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vethysnia

The world keeps standing.
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I'm not sure when or why it began to happen, but my life started breaking down long before the pandemic. Not to make this journal solely even more about misery and woe when the world is already so fastened by their grip...but I went through, and am going through, extremely trying times. I wont get into it, but most people I guarantee wouldn't have made it through. I lost my foundation; financial, marital, familial, social, therapeutic, spiritual, you name it, it was ripped from my grasp and what was left was in shambles.


Regardless, I tunneled through, somehow. I did some digging into my ancestry, my natal chart, the very kernel of my soul in general, reached into the fiber of what I was made of and survived. Am still surviving, hanging by a thread, but it's a strong thread made of gold. I wonder how many people out there are avatars tricked into smallness; bullied into subjugation and lives of pure servitude. But that's a conversation for another time.


I decided to return to this account because I realized my insecurities for abandoning and moving on from it are a pale comparison to what I've been through. It's this account that brought me loads of fortune, lessons, community, and access. I know the community in general has probably died down quite a bit over these last post-truth years, but I plan on making the best of it. Posting new projects, which of course I've never stopped doing art in the meantime just have been posting elsewhere, supporting new artists again, giving out llamas and points, y'know, same old. Looking back, I moved on from it because I thought I could do better, mostly from ambition, but there were also those in my life who were pushing me to seek avenues that were not right for me. It's time to get back to my roots.


Idk what happened to other social media sites, and maybe this place has suffered too, but goodness it's like the higher-ups decided, 'let's screw around with the AI algorithms that have been giving us billions and try to make billions of TRILLIONS', cause jeezus all they care about is pie charts right? Not the big picture. Ergo they end up screwing themselves out of TRILLIONS OF TRILLIONS they could've made in the long run and not only that but ruining people's businesses that are literally symbionts of their social media entities. My heart goes out to everyone who lost a business out there, or simply their wellbeing in general. It's harrowing.


But enough of that, I want to share my work here again, because who knows what benefits, or even challenges it will reap. I'm not longer of the opinion that my comfort zone is the enemy, or solely a nurturer. I've learned so many new self-taught, and varied artistic skills over the last couple of years that I've been absent and I can't wait to unveil them. My love for art never waned, and at this point, here, in my thirties, I am hesitant to think it ever will.

Samwise
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Ho boy, so this is going to be a really long one. I hope you all have better attention spans than be, because this may get kind of heavy and deep in terms of artwork discussion and description. Hopefully you guys enjoy the pictures I have at least, and I also hope this is informative and or useful in some way. Enjoy! <3

Also if this journal cuts off in any place please tell me. D:

For More Informational Journals And Commentary Visit The Link Below:


www.vethysnia.com/journal/?v=7…





How many of you digital artists kind of have...a secret life of sorts, one that you don't really share with the rest of your art community because you're not sure the pieces you've made fit in with your digital work. To be perfectly honest, my digital and traditional artwork evolved not alongside one another, but back and forth, from one to the other and back again. I'm not sure why my brain decided to work like this initially, because the more I worked on one medium the more my skills in other mediums would suffer. After doing digital artwork for well over a decade, and traditional work since I was three years old I'm twenty-nine now, and I've realized some things about keeping that steady balance between working with both traditional and digital. 

I feel like somewhere along the line this year and the end of last, my subconscious realized it was no longer satisfied with my traditional art skills. As many of you have observed my digital work has soared in ways I least of all could predict or can even fathom to this day. That being said, my traditional work, as mentioned earlier, suffered. But what always helps that is practice. Yes, practice practice practice. Do art. Do lots of art. Don't stop doing art until you're burnt tf out. And when you DO burn out, really REST. 

This is a huge rule for me; always rest. But at the same time, if you're in a professional freelancing environment where deadlines are king, that kind of thing may not be an option for you. For me, when I get burnt out on digital commission work, I alert all my customers that I will be taking a small hiatus of a week or two, and they're always quite understanding. 

