401. She’s green and otherworldly

Pencil on paper, 2009.

Identity Semi-Crisis

*Facebook readers are invited to view the original post. Simply go to https://darthmaulmakesmesmile.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/identity-semi-crisis/.*

Maybe it’s just the cold and flu medicine speaking, but I am having one of those weird pondering and musing weeks. Well, I guess it’s not that weird and unusual for me. It’s something akin to an identity crisis, I suppose.

Here’s my life in a series of confusing something-or-others. Paradoxes?

Warning: gross generalisations to follow. And I’m not attacking any one individual or person. Actually, I’m not attacking anyone, full stop. Please read it in the semi-amused observational curious questioning tone in which I have pondered it!

• I’m in my late 20s, married with two school aged children. Few other late-20 something woman I know in my friendship circles have children as old as mine. In fact, few of them are in relationships, and those that are don’t necessarily have children. Those that do have children have newborns. The fellow mums of my children’s classmates seem to average in their mid-30s to mid-40s. I am not trying to be ageist, so please don’t take it that way. It just occurs to me that I don’t really fit in anywhere in my peer circles. As far as school mums go, I’m the little kid Gen Y who likes abrasive rock music and comical t-shirts and jeans and knows how to use computers. As far as my fellow 20-somethings go, I’m the socially malfunctioning old housewife who can’t afford an iPhone and who can’t go out on most nights because my kids go to bed early and my husband works late. (Being a mum is tiring work!)
• As far as the 20-something mums go, most of them don’t appear interested in what I have to offer them as a fellow mother who is slightly ahead of them on the journey of parenthood. They seem to have a preference for asking their single, unmarried, non-parent peer friends for input than a mum with school aged kids who’s been-there, done that. Perhaps parenting styles and methods have changed a lot in the last eight years. Let’s face it, my hippy-esque preference for carrying the baby, raising the kids vegetarian, feeding babies on demand, and breastfeeding for almost two years doesn’t mesh well with the controlled feeding, timed, early introduction of solids, everything by-the-clock inflexible routines promoted in inexplicably popular parenting books.
• I’m a country town girl living (rather miserably) in the suburbs.
• I’m an ex-Catholic, ex-New Age, born again Spirit filled follower of Jesus. To the Catholics in my life, I probably come across as a bit over-enthusiastic about the whole Jesus thing. To the New Ager friends, well, they’re pretty open minded but understandably skeptical about Jesus followers. To the born againers, I’m potentially dangerous. (Insert LOL here.)
• I find I feel closest to God when I am out in the peace and solitude of rural and bushland Australia, where I can listen to the birds, feel the wind in the trees, smell flowers, touch the earth, watch the clouds rolling across the sky. Somehow I have ended up in a non-denominational Pentecostal mega-church of several thousand believers. For many of them, they feel closest to God in the community of believers. The loud, musically oriented community of believers! (It is a brilliant Christian community and I love it.)
• I am an outdoorsy person who has myriad allergies to plant pollens, animals and pollution. Sigh!
• I am a quiet person who gets a kick out of public speaking.
• I’m the token born-again Christian in an extended family of Catholics,  lapsed Catholics, New Agers and Atheists.
• I am an artsy, writing-loving person who doesn’t seem to have heaps of talent in either area.
• I want to be cool but I’m a nerd.
• I’m a lacto-ovo vegetarian who grew up in beef and dairy-farming country.
• I detest blind ritualism but I choose to celebrate the old Catholic feasts on which I was raised: Easter, Advent, Christmas, and Lent.
• I’m pretty sure God has been speaking to me about my need to spend this year in a recovery and restoration mode: taking time out to pray, to study the Bible, to not exhaust myself in church activities, to focus on my children and my university studies. So it sometimes confuses me when other Christian women suggest that I am not involved enough in church and Christian activities. Is not following God’s word to me for this season greater than going along with the crowd?

All this has left me feeling like I really don’t fit in anywhere. I’m not trying to complain. This isn’t a whinge fest. It just makes me wonder what I’m meant to be when I don’t really fit in with what the people around me are doing! I guess I’ve never particularly liked being the same as everyone else, anyway. Life is more interesting when it’s diverse.

400! Parade of horses.

Pencil on paper, 2009.

It seems somewhat fitting that the 400th illustration in my art folio would be a picture of horses, with a pegasus and unicorn joining the parade. For anyone that has been following my blog for even a short time will attest, I like horses and drawing horses. A lot.

My earliest blogged art folio pieces included mermaids and horses, way back in late 2006. Almost 4 years and 400 pieces later, looks like I’m still drawing horses and mermaids! I am happy to see that I have been able to explore new avenues (selling t-shirts, for example) with my art as I’ve hopefully improved and progressed. It has been fun interacting with other art and horse fans on the various sites, too, such as flickr.com and myspace.com.

This is one of my t-shirt designs that I recently added to redbubble.com. RedBubble’s t-shirt previewer (which I first spotted on the site early February 2010) brings it to life. I think it does, anyway!

Here’s the same illlustration as seen through RedBubble’s t-shirt previewer.

More info on this as a t-shirt at my bubblesite.

The big 400 is coming next!

Wow – 400 posted sketches and images from my art folio! The 400th piece that I will blog is coming next. So, here’s a note to thank my regular readers who have followed me from A Humble Art Folio (where I started the count) to here on The Amalgamation.

In 2010 I will try to  regularly post a new item from my art folio on Wednesday mornings (depending on my schedule). Please consider subscribing to the feed.

399. Mermaid and little fish

Fineliner ink pen on paper, December 2009.

I’ve said it before (I think), that junk mail is an incredible source of ideas. These lingerie and underwear catalogues turn up in the letterbox. While in the past they were a source of distress as I compared myself to the models in the images, these days they’ve demonstrated a significant usefulness in sometimes inspiring ideas for my illustrations. Funny. That, and I don’t really worry about my figure so much these days. Well, not as often as I used to!

Somehow, this turned into a mermaid surrounded by cutesy sea creatures. Fun!

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http://flokot.redbubble.com/sets/107560/works/4377001-1-mermaid-with-octopus-and-assorted-fish