Whipped out this old one from a coupla years back...I was practicing caricature on my maid at the time. She laughed while she was doing the ironing and I sketched. Heppy Mama!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Happy Africa!
Whipped out this old one from a coupla years back...I was practicing caricature on my maid at the time. She laughed while she was doing the ironing and I sketched. Heppy Mama!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Bee Bee
Cough! Ack! Ptooey! Sorry about the cobwebs on site here. Been far too long, huh? So, to try and make up for it, here's a little painting I did for an old friend of mine's little girl called Brenna for her 4th birthday recently. She loved it! It's proudly displayed on her bedroom wall. Miss Princess Pink...
Friday, March 27, 2009
Marce's Chop Shop
My friend asked me to draw a tattoo on his arm and, since I used to design them, I sketched this one up quickly on him. His nickname for me is "Maam". Nice because you can read it backwards when you check it out in the mirror!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Smitten
In remembrance of old tattoo designs I miss doing, here's one for my favourite person...the one who has all of my heart. Who gave it wings to fly free from past darkness and misery.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Least Likely to Play Tennis
I scribbled this guy up quickly one afternoon just before a tennis lesson last year. The week before I'd been late for my lesson and my coach was very understanding...phew! So I drew this guy for her to say sorry.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Rambunctious
I deserve to be shot at with stinky fish by this cat after a month of missing in action on my blog here! Shocking stuff. This is Rambo, a friend of mine's maincoon that was killed by the family daschunds, so I rustled up this caricature for him in memory of his faithful companion over 13 years.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Dips and Devastation
Here’s a little take on Christians and depression I felt led to type up today. Contrary to popular teachings (probably from the same evangelists who punt the health, wealth and prosperity doctrine that God takes no responsibility for), the oxymoron “depressed Christian” is very much a reality. Elijah could fill you in on that one. We just want to find a juniper tree and die beneath it, really.
The thing with depression is that it’s not just feeling miserable and “snapping” out of it, as the perky personality types would suggest. The overall consensus in the mind of the melancholic is that there’s no escaping here. Nothing heralds joy. Your cogs and machinery slide to a weighty halt. And stop there for days at a time sometimes.
What are the triggers? Too much stress, for starters. Those are my perils right now. An uncomfortable living arrangement, feeling financially not only hopeless but trapped here for life (both in this house and with a pile of debt collection papers) and two ways to keep my mind occupied pragmatically. I can work. Or I can sleep. Neither really works that effectively and when I’m unable to do either, I’m lost and restless and start to panic.
The obvious is spending time with God. In His Word. Seeking His heart and mind on my matters. Praying constantly. Any suicidal depressant knows this is virtually impossible on any given day of zero coping mechanism. Thankfully, I can leave it to God and ask for the grace to plod through it. Still, the emotional strain is easier levelled with a Xanor some days. I’ll admit to that. That edge that rips at your headspace like a razor blade is so much nicer when a chemical turns it to cotton wool. That ought to stir up the fundamentalists who have no empathy for the darkened, serotonin craving mind, but unless you’ve been there, the depressant will always be distanced as the leper.
I should point out the difference between the manic and the suicidal. The manic leans towards extremes and is alternatively referred to as bipolar. I know several. I’d rather be in the suicidal division, actually. You know what to expect and you know what to avoid. And it’s pretty much one route...down. What you have to do is focus on making your way back up. At the very least to a functioning level.
What are the remedies? Doctors recommend less stress. In an ideal world, we would have tapped into that one years back. It’s not an option. But we can assess the load we can carry. And learn to say no. We can prioritise the important versus the allegedly urgent. We can’t afford to speculate on the big picture some days. Minutes at a time are much easier.
With regards to the depressed Christian, God gets it. Staying there for too long is not His ideal, but He gets it. He feeds us through it and tells us to rest up. It’s all good. And another contradiction in terms of the fundamentalists who believe science is evil is that medicine is good. Abusing it won’t resolve anything, but thank God He created science. I wouldn’t be a living diabetic if it weren’t for insulin and I wouldn’t be a reasonably functioning melancholic if it weren’t for anti-depressants.
The thing with depression is that it’s not just feeling miserable and “snapping” out of it, as the perky personality types would suggest. The overall consensus in the mind of the melancholic is that there’s no escaping here. Nothing heralds joy. Your cogs and machinery slide to a weighty halt. And stop there for days at a time sometimes.
What are the triggers? Too much stress, for starters. Those are my perils right now. An uncomfortable living arrangement, feeling financially not only hopeless but trapped here for life (both in this house and with a pile of debt collection papers) and two ways to keep my mind occupied pragmatically. I can work. Or I can sleep. Neither really works that effectively and when I’m unable to do either, I’m lost and restless and start to panic.
The obvious is spending time with God. In His Word. Seeking His heart and mind on my matters. Praying constantly. Any suicidal depressant knows this is virtually impossible on any given day of zero coping mechanism. Thankfully, I can leave it to God and ask for the grace to plod through it. Still, the emotional strain is easier levelled with a Xanor some days. I’ll admit to that. That edge that rips at your headspace like a razor blade is so much nicer when a chemical turns it to cotton wool. That ought to stir up the fundamentalists who have no empathy for the darkened, serotonin craving mind, but unless you’ve been there, the depressant will always be distanced as the leper.
I should point out the difference between the manic and the suicidal. The manic leans towards extremes and is alternatively referred to as bipolar. I know several. I’d rather be in the suicidal division, actually. You know what to expect and you know what to avoid. And it’s pretty much one route...down. What you have to do is focus on making your way back up. At the very least to a functioning level.
What are the remedies? Doctors recommend less stress. In an ideal world, we would have tapped into that one years back. It’s not an option. But we can assess the load we can carry. And learn to say no. We can prioritise the important versus the allegedly urgent. We can’t afford to speculate on the big picture some days. Minutes at a time are much easier.
With regards to the depressed Christian, God gets it. Staying there for too long is not His ideal, but He gets it. He feeds us through it and tells us to rest up. It’s all good. And another contradiction in terms of the fundamentalists who believe science is evil is that medicine is good. Abusing it won’t resolve anything, but thank God He created science. I wouldn’t be a living diabetic if it weren’t for insulin and I wouldn’t be a reasonably functioning melancholic if it weren’t for anti-depressants.
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