And then...

Face graphite studies by vethysnia Body charcoal studies by vethysnia
"Facial study" & "Figure drawing study"

I sketch my little heart out. 

It's something I've been doing to help art block, as well as burnout. When you stop focusing on what's expected of you for a little while and just draw to your heart's content, it's amazing what kind of things you can learn about yourself and your skills in artwork in general. I can safely say that by doing these sketches I have improved vastly as an artist in very little time. 

What I primarily focused on in my sketchbook were the basic forms of the body, identified mostly by individual parts and sometimes defined, other times simply in the form of gestural study as seen below here:

Motion gesture study by vethysnia
"Model in blue chalk pastel and charcoal"

Other studies I did were more abstract, based perhaps in fantastical scenery. 

Abstract charcoal drawing by vethysnia Abstract Charcoal Drawing 2 by vethysnia
"Abstract Curve, Form, and Contrast" & "Tornadoes on the Prairie"
Charcoal

Sometimes random objects! 

Apple study by vethysnia
"Apple study"
Charcoal

What's ironic about all of these so far is that although they were warm ups, preliminary sketches, and literally just me screwing around, I really did push myself with them in ways I never thought possible before. I know what every artist says: practice yakkity yak practice. And yeah, it's true. This kind of thing requires an UNREASONABLE amount of practice. I've been doing this for over a decade and I still look at children's artwork and think to myself daaaang I got a lot to learn. 

Ergo, the other thing a bunch of artists say, which is to 'draw like a child', is 100% true. I watched a video a couple nights ago about an artist who said 'perfect art is boring'. Which...I have a tendency to agree for the most part. I love looking at artwork with zero conceivable flaws, nearly perfect composition, technique, and a shining finished product. But only for so long. Eventually the prettiness of it all kind of loses its momentum therein one's synapses because there's nothing further to decipher. Often, flaws give a piece more depth than one might realize. 

So when I was doing all these facial and bodily studies I had to really work against my habitual ego of always having things perfect from the get go. You really do need to work over it, layer after layer, much like digital art actually! The more layers you have, the more depth it'll have (and yes that goes for those of you who only use one digital layer, which is totally fine! In fact in paint tool sai I prefer using a single layer o.o ). 

Face graphite studies 2 by vethysnia Hand study by vethysnia
"Facial Study" & "Fist Study"
Graphite, Charcoal, Smudge Stick

Hands graphite studies 1 by vethysnia
"Hand Study....again"
Graphite & Smudge Stick

In terms of drawing the face, I struggled a lot, weirdly enough. It's very tempting to get lost in the details and really lose sight of the form you're trying to create. I'm not saying don't ever get bogged down in the details, but let's just say that you really should leave them for a time when you're feeling particularly meditative. 

Nose Lips Hand Study by vethysnia 
"Nose, lips and hand study"
Graphite & Smudge Stick

As you can see I was making quite a bit of progress on portraying the deep and light value in these subjects using shading only. I practiced quite a few eyes, animal and human on their own in order to get more of the technique down for both their anatomy and their contrast. 

Elf Eye graphite by vethysnia Wolf eye by vethysnia
"Elf Eye" & "Wolf Eye"
Graphite, Charcoal, & Smudge Stick

Cat eye by vethysnia Leopard And Rose by vethysnia
"Cat Eye" & "Leopard and Rose study"
Graphite & Smudge Stick

Figure drawing in particular provided a huge challenge for me. I struggle a LOT with getting down the exact anatomy from the beginning and not getting sucked into the details like a black hole pulls in a speck of dust.

Hand, circle and eye by vethysnia Hand in fabric by vethysnia
"Witch hand, eye, and circle study" & "Hand in Fabric"
Charcoal, Brush Smudge

Figure study full body and feet by vethysnia Tree study by vethysnia
"Figure study" & "Tree study"
Graphite, Charcoal & Smudge Stick

This next one I'm about to show is one I'm extremely proud of. It's not perfect by any means but I really feel like I pushed myself to get this particular study spot on in at least composition and anatomy. I found this woman on pinterest and fell in love with the thick contours of her body, despite how athletic it obviously was. My mission is to soon begin drawing and painting people who have far more meat on their bones so that I can really delve further into learning how to convey people's incredibly differing body shapes.

