelf stacker? A fireman?

After I had a small work placement that dealt with a lot of customers with a very short deadlines to serve them all, I found I have not really been prepared for the life after university as much as I thought.

 

SO back to the art side of life. Good news is I have learnt that I can paint! And damn well if I say so myself! The four years of art school I never once painted a full picture. I don’t think I ever even touched my acrylic paints now I think of it. But a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to follow a Bob Ross tutorial to get me back into it, and I was quite proud of the results!

I did it on an A5 Canvas, so that was a little tricky, but I am quite proud of it. Currently I am making bits and bobs here and there to add to my Christmas stock ready for sale, although there are tons of things to be figuring out. I am so excited to have a plan and something to be working towards, although I am late starting. I may as well be making the Valentines stock instead, but I am in too much of a Christmas mood already.

I’m not really sure what else to be adding….. oh yeah! I am now LIVE streaming upon Twitch! If you’d like to see me working live, follow me at StarryEyeSarah on Twitch and tune in on Sundays! I vary times, mostly work in the evening (UK times) so get notifications on so you don’t miss out! I talk to you and answer questions while working on something, whether it’s painting or felting! I missed last weeks due to feeling ill and this Sunday I will be in a hotel, but I will be on for a little while just to make up for it and maybe show off the wigs I have been styling and will be using that day!

I shall probably write again around Christmas time after the rush of making the stock has blown over. Have a spooky Halloween everyone!

The Aftermaths of University

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.

-My Way, Frank Sinatra

The final project is over, and these lyrics couldn’t sum it up any more better.

Now I am at that point after university everyone talks about. The dreaded nothingness and unexpected future. These few months straight after will determine your life forever. Not really, but that’s what it feels like. And you know what? It’s not that bad. Yeah, I haven’t got a job yet, nor my own place, but now is the time for me to keep practising what I love doing and plan for the many years ahead of me.

Yes, it does feel like it is taking forever for something, anything, to happen and it makes me feel anxious not knowing exactly what for. I do know what I want to be doing and where I want to go, it will just take me a long time to get to that point. Famous artists were not known for their art since the day they were born, or even straight out of school. Heck, Vincent Van Gogh was more famous after he died!

So what have I been up to since end of June? For a quick view of recent images, pop over to my Instagram or visit my Facebook for more! Do keep an eye out for my updates upon Twitter.

And so we reach the end…. sort of.

I started this blog about four years ago to dabble in getting my foot in the social media door. I have been through an Art & Design Foundation degree, gone onto a BA (Bachelor of Arts) degree in Illustration, gained an honors and HND diploma along the way, and here I am on the edge of the other side.
I took this integrated MDes (Masters in Design) to be more satisfied with my work than what I produced at the end of the BA. But alas, I have failed the module and so not passed the MDes degree.
I cannot describe how emotionally broke I have felt in the last few days, ranging from being just peachy and ignoring the failure, to screaming into the pillow and questioning my worth. Art and being creative is all I am, so what am I if I failed at that?
The good news is the university has given me the option to do more work to submit next month, just enough to pass. The only downside is I would be graduating NEXT year instead.
So today has been more optimistic, writing down things I wish to do/make in the next year until the graduation ceremony. That way it would feel twice as satisfying graduating, having done so much more than if I did graduate this year.
I’d like to say congratulations to all my friends that have passed. You all have worked to your own capabilities to be where you are today, well done.
There’s still a few tears prickling me at the thought of failure, but I know that at the end of the day it’s not the grade on a piece of paper that matters, it is the quality of the art and how happy I am with it and my life. I will work to achieve what I now know what I really want, even if it has been delayed longer than I wanted.

A word of advice for anyone thinking of going into an art degree: do it. But be aware of everything from your priorities to your wants and needs. I wish I could tell my past self who is just starting out on this journey to do the work to BE HAPPY, not just do it for the sake of ticking boxes.

The next post will be after this extra work is complete and I can finally relax with a cocktail on a beach somewhere sunny.
See you in a month or two, keep an eye out!

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1 day left until the exhibition is over.

4 days and 1 month until I move from university back to home.

18 days and 1 month until I graduate for good.

And forever to be whatever I want to be for the rest of my life.

 

It is coming to the end of my education in university, and I am not scared for whatever happens afterwards. I am willing to embrace the dramatic change and become an adult with a degree. I know what I want to do with what skills I have developed over the last five years, and will not become one of those who wastes their degree by getting a shelf job, never having to use what they spent thousands to learn. Yes I will need to get a part-time job probably stacking shelves to start with until my art becomes the main source of income, but I will not let it consume me. I have many options ahead of me and any one of them could change, and that’s ok. So long as I am happy and still doing my art as often as I still am now, maybe more often.

But what I am scared of is what I will be leaving behind. Comparing my life here at university to my life at home is like looking at two completely different people. Here I have friends, a social life.  Freedom to walk 5 minutes to the beach and 10 to walk to town. Restaurants and takeaways I have been a regular at so much that the managers and staff recognise me, and have become like friends in a formal manner. A home to look after and pay the bills, something to be proud of (even though I am not proud of the mess it gets in due to the other housemates.) And mostly the people I have come to call friends. It will be hard not being able to simply walk down the corridor just to have a cup of tea and chat with any of them ever again. We all come from different places across the country, and it’s not easy just to hop on the train to visit for a few hours either.

I have learnt so much since moving away from home, and not just art skills, but things that you don’t get taught but learn through experience. I have learnt what it takes to look after myself, cook, clean, how to look after a house. How you don’t have to get everyone to like you and accept people for who they are and myself, that I shouldn’t change anything about myself just to please others. I am quite an anxious person but have learnt not to let that over come me so often (I can even talk to people on the phone now!) I now know what I like and dislike. I am not afraid to be myself. I have a better relationship with my parents now that I understand adult things and why they do what they do.

I have a plan and a future ahead of me and cannot wait for it.

Thank you for everyone who has followed this blog. This is not the end yet. Keep an eye out.

Sarah.

Dribble Drabble

Quite frankly I am not in the right state of mind to be writing this, as I have been talking in an online chat to a certain company for about two hours with no end result to the situation they put me in. I am so angry that my hands still feel the need to be typing, like when you are holding back verbally in an argument, and then when you are alone you start screaming and lashing out.

Anyway, back to the reason I am here, and you are reading: what have I been up to this month? Or rather, last TWO months, as I missed both January and February posts. I am so forgetful that this blog may become bi-monthly instead. I tend to keep my other social media sites more updated anyway, so if you want that, then feel free to follow them too!

I cannot remember if I told you of my recent university project, but it involves making lampshades out of felt. It is still in progress, but you can at least see the experiments here on the YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBx93-IVr38YuFGBcDoKOEg

Also I plan to open the online shop a few months early, and have been planning the products. So far is this adorable little ring of a ladybug!

Obviously not just this singular one, more will be made. And finally I have been practicing landscape and portraiture. I want to use coloured pencils, watercolour and crosshatching more in my art, still doing needle and wet felt art too. I could even draw something and then felt it afterwards. Same picture, two different styles of medium.

Keep an eye out for the next post! (I’ll do one at the end of March to make up for the lack of Jan-Feb posts.) Thank you all who do read my updates, as drab as they are. Until next time, bye!

Christmas Robin

Happy Christmas! (10 days early, I know, but I am in the festive mood)

So what do you think of my card design? Obviously without the self advertising text.

Shall I do other designs ready for next year? (Cannot do them for this year as it is too late for printing last minute etc.)

If anyone is interested in seeing more, let me know! I would love to do more designs and sell them!