Candace for the Win!

100 days of continuous practice to honor my muse's memory.

[candaceforthewin-blog]

Setting up some ground rules for myself

I really want to complete all 100 days.  Knowing how I work and what is likely to get in the way, I’m setting up the following rules for myself.

1) I will forgive myself for not creating something perfect.

2) I will not get carried away and work on something all day unless I have the time to do so.

3) I just need to create something.  The acceptable practices for my challenge are...

3a) Website - 20 minutes of work on any of my sites that are NOT for clients.

3b) Novel - 200 words of creative writing, or 20 minutes of research

3c) Artwork - can be a pencil sketch, watercolor sketch, ink sketch, whatever. Finished compositions aren’t necessary.

4) I will not get ahead of myself and over plan what to do.

5) Let’s just see where this goes.

[candaceforthewin-blog]

Someone only lives as long as the last person who remembers them. So, you should tell stories to keep them alive.

Unknown

[candaceforthewin-blog]

Day 1 - Comet.  The cat who started it all.

[candaceforthewin-blog]

The long overdue 100 day challenge

In the fall of 2015, my Facebook page all but stopped. Comet passed away in August 2015, right after I came back from visiting my family in Texas.  For me, life practically stopped that day.

I no longer worked for the privileged of coming home to his smiling face every day.  I couldn’t write a single creative word.  I once tried to paint him, but I could only make a single eye, which I cried over for hours.

Nothing seemed to shine.

That was when I told myself that I’d create 100 days of art work to honor his memory, but I just couldn’t.  After all, he was the reason why I ever became interested in art.  My earliest drawings were of him. 

The best watercolor I’ve ever done was an image of him, looking at me lovingly on the other side of my digital camera.  Almost every creature I ever drew was some iteration of him.  For a long, long time, I was lost without him.

Here I am, about 9 months later.  I’m finally pulling myself out of this creative slump, and I’m going to dedicate my rise to Comet.  After all, he’s still here with me. 

The moment he sighed and breathed his last breath, I felt a heaviness in my heart.  It wasn’t sadness, it was a sort of company.

I feel him in my heart at any happy instant, like I’ve been sinking in a vat of champagne towards the sentiment and impurities that have given up on making themselves know.  Their only hopes are to be consumed after the best of the glass has been emptied. That’s where society tries to hold me down. The fizzling bubbles are his spirit lifting me to the surface again. Saving me, and showcasing my worth in a bouquet that seems dull and dry, but is surprisingly fruity and sweet.  He is still my strength.

This is how I felt when I began the process just now.  I painted a picture of him to bring him back to me.

Someone only lives as long as the last person who remembers them. So, you should tell stories to keep them alive.

As I painted, I remembered every detail of the face that I gazed into every day for nearly two decades. 

His mysteriously half blind eyes, and the slit on his pupil that may have held the secret.  His soft, velvety, dirty ears.  The corners of his mouth where the fur was thin, giving him very human “lips.”  The spot on his nose that every one of his brothers, sisters, and even his mom had.  The long, curled whiskers. And that wise look that always said, “Everything will be alright.”

And it always will be.