I had a lovely, artsy, creative, relaxing time drawing the bottom design for this quote yesterday evening and this morning. It’s kind of a throwback to when I started drawing this kind of intricate art before I started doing all the work for colouring books, where the images have to be a fair bit less complex.

Unipin pens from Uniball, along with a blue-grey coloured pencil and a blender pencil from Derwent were the tools I used to create this.

I didn’t hand-letter the quote; I chose to use Serif’s Affinity Designer to add it instead, though I’ve not worked out how to get the text to follow a curve…yet. I will.

The quote is something I try to apply in my life. I’ve struggled with being a hyper-perfectionist all my life; learning to accept that something I produce is ‘good enough’ is something that is easier for me, though still not easy.

I cringe when I look back on earlier work.

Recently, I was approached by a lovely lady about using some old artwork of mine for her business branding logos and so on. I looked at it and knew I just had to re-work it; I recognised that my skills and style have developed and evolved a little, and I wanted to do the best I could now.

She seems to be really happy with the artwork, and I’m much happier with it too.

It’s not just in art that these words have meaning though.

It’s no secret that I am working in therapy (EMDR) at healing what I can from the CPTSD I’ve experienced all my life, especially the way it limits my life. Learning to accept that I’m good enough as a person is very difficult. Progress is slow, but it is progress.