#i spent like 6 hours carving soap today….

[mars-ipan]

🐄

moo cow……

[isaspsp]

💋💫Crimson Lips 💫💋

A Lady never leaves a mark.

Unless she wants to ~

Edit: I found the original comment I had along with this piece!!! So under the cut it goes. Enjoy the reding, if you dare.

This piece is fanart for Monochromatic's "Crimson Lips"

I have a lot to say about this piece. Firstly, I have a hard time picking favourites most of the time. I don't have a favourite food. I don't have a favourite color. I don't have a favourite music genre. I don't have a football team. I do have a favourite number! I don't have a favourite author. But I believe that last part has been surely rectified by now. I guess I can say that I've dedicated so luch time to doing fanart for this one author, that they can, indeed, be considered my favourite author. Then we are taken to this piece. One more fanart. Of an ABSURDLY amazing story. It might be the bias that it is from my favourite author, and someone I have the honor to call friend even. (Mono, btw is the author of the books for my two AMVs, so I'm quite the fan) But really, it's an amazingly written story I urge you to read. Reminder that the fic is rated teen, but it deals with sensitive topics.

Now onto the piece: This piece took an ABSURD amount of time. Like. I think it officially topples any of my previous records. But I don't know exacly how long it took. If it were up to me (and it is), I'd say it took like, maybe 6 hours? (It didn't, it was a lot more) I really wonder what sort of trance this piece had over me. I finished it in about 5 days-ish? I made the rough thumbnail on day one; 40% of the frame on day two; finished the frame, sketched the characters and blocked in all of them in day three; Rendered 75% of the characters day four; Finished rendering and other details on the morning of day 5. Today! That might seem reasonable enough. But here's the thing. I worked day 3 and 4 all day solely on this piece. From 8am to 11pm. ALL DAY. AND I DIDNT NOTICE I SPENT ALL DAY WORKING ON THIS ONE PIECE. I didn't even open another drawing's file. If you're familiar with csp's time-lapse feature, know that a two character portrait usually amounts to a 2 minute video. A piece that I'd usually spend 4 hours on, amounts to 2 minutes. This piece has a ten minute time-lapse. So I'd wager that I spent… at least 20 hours on this piece. Which feels so wrong. It's a beautiful piece sure. I love it immensely. But it feels wrong. It doesn't feel like it would need that much time to be completed? It doesn't have a conplex background, it doesn't have challenging Lighting, the characters don't interact directly, there isn't so.e frame perspective going on. So I don't know what made this piece take this long.

Let's gather what could've made this such a long piece.

I didn't rush A SINGLE PART OF THIS PIECE. Which contributes to why It took so long. I ALWAYS rush some part of a piece. Not necessarily in big ways, but maybe a rushed element. In this piece, the only thing I settled for was the border/frame/background. And even then, I say "settled" for because I did put a lot of care in it, but it was okay with it not being perfect.

I'm not THAT used to drawing and consequently painting humans. Or humanoid creatures. The reason why I draw more antro than human is because I'm SO terribly horrible with faces. Now, you don't see all the thrown away sketches from years past. I think a lot of that stemed from me not knowing how I wanted to go about stylizing them. When I started drawing pony, I had a very small pool of inspirations, and I did a shit ton of tracing (much before I ever started posting on the internet), so I didn't have much - or any at all -pressure to find a style. Now it's different. I'm very proud of my art. I've convinced myself that I don't have time for self doubt. This is the one and only hobby I'll not ever allow myself to drop. I've dropped knitting, soap carving, reading, swimming (which I couldn't to much in the first place), but art has been the one consistent hobby I've had. My self doubt will have the rip my heart away before it gets rid of my love for my own art. But then humans. I love my art, but then again, I can dislike my work still. And because my horizons are so much broader than they were when I started, I have so many options… too many options. Humans are difficult to draw because they are so fundamentaly different from all the animals I've drawn. They are us. Humans, there is so much more nuance that you have to capture to make them feel real. It's a hard balance to achieve. There are so so so many ways to stylized humans, from more goofy, to more simple and concise, to graphic to hyper realistic (aka barely any stylization). And again, I' bad at picking favourites. So then come furries, anthros. The nice middle ground of humanoid, but still familiar with the animal bits. And with anthro, you can choose how humanoid they'll be, so they were a good way to ease myself into drawing humans! And it worked. But I fear it might've worked too fast. Or at least too pointedly. Too concentrated in this one piece.