Woman laying graphite by vethysnia
"Woman in repose study"
Graphite & Smudge Stick

To be perfectly honest I'd love to work on this more and get it more and more detailed, maybe get some charcoal in there and really get those shadows to be the piece de resistance. 




I've described a lot of my dry media, but what about wet traditional media? A lot of what I said still applies, but painting requires a little bit more raw instinct than drawing in my personal and extremely humble opinion. Sometimes when I jump into a medium that I've never done before (and that's rare, because I'm kind of obsessed with learning them all), I really  have to focus to get a feel for how whatever kind of paint I'm using acts. For inanimate objects, I'm amazed at how different each kind of paints' personality can be. 

IMG 0224 small by vethysnia Untitled by vethysnia Intense Feline - Watercolor by vethysnia
"Mineral peaks" , "Startled Fox" , & "Intense Feline"
Watercolor & Watercolor Pencils

I have always been a huge fan of acrylic and oils paints, and I've actually recently discovered water mixable oils! The paintings below are examples of both acrylic and water mixable oil paintings. These ones are quite abstract. 

Acrylic 11 Wrathful Stone by vethysnia
"Wrathful Stone"
Acrylic paint on stretched canvas

Acrylic 2 Eye of the Storm by vethysnia Acrylic 4 Estrus Conception by vethysnia
"Eye of the Storm" & "Estrus Conception"
Acrylic paint on stretched canvas

These two are probably my most successful fully formed traditional pieces:
Acrylic 9 Nun Disillusioned About Love by vethysnia Floral Abyss by vethysnia
"Nun Disillusioned About Love" & "Floral Abyss"
Acrylic paint on stretched canvas | Water mixable oil and acrylic paint plus gilded leafing




The key is to keep arting. Sometimes you get the privilege of making your own schedule based around your art, and sometimes you don't. Some artists, especially those of the professional variety cannot afford to get art block. They cannot afford to have a mental stopper in their creativity. Burnout can certainly be arduous to remedy, but so is having to find another form of employment. It is important that you as an individual artist find what balance works right for you personally. 





MATERIALS USED


Graphite pencils 2B, HB, Extra Black
General's charcoal U.S.A
Chalk pastels
Smudge stick
Watercolor pencils
Watercolor paint
Acrylic paint
Stretched canvas
Gilded leaf

YOUTUBE TUTORIAL VIDEOS









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I've actually been wanting to do one of these journals for a while, but instead of only posting it on my official domain name website, I'm choosing to first post it here, because it was you guys who supported me first and helped cultivate my business in the first place! :)

I've realized how important it is to interact with your followers, wherever they support you, and that is why I am taking the initiative to share my experiences working in the art business world. I will also be hopefully posting journals filled with full scale projects, each taking the time to narrate the process as well as showing the progress reel from start to finish. It's important to share your knowledge, tools, and usage of those tools with your customers as well as admirers, because in the end you're giving back to the community who helped build you up. 

That being said, deviantart was that initial place for me, that place where the numbers would lie to me and tell me that I wasn't being supported, and yet loyal, kind, and generous clients would come to me, who actually liked my style and thought it was unique enough to pay for it. I want these journals




It seems every artist who dreams of making a living off their work eventually hits a point in which they enter the digital world, find an extreme plethora of options. Sometimes they feel overwhelmed, and back away from the scene entirely, consigning themselves to more familiar territory, and sometimes rightfully so; we shouldn't delve into things we have a gut instinct about not being ready for. But other times, like me, they just become more curious. They're also like me in terms of not being business oriented, and not having a mind for it at all whatsoever. Something that stuck with me that I heard a few months ago is 'marketing/networking is as much of an art as art itself'. I mean...don't get me wrong, that sounds like total crap at first, but the more I thought about it the more it rang true. 

