"Scenic outlook — stand here awhile..."

originally created July 3, 2023 ✦ republished February 8, 2025

(Originally posted on Instagram. This retroactive post is copied from the Instagram post.)

I apparently just sat and worked on this for two and a half hours?!?!?! And OMG it was worth it 🤤🤤🤤

This is based on a scene I imagined that's been in the back of my mind for a very long time. In my mind, it was more of a dramatic, epic scene where a ton of magical heroes were gathered epically on a stone terrace overlooking a gorgeous forest below, like the sort of thing you'd see in a trailer. I just added one random person, just so that the scene in the drawing wouldn't feel empty. My goal was to make it look natural, not like the setting was some kind of green-screen background and there was just a person in front of it. I think this worked out quite well! ✨

For one, I finally figured out how to make trees with a good-looking trunk, branches, and foliage—adding more layers helps! In addition, it also helped to make a layer above each part of the drawing that just has a transparent blended-together lump of orange and purple, to make the lighting look more deep and colorful, as opposed to just being a flat black color. Blending tools and layers are POWERFUL 😲

My head and neck continue to ache, and sometimes sting. Though, today felt like I suddenly woke up to something. The funk I mentioned before lasted for weeks; yet all the while, I just kept letting myself get distracted, and repeated frustrating things to myself like "why isn't anything working out, despite everything I'm trying". I spent all that time thinking "I'm not SUPPOSED to feel this way, this is SUPPOSED to be like before," without even knowing what the "supposed-to" things are!!!

No wonder my efforts felt so futile—I set my expectations to a nonexistent place, and held them too strictly. In the process, I ended up getting defensive against states of mind just because I didn't want them, instead of being truly open-minded and trying to get back to things even if the feeling "wasn't right".

I've also been tied in my mind between the idea I developed of having restraint, and the therapist's advice to "let your thoughts play out." The therapist's aid is what helped get rid of my OCD, but I think now I've overapplied it, because it just doesn't make sense anymore. "Let my thoughts play out instead of training my mind to overreact to them" is valid; but if I let every single thought in my mind play out, then of course I'm going to get distracted and confused by them!!!

So I've decided I have to put my foot down. Except for just one thing, what I was doing last summer was better: having some mental restraint! No more complaining about "this childish thought" or "that bad headache", no more doubting whether I know myself and whether I'm doing the right thing. If I want clarity, I need to start somewhere. After all, a conclusion I remember coming to is that "right now, you always have something, not nothing," right?

Who knows, maybe everything I just wrote is hogwash illogic that's full of holes. But even if that's how it is, so be it. I can't keep being afraid of uncertainty, or I'll never move forward. That's what I think, to the best of my understanding.