It feels like someone else drew this piece.

I think the best way to analyse your art looking for ways to improve it is by imagining you didn't draw it. It's easier to pick out the weaknesses of something you don't have emotional connection with. After I'm done with analyzing, I can switch back to myself and love a piece for what it is. Again, I need to be proud of my art.

But this piece is almost foreign in quality.

It's supposed to be heavily inspired by the art nouveau movement. I think that is pretty clear, so naturally, it's a far reach from my usual style. I don't thing that the realism is the characters' proportions is a staple of that style, more so the rendering, shape language and background style are what clue you into that style. So I could've done any stylization for the characters and it's work. At least it would've been good enough for me. But then again. Humans are a pain to draw. And making them anywhere other than human would destroy the intent of the original text, so that wanst an option. So I started drawing. I honetsly don't remember most of my sketching process nor decisions. Only by looking at the time-lapse that I see what decisions I took. Again. Foreign. I think the only piece of human art I have similar in style tot his one is those humans portraits I drew of my OCs, Beau and Bishop. But even then, this feels… different. Not to count that the rendering technique is something I, again, have never done before! This was mostly a combination of hard pencils smoothened out my blender brushes. I usually just bland with the painting brushes themselves, so that was a new technique for me. Again foreign.

In conclusion. I don't know if it's a good thing that this piece feels that foreign. But I know I drew this and that I'm proud and completely in love with it, and I hope you all are too 💖

[a-magpie-witchling]

Depression repellent soap!

TW: mentions of depression and suicide thoughts/attempts

This post is dedicated to my friends who are still struggling. Mama Rami loves you, deeply and truly. Keep fighting.

I’ll document briefly my experience living with depression since I was a toddler in italics. If you’d rather just skip this part and get to the soap, I get it. I’ll mark it with a title.

I feel I need to say something before just throwing out there a magickal aid to keep depression at bay. First of all, remember this is NO SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTUAL MEDICAL TREATMENT. Magick is a little boost. A push. It won’t change anything unless you complement it with corporeal actions.

So as you may or may not know, I’ve been struggling with depression since basically my birth. One of my earliest memories is of a suicide attempt at age 4.

Lately my life is finally looking bright. I found a job I love that pays like shit, but hey, it’s mine, I’m great at it, and it makes me happy.

My love life is a drag but I feel really good about it. I always basically jumped from one relationship to another and now I’m close to two years of being single and it’s been a very good couple of years.

However, this doesn’t mean my depression doesn’t like coming and going. I try to keep myself away from a maniac episode, but I’ve been exercising and having fun. I’m not “cured”, nor I’ll ever be. But the future, maybe for the first time ever, looks promising.

I had hit rock bottom something close to three years ago. I was keeping a calendar recording all my suicidal impulses, as some sort of countdown.

And that’s when I decided I could either get help, or die.

I never really believed in therapy. All psychologists and psychiatrists always only seemed to me like morons who didn’t really help AT ALL and just sat there milking money from me or my insurance.

In what could have been my final hours, I decided that if everything was lost already, so why not try one last time? I mean, I had already decided to kill myself, had chosen the perfect method, had timed the perfect moment. I had a couple of days left. Why not try to get professional help at least one last time?

The last psychiatrist I saw prescribed me prozac.

It changed my life.

I won’t go deeply into detail. After all, you know what happened. I’m clearly not gone (or am I!? zombie blogging hurr durr) and although things might not be “objectively” better...

My life is good... My life is so very, mundanely, good.

I sang in the car today coming back from work and I stood under the sun and I smiled to myself.

I feel things. I feel bad and happy things. But I can FEEL.