I have made several social media accounts over the years, and some I still use, others I don't. Most of them I don't because I registered, liking the idea of the site, but then realized it had a terrible interface and wasn't user friendly at all. Some of them I ended up abandoning because it was years upon years that my stores were open and yet they couldn't garner a single sale. Well my friends, the tides are shifting. I'm becoming more and more of a freelancer every day, and due to my personal life issues I'm having to seek out even more lines of work on top of my current commission orders. Ergo, I've been having to navigate the huge sea of social media platforms and trying to figure out which ones are right for me. It's a tedious journey...I know. Bear with me. 

First off I'll go ahead and list all the social media platforms I'm apart of:

www.vethysnia.com

www.subscribestar.com/vethysni…

deviantart.com/vethysnia

www.twitch.tv/vethysnia

www.facebook.com/vethysnia/

www.instagram.com/vethysnia/

www.furaffinity.net/user/vethy…

vethysnia.tumblr.com

www.redbubble.com/people/vethy… (NEW! :) )

twitter.com/vethysnia 


Now, I'm not hugely active on several of these. Why? Because they don't garner the traffic I'm after, they don't have many of the functions I personally want to further my business as well as my skills therein my craft. My experience overall with subscribestar, tumblr, and twitter especially have been lukewarm and I find many other artists on there as well, artists that FAR outstrip my skill level struggling with exposure. It's a sad thing to see really, especially when such a vat of talent exists under the layering of constant likes and reblogs and shares that the most popular stuff gets. It seems hard to break the mold. 

But I'm here to tell you that while it's hard, it's also not that complicated a concept. Each artists' soul is a unique brand of energy, cultivated and recycled through millions of years of evolution, aged like a fine wine, akin to the universe itself! I know that's a super new age way to think about it, but at the same time it really is how I feel. I read a blog post a while back on a very successful freelance artist's website, and they said something along the lines of "Sell your soul, not yourself". What they mean is put every ounce of your soul into your artwork, and people will eventually be attracted to it. They might not flock, but that trickle will eventually turn into a steady flow, one that is nourishing and fulfilling, one that leads to a contented life.

Although I'm not quite there yet myself in my entrepreneurship, and am still struggling to pay the bills with my art alone, I'm being pushed to find more and more resources that cater to my line of work, as well as line up with my particular brand of mental and physical deficiencies. I am hugely disabled, and it would take years to get the benefits I rightfully deserve to live a decent life, so until then, it's job application city. But going back to social media, I found that places like Twitch, instagram, deviantart of COURSE (LOL), facebook, and my official website garner the most traction and leave the best kind of impression.

The secret? Ugh...I have a theory. 

Update. Share. If you do a crap sketch, show it anyway. Talk about your art block. Doodle when you can wherever you can and take a picture. Share share share share. And HASHTAGS. I cannot stress more about that. It is the main way people search for things nowadays and 

BUT WAIT. THERE LAYS THE PARADOX. 

You're thinking 'Tasha, I can't update this crap 24/7, I unlike you HAVE A LIFE!!!' Good point. I am a work from home artist so I have a very open schedule in general. The truth of the matter is, and it is a cold, cold truth, you cannot update everything all the time. You cannot fulfill the wants and needs of every single audience you have on whatever social platform. It's...just a reality, an honest to god impossibility, that is...if you want to live a life off the computer as well, haha! And I'm sure you do, I mean I do, and I spend most of my time home-ridden. 

