I've mentioned that I love my Kaweco Sport medium nibbed fountain pen. It's a decent looking workhorse pen. one I'm not afraid to take anywhere and draw anything with. It's moderate price (in fountain pen terms) means I'll be upset but not too heartbroken if I lose it. Who am I kidding, I'll be a wreck if I ever lose it. I love this damn pen.
I read this page on the fountain pen network about making a bulb filler for the pen. And I thought huh, I can do that. So I did.

I had to order "sacs" for my pen, which I did through this guy. Minimum order is $15, so I had to spend $20. I've kep a few aside for further hacking and tinkering and the rest are for sale in the classifieds section of the FPN.

Anyway, here is the video.

This hack will work with any pen. I also made a filler for my old Rotring Esprit.

Just a heads up, I'm moving my site to a new domain and making a few changes to the site. It might go down for a bit but know that it'll be back up shortly.

The
next part of self doubt, or the recurring refrain I hear in my head is,
“How will I screw this up? How will I subvert this from reaching
success?” You see, I believe I have a history of screwing up the things
that should work, or so I tell myself. I tell myself that I find these
ways of hijacking myself so even if I finish a piece or find my way to
success I won’t actually achieve success, instead, I’ll be left
disappointed looking at success, so close yet outside of my grasp,
achievable but not.

These
are incredibly destructive thoughts, especially when kept in the dark. I
know my initial reaction when thinking and feeling like this is to not
share that I feel, well, vulnerable. When I boil it down and really look
at these destructive thoughts I realize that when I’m working on a
successful piece, getting good news, or anything else good those good
feelings are delicate and unstable. Especially when I’m first getting
them established. In a way I think self doubt comes from a protective
instinct, a place where we want to protect those oh so delicate feelings
of success from the possibility of failure. At some point something
happens and makes those protective feelings turn inward and they become
destructive.

At
that point I shut down, declare that I’m in a rut and feel as if I’ll
never get out. Why work on fresh art when I’ll just screw it up anyway?

It’s up to me to break that cycle, no one can do it for me. I have to decide, “Hey, I can do this.” Then I have to do it. (Some external positivity helps, so give someone props on stuff you see online, comment on a blog post, or flickr upload. Spread love.)

This is the 4th art journal page I've created exploring self doubt.

I forgot to shoot pictures of it as I was working and I feel it isn't finished. It needs something undefinably "more." I'm not sure exactly what it needs but I'll figure it out eventually.

This is the 3rd page in a series where I explore self doubt.

In
keeping with the goal and theme of these pieces I started by writing a
journal page. This time I used a vermillion watercolor pencil. I pressed
into the paper harder in some areas and lighter in others. Overall I
tried to keep a stream of consciousness method of writing as I
considered the various issues connected with self doubt.

Heart
and mind continued to be a theme with this writing but this writing
focused more on the heart aspect. To blur and blend the color I added
water to the page with a large wet brush. As the color moved around the
page I saw 3 darker areas. I created 3 darker circles of darker red in
these areas. I then allowed the page to dry naturally. I chose a
photocopy of my heart image and used a Chartpak blender marker to
transfer the image to the dried watercolored page. I then layered
various shades of blue colored pencils around the heart, as if radiating
out. The radiating lines stopped and I used watercolors to highlight
and illuminate one of the remaining red circles. the writing is still
visible in the illuminated area.



I
wanted the area around the blue to be darker so I layered some liquid
watercolor over the top of the colored pencil. I used a paper towel to
remove the excess. An interesting thing happened, in the areas where the
writing hadn’t dissolved fully the colored pencil lifted off. Leave me
with the texture of the writing being visible through the radiating
lines. It’s an interesting happy accident, I’ve often said that writing
will illuminate and lift up the darker parts of our mind and heart, and
here by accident that occurred.

The image measures 5×7 inches and is available on my etsy shop here.

This is the second in a series of images exploring self-doubt.

This
image started as the last with some journaling, written with a
noodler’s Ahab flex nibbed fountain pen. I focused my writing on the
self doubt surrounding the “big thing” that I have coming up*, hopefully
in May. I also wrote about how the impending change is affecting my
feelings around how people will perceive me. I worry that people will
think that my work is inauthentic.

As
I wrote I came to the conclusion that as long as my work is from the
heart and my mind that the work will be authentic no matter the content
or direction I explore.

I
blurred the writing with water. I decided to be literal with my images
and colored photocopies of a heart and brain with watercolors. When
these were dry I cut them out and glued them to the page. I added layers
of color around the 2 collaged pieces with colored pencils and
watersoluble crayons.

I
took one of my sheep stickers colored it black and stuck it in the
middle of the brain. A rather literal representation of sheep brain. I
also added a tea tag to the heart. I added a few more colors, picked out
the yellow crayon to get the color a little more intense and added some
white crayon between the blue rays.

The image measures 5×7 inches and is available on my etsy shop here.

Continue reading →

A little more on this self-doubt thing.

I
could trace it back and say that it’s because of this “big thing” i
have dangling over my head, or I could trace it origins back to my
Chipin campaign. It went well. I was way behind schedule due to a death
in my family but it went well. But the whole thing, the whole time, I
thought I was going to screw it up. I put myself out there and was well
received. Through all of that I figured that I would in some way screw
it up. I’d do something that would foul up the works. I’d screw up a
piece of art, send one to the wrong address, or something else.

I finished everything and sent it on it’s merry way.

Still that nagging voice of self doubt, different from my inner critic said over and over, “This won’t work, you will fail.”

I
think we all have that voice of self-doubt in our mind. Maybe it’s the
inner critic, or the voice of a parent, a teacher or co-worker. Someone
has given voice to our doubt, and that voice sticks in our mind. It
plays on repeat, over and over and over again, until we figure out that
the little orange circled arrow thingy on our iP0d is what is making
that song play again and again.

the
real question I have to ask myself, and you possibly need to ask
yourself, is. how do I stop that loop? What can I change? What can I say
or tell myself?

The
thing is I know that even with work my self doubt will never go away.
It will diminish, but I have to give myself time and put forth effort to
quiet the voice of doubt.