I know they always say the same, that “life gets better”. That’s not true. Life sometimes is objectively shit. But we... we get better. We see the same cesspool of hypocrisy and don’t think it’s pointless. We feel we can make it through today, that we have the energy to spare, to live.

Find help. Reach out. There are people who want to help you. We want you to live and not just breathing in and out until you can’t anymore, we want you to live for real. There’s a good life waiting for you.

Don’t be afraid of using medication to balance your brain chemistry. 

You’ll get better.

Today I found a shard of blue glass and I thought it was pretty and kept it in my pocket.

It was just a shard of blue glass but I found it beautiful and worth having.

With its million small good moments in the storm of all things awful...

Life is still worth living.

Some days, however, I’m more tired than usual. And I’m not ashamed to say I need a little boost. I won’t pretend depression isn’t a ghost that haunts you. Some days I don’t have the strength to realize how beautiful my little miracles are.

I’m no longer on prozac, so my brain is on its own to keep its balance.

Of course, a little magick always helps.

How to make my depression repellent revitalizing soap

You’ll need:

A bar of soap of your preferred scent that you associate with happiness, energy, strength, etc.

Sun water.

Rose water.

A yellow candle.

An orange candle.

Crystals or stones you associate with your preferred intent: I used unakite (I associate it with spring and I did this ritual during Ostara), pink quartz (self love), amethyst (balance), clear quartz (purification), Himalayan pink salt (purification), rhodochrosite (vitality and self love). I also highly recommend you use citrine since it’s associated with sun and happiness.

Something to carve the soap with, like a nail or a knife.

One of these sigils by @sigilathenaeum​ I personally used this one:

Let’s get started.

So you can basically skip the whole process and step straight into the carving part, forget about the waters and whatnot, choose different crystals or not choose to use them at all, simply carve and we’re good to go. But I insist this is the most important step:

1) Choose the right soap.

I shit you not, I spent 20 minutes in the hygiene aisle in the supermarket choosing the right soap. Pick one that’s gonna represent exactly what you feel you need to keep your depression at bay. There are dozens of possible scent and color combinations, pick THE RIGHT ONE. Try to make this budget friendly too, because sadly this soap will run out eventually (although I have a little trick to prevent that) and you’ll probably have to get more.

I personally chose a delicious orange and lemon glycerin soap. It was like $1 and smells amazing.

I had never performed a spell for myself before this one, but I’ve made this soap for other people with other issues before. If you’re gonna be adapting this spell to prevent anxiety I’d recommend something like lavender scent. If recovering from trauma, eucalyptus, mint or aloe are good options. A bad break up or need a self-love boost? Rose or floral scents. Feeling unsafe? Cinnamon or spice.

However, the most important thing is that you like the scent! No, more than that. 

IT’S IMPORTANT THAT YOU LOVE HOW THIS SOAP SMELLS ON YOUR SKIN. It’ll be a protective layer that’ll cover your whole body. Make sure you like it!

2) Carve the sigil in the soap bar, not too deep.

I used a nail, but a needle, a knife, even a pencil, they can all work. Soap is really easy to work with!

3) If you care about moon phases, I’d recommend you perform this spell under the waxing crescent phase (after the new moon, when it starts shining again, it represents growth and improvement) or the full moon (it represents plenitude and prosperity). 

4) Perform the spell.

Anoint your candles and cast your circle if that’s your thing, light them. Align the crystals and stones around the bar. You can carve the soap at this moment, but I personally did it beforehand. Place the crystals over the soap. Rub a drop of rose water and/or sun water around the bar. I used my crystal bell to bring lightness and joy into my soap. Do your thing, you know how this works. Intent, chanting if you want it. Do it for as long as you feel you must. REMEMBER TO GROUND AFTER PERFORMING ANY SORT OF SPELL.

5) Try it out.

When you use the soap, the sigil will be erased because of the water and the friction. It’ll melt into your skin and into the soap. If you don’t use a glycerin soap, it could take one or two baths, but eventually it’ll settle there completely.