You have to make peace with this fact. Update when you can, where you can, as much as you can. Even if it's just a random thought you had earlier that day, relevant or not to your work. If it goes dead, reignite it again with a single post. Your thoughts, perspective, and ability as an artist, whether society wants to admit it or not, are valuable in the sense that they are unlike most people on the planet who do not share your passion. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about my particular experiences with social media, and may it possibly help you to find your path. :)

- Tasha / Vethysnia


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The last poll I made was in support of me making journals, so here's one I'd love to share with you all that I recently made on my official website. :)





Overall, I spent over ten years nurturing my little art business and cultivating a small but reliable circle of clients who consistently buy artwork from me. It was a slow but steady process, one that allowed me all the time in the world to fulfill my clients’ orders and really nail the essence of what they were getting at. Many of them are grateful and still order from me to this day.

Details 1.2 by vethysnia
However, the thought of doing freelance concept work for game designs never occurred to me thoughout that decade. I always thought I wasn’t good enough, or I didn’t have the schooling, seeing as I’m completely self taught from a super young age in both digital and traditional artwork.

That being said, when my roommate asked me if I wanted to be a part of his startup video game company which by law shall remain nameless, I was enthralled, if not a bit out of my element. I personally had no idea the scope of resources needed to go into game design, but I drew, and painted, and drew, and painted, and drew some more. I drew and painted my little heart out for this guy who had offered me such an amazing opportunity that I would have be beyond help to refuse. It was an interesting experience, one fraught with frustration, misunderstandings, and not to mention an ungodly amount of sexual tension. I hate to say that in public, but it’s the truth, and while I regret many things about how I handled myself throughout the experience I do not regret that particular detail (LOL!).



He had such a mind for business, and seemed to genuinely know the ins and outs of our bureaucratic system. He was forever complimenting my artwork and saying that I could get a job with much more popular companies if I just put myself out there more. It was him who inspired me to hook up with Kaons, or Elise if you will, to host my domain-name website as well as create several other social media platforms to further expel my brand and artwork. In terms of networking, ironically as an ex artist, he really did know the ‘art of marketing’.

The company collapsed, taking a lot of our inspiration and vigor with it, but at the same time I learned several valuable pieces of information while working with this individual, as well as honing my comportment of how I handle myself in the future when faced with other opportunities in the freelance and game concept art world. This individual not only inspired me to further my skill in ‘the art of networking’, but he also pushed me in my artwork in ways I’ve never had anyone do before. Sometimes he was rather harsh, yes, but for a time I absolutely relied on his input to help my work reach the next level, and beyond.

Here are some bits of information I learned throughout this joust in conceptual game design:

One. Always write out a detailed and definitive terms of service. And make sure you take note of examples you have seen.

Two. Always always ALWAYS find update this terms of service. You will find new and better ways to handle yourself and there’s no reason you should not implement them right away. Do not inflict the new rules on customers who signed past versions; only new customers.

Three. BE COMMUNICATIVE TO THE MAX. Don’t ever be like me and be shy about not understanding something. Be as clear as possible and let your boss/client know that they’re being unclear about the project’s expectations. Follow this particular strain of advice and you wont have to deal with your client being upset that you did something completely unlike what they desired in the first place. 

There is a certain flare needed to sell one’s soul as an artist. One needs to be diligent, and dedicated to their craft. Art as a hobby does not fly in the world of business, and creativity unfortunately sometimes does not sell. My experience in this startup game company taught me most of all that one cannot compete in today’s conceptual art industry if they’re not willing to put in the hours, like I most certainly did, but ended up failing alongside my boss ironically. One must do art regardless of if the mood calls for it, and that’s one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever had to learn, to be perfectly honest. Having been currently suffering from the worst art block I’ve had in years, I can safely say that it passes. It always, always, always passes. Get out those strokes. Get out those doodles. Work through the kinks. But at the same time if one really needs a genuine vacation from such vigilant work, yes, by all means, take it, and take it deeply.

‘Umbra Bestius’ general character and scenery concept art

At the end of the day, I always have something to share with my followers. At the end of the day, I have always accomplished something. And this is important for every professional artist to acknowledge throughout their hard work and endless hours of working on commissions and even work for art school. Nothing, I repeat nothing, in art, equals worthlessness.




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Music Player 2

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