Clumsy hand lettering again, but it is practice…always practice.

The pattern is rather bare and sparse of detail today too, though some colour would help with that for sure. However, I wanted to limit my time spent on Inktober today so I have time to turn my attention to other things.

I did draw this digitally surface pen on virtual paper on the surface studio screen.

#createdonsurface #inktober #inktober2018

The peace referred to is peace of mind and having peace of mind is priceless and so important.

Part of my CPTSD is the shame and embarrassment that accompanies many, many traumatic experiences throughout the whole of my life. The emotional flashbacks cause me to relive these traumas and the shame I feel about so many events, many I can’t even remember as the mind dissociates from the event, but can’t seem to do so from the trauma that’s stored in the emotions and body.

Add to that the belief I grew up with that I was always, always to blame for everything that everyone else did, even if I had no part in it, means that I can slip into the self-blame mode quite easily where I go over and over and over something trying to find out what I did wrong and what I can do to not make that mistake again. That’s even when I did nothing wrong or even had anything at all to do with the event being picked to pieces in this way. Even when I wasn’t even present for the event. It’s the root cause of my hyperperfectionism. I worry constantly that what I do is never good enough, even when the objective evidence is to the contrary.

So, for me to let some clumsy hand lettering remain. For me to show a piece of work that I’m not entirely happy with is incredibly difficult, leaves me open to the self-blame thing and shame and embarrassment, yet still I do this.

Why? Well, it’s nice to show that along the way to a finished drawing/artwork that I have stages where things aren’t so polished, that I have things to work on, even though I do tend to work intuitively.

Although I may be hypercritical of what I create and see every tiny flaw – real or imagined – in it, having others look at my work and comment and/or like it with either positive or constructive comments helps me to get glimpses of how others see my art. This then helps to stem the hypercritical self-blame and self-criticism by providing objective evidence that the inner critic isn’t always right.

So, even though the hand lettering isn’t right. Even though the drawing is bare of colour. Even though I can see flaws with the drawing,  I’m able to put this here, on instagram, facebook, twitter so others can see what I’m doing.

I also show my imperfect work to show people that we all make mistakes, we all start as novices and have to practice, practice, practice some skills to improve them, and this can take a lot of time. Hand lettering is difficult for me at any scale other than tiny.

It’s also so I can show that even though I don’t do wonderfully well at something, I don’t give up easily with it, and neither should you.

However, that doesn’t mean I’m going to persevere with something that I have no skills at such as silver smithing, which I have tried and am an absolute nightmare at! However, the experience of silver smithing led me to trying other ways to create jewellery and led me to my experimenting with textiles, wire, beads and so on to create unusual jewellery. This is something I’ve not done for years.

However, it was part of my creative journey. It gave me some peace of mind at the time I was doing it.

Peace of mind is so important. That’s why I’ve spent years in therapy in one form or another, with EMDR providing the biggest steps forward in helping me to release the stored trauma so it doesn’t return and cause problems.

This is my past. My present is I have a choice about what I do or don’t do. I’d like to think I’d make choices that will cause me to keep my peace of mind, losing that little I’ve gained would be a price to high to pay .