6) When you need it.

Use this soap when you feel you need it. If you need it every time you shower, use it. If you feel you need it once a month, that’s alright. 

7) Do it as many times as you need to... or not!

WHEN YOUR BAR IS ABOUT TO RUN OUT, MY TRICK IS GETTING THE SAME KIND OF SOAP (you don’t have to, I’m just picky like that) AND FUSE THE LITTLE BIT YOU HAVE WITH THE NEW BAR. This will transfer all the properties to the new bar without needing to repeat the spell every time.

8) Store it.

Keep your soap somewhere dry. If you don’t have a soap case, you can use just a regular plastic bag.

9) Remember to wash behind your ears.

Happy cleansing!

PLEASE REBLOG. IF NOT YOU, SOMEONE ELSE COULD NEED IT.

-Semiramis, the Magpie Witchling

[joroanblog]

Stress Wash Contractors - Is it Really About the cash?

Just like any profession, a service provider becoming part of the pressure washing market has their sight on one primary goal. That is to earn money and LOTS of it. This is probably the one common denominator that many pressure clean professionals offer as their factor for joining the rank and file as a specialist power washing professional. Obviously there is absolutely nothing wrong with generating income with your organisation; this is why you stay in business right? Most of the time a contractors success is measured by prescribed criteria gave from one generation to the next. Among them being how much cash do you make? The formula has actually always been that cash equals success. The various other is whether or not you are busy? If a professional is hectic, after that the old cliche is that they have to achieve success since their active. And also if a specialist is hectic 7 days a week from sun-up to sun-down after that obviously they are making terrific money ~ right? The Rat Race of Success? Envision having a 5 year service plan that yields a surge of growth for your company that every little thing else in your life is on hold in order to fit the abounding development you experience every year? The influx of sales telephone calls need to be addressed within 24 hours ideally. As soon as addressed, then you should schedule the quotes. Do not neglect to make the effort to proof review your advertising and marketing fliers/postcards in between addressing all the sales phone calls and the quotes that you simply set up. Phone time with your supplier is a should in order to maintain the chemicals/soaps equipped. The phone time with your distributor likewise manages you the possibility to ask technical questions concerning the "rattling sound" you listen to on your rig when it functions. For a few of you, if your rig drops after that you are nonoperational at the very least for the following 24-48 hrs at minimum. Fellow contractors need their time likewise on the phone with you so they can "flex your ear" for pointers as well as ideas. Set time aside during the night to keep your firms web presence in the forefront for your customer base as well as to answer emails from consumers that opted to not call you during the day. Training any kind of brand-new staff member will take an excellent chunk out of a job day so plan accordingly. If you are a one-man procedure you certainly will need to finagle your washing schedule in order to make time to really carry out the work that was reserved from those sales calls mentioned earlier. In the past you were able to make financial institution deposits every Friday however today you simply can not seem to make it to the bank until after it is closed because you literally have a thousand various other priorities happening with the success of your company. In in between this rapid procedure pace you might manage to offer your significant other a contact the phone to let them understand that you will not be able to make it to your kids little league video game or your little girls dance recital once again as assured. You provide a sincere and heart felt apology not only to your loved one but much more notably to your kid that is obviously disturbed that you will not exist - again. You had every intention to make it this time around when you left for work that early morning but as luck would have it a client anxiously called at the last minute stating the tarnish you applied the other day was not the right shade! Prior to you hang up with your wife you point out that you will deficient home for supper either. Has this been your routine recently? Do the demands of your organisation and also the top priorities associated with it eclipse the actual reason that you stay in business of pressure washing to begin with? What is Your System? Company development and the initiative that is called for to take care of that growth can be a positive experience as a stress clean business owner. As your service grows on the surface i.e. sales, advertising and marketing, increase in contracts, you have to make certain that you interior organisation framework i.e. employees, supervisors, sales group is also expanding to enhance this outside growth. It is very advised that your company plan not just speaks on "systems" yet much more importantly that you understand the action on your component to put the right people right into your service so that the "systems" in composing can look to "systems" of fact. As company owner, we frequently ignore the infrastructure part of our service strategy by diverting our focus on only just how to get our phone to