Fruity Artsy

So, what to say after about a week has gone by?  Not much has gotten done.  Still reading thru tax guides, still sorting thru old papers of resumes and art promos, and I'm still looking up possible web hosting sites.  On top of all that, there's my necessary chores to get done between shifts at my essential retail job, if I got enough energy and time for it afterwards.  So, yeah, not much done art-wise. The most creative thing I've done this week is sand and varnish a wooden foldable table stand that I use regularly so to have it be more water resistant and easier to clean. 

(This is another reason why I want to change from Blogger: struggling to get the composition I want in a blog scroller frame is tricky. I can't always get it to look the way I want it.)

Fruit Sketches

Fruit Vectors

I could at least show you what I got finished last month though.  I had the thought on drawing vector icons of fruits during the summer for a Keto Ingredient Guide I wanted to make as I'm regularly eating toward that diet to lose weight (down to 310Lbs or less now).  I've since found a better guide of it with Wholesome Yum (they're a great site for food facts and keto recipes, you should definitely browse the site for low-carb/sugar diet help), but I wanted to finish what I drew. I did also a quick water mark to see what I could do to deflect infringement, might need work still.

I thought to make a set of icons as stock assets to eventually put up for sale (once I worked out the market part of it). Was going to draw a few sets of foods for the guide idea but got side-tracked with finishing off other projects like the last of my Halloween Decor ideas.  I'm glad now to be all done with trying to use up old materials for the sake of avoiding wasting them, so now I'm mostly  about my artwork with the occasionally DIY house work.  

 

I'm not sure exactly when I'll be able to start freelancing as I got a lot to catch up on, even with my retail job being part-time (it can get usually exhausting on front cash, foot traffic depending). While I'm not wanting to stay on my current job permanently, I don't want to quit it cold-turkey and be without a steady income for a long time.  That was one thing I've learnt from being jobless for about 6 years, except for having brief temp jobs, welfare and my parents' support to fall back on.  Once I can finally make a sustainable living with my art, I can consider going full-time into it and quit doing retail work.  For now, I'll be building up my portfolio while getting more informed with the business side, providing I don't have to keep doing a lot of small things like restitching worn clothes or refurbishing damaged items in a DIY fashion.

That's it for now.  Going to apply that second coat of polyurethane so I can reassemble my table again tomorrow, part of it anyway.

New Year, Refreshed Start

 Hi again everyone!  Welcome to the new year and hopefully to the turnaround of this whole pandemic.  This virus is still kicking the Earth's bum here but at least with vaccines now getting made and being distribute among the populace, things are starting to improve for the long run. Let's keep at being safe!

For me personally, I'm finally all done with projects to just use up extra crafting materials (it's taking WAY too long for them anyway while still working an essential job).  This year, THIS YEAR, I'm now all about my artwork and to freelance or at least to get work as an artist. Okay, I'll be making time for other things like my health & fitness (the Keto Diet has been doing well for me) and purge away what I don't need or compact down my storage for more space and less excess materials. One good lesson to learn with managing your stuff is to figure out what purposes each item has for you and to know what you really need from them.  It's really that you want it very badly or you need it essentially, otherwise don't buy or collect it. Unless you can trade it for what you want like money.

What I'm doing right now is brushing up my knowledge on the legal and accounting side of freelancing: GST/HST, T-Forms, Canada Revenue Guides, Business Essentials, any legal advice with freelancing.  After that, I can start working on building up my portfolio with new works. With freelancing, I'm NOT understanding about Canada's legal business obligations and how to file taxes as a freelancer and that is baffling me.  I was taught about it somewhat way back at my OCAD years but ultimately it wasn't possible to narrow it to only Canada's way of business start-ups and registration as it was an international university with students across the globe.  I've done some artwork jobs before but only as an individual, not as a registrant business owner.  I want to change that so I'm studying on the business part of freelancing so I won't be afraid about it anymore. One way to overcome a fear to learn more about it, that's my thinking behind it.

Lastly to talk about is that I'll be considering a new site to host my artwork soon.  While I've relied on Blogger for years due to being free to host on, it doesn't allow much design freedom for displaying your content online.  I've tried my old web comic on this site for a while but the navigation was terrible.  Unless there's been changes for available formats since then, I want to build a more professional website to not only showcase my artwork better but also allow me to do a webcomic again.  Maybe to restart my Crystalium series again but I'll need to dust off that project too, refresh my work and revise how to tell it eventually after I get the ball rolling again on my freelancing.

If not weekly, then bi-weekly or monthly updates are going to happen from now on.  I want to do this full-time eventually and not working still at a supermarket (as long as I can support myself by artwork alone).  Either with a tidbit of news or maybe a doodle sketch, I need to start talking on social media more to re-grab people's attention again as well as drawing. So that's it for now.  See ya next month.