ring. When this occurs we discover ourselves running our business in what is frequently known as 'catch up mode'. This means that regardless of what time of the day it is, you are behind schedule or in 'catch up setting' due to the fact that your "systems" still lay dormant. Together with just being behind timetable on a daily basis, we also unconsciously run a very high danger of losing on the pleasures of spending high quality time with our family members as well as liked ones as defined in the example above. Does this sound like you? That is in Charge? There is great news and today you are equipped as the owner of your service to stop this cycle of chaos and take control of your company instead of allowing your company control you. The primary step in order to regain control of your business is that you require to show up to the understanding and idea that continuous business growth is not necessarily the only indication to success. As a pressure washing professional with a family you owe it to your significant other and also youngsters to ensure that the development of your service does not regularly outweigh the straightforward points in life that every person in your family needs and wants. That ME?? As company owner, we have the high-end and the capacity to 'scale back' our time in the field in order to make the time to give our household the attention they are entitled to. Why? Because you are the owner as well as in charge. That is right; YOU call the shots on the everyday operations and also at what the procedure tempo of your day will be like. If your 'systems' action plan only got as far as it being created on a notepad then you run a very high threat of burning yourself out very rapidly. Paired this together with the mental peer stress from your significant other that you have actually not spent high quality time with your family members in the last 4-6 months, it is plausible that a person day you might get up and understand that you do not enjoy what you are doing i.e. pressure washing. As opposed to beginning your stress clean period with only the purpose of making as much money as you can, could it be practical that you approach your pressure clean season with the mind established that your service as well as household will sustain a "equilibrium" through out the year? Oh the delight of seeing a young kids face brighten when he sees BOTH moms and dads sitting in the bleachers to watch his little league game in the middle of the afternoon; Or the smile from ear-to-ear when a young daughter happily jumps into your arms because you concerned select her up from school. Developing the right "systems" in your pressure washing business requires time and ultimately some trial and error. It is alright if you do not get it right after several attempts however be conscious as well as certain that you will get there ultimately. Handling the development of your company might even indicate momentarily not growing whatsoever up until you able to locate the appropriate people that posses the skill set your organisation needs to take it to that following plateau. Time To Reflect If you find yourself in the middle of the pressure laundry onslaught today, take a minute as well as reflect on what is really important in your life on your terms. Ask on your own why you ended up being a pressure washing professional to begin with? Was it since you and your family members desired the liberty that you could not obtain benefiting somebody else? If so, where is that freedom today? Take inventory on how your time away from the family may be seen by your better half and your kids today. If earning money whatsoever prices is what drives you after that congratulations on your success. If you seek that "equilibrium" in between pressure washing and family members remember that you are equipped to be in control of your days. One of incentives of being an entrepreneur is that you have the ability to maintain any kind of schedule that you wish. I directly understand a pressure washing specialist situated in Kentucky that has carved out a quite decent pressure washing service. One of the tricks to his success is that he handles his business verses letting his service handle him. It is not uncommon for him to be out riding his Harley in the mid-day or taking his lovely household to a local dining establishment for an early dinner on any type of provided day. This is an archetype of just how one pressure washing professional has making use of why he is in business to begin with; that is to delight in life. I do not know how much cash he makes a year yet I would certainly guess that he, in addition to other pressure washing contractors that have grasped this "balance" in between job as well as household, is most likely among the richest guys in the market and also has very little if any kind of to do with the size of his savings account. Releases Out for Dinner So as your phone continues to call off the hook as well as you are trying to be superman for all your customers all at one time, stop and also asked on your own whether 'is it truly about all the money?' If so, continue on your trip and you must be applauded for your sacrifice. If not, I am sure you would be superman, a minimum of for that night, to your household when you turn up at your home unannounced to tell them you are taking them bent on supper!  check over here Fence Installation Address: 8290 Matisse St APT 3510 Championsgate FL 33896