#etluwips

[etlu-yume]

Flame Flowers and Butterfly Wings [2022 - WIP]

저 하늘에 흩어질래 (Translation: Into the sky, I’ll scatter) Light a flower, flowerwork Flower flowerwork 저 하늘에 눈부시게 (Translation: Into the sky, dazzlingly bright) Light a flower, flowerwork Flower, flowerwork (Translations from doolset bangtan)

I wanted to try and do something based on RM's title track, Wild Flower but never quite worked out what. Somehow seeing a cloud of Wandering/Monarch butterflies out my window this morning gave me a starting point.

When I went to double check what they were, it felt rather appropriate to use the butterflies here - the duality of their names as "Wandering" and "Monarch" fits with the struggles described within wildflower about finding success yet simultaneously feeling lost.

According to a quick google, Monarch butterflies also only live for about 6 weeks. They're not gone in an instant like fireworks, but they don't last forever either. And there's something just magical about walking through flowers taller than you, that are just full of clouds upon clouds of Monarch butterflies.

EDIT: Sad update it turns out we've got clouds of Common Browns, not Wandering/Monarchs :( So the inspiration isn't 100%, but the Wandering/Monarchs still tie in so nicely with the concept.

[etlu-yume]

I'm still struggling to actually complete any proper art but managing to throw rough sketches and text together. Some of these matched to particular songs really well and I wanted to just mess with how they looked, while pulling out some particular lines that resonated.

"I of the Storm" in particular was an accidental perfect match. I was looking at it and thinking about how the figure was the "eye of the storm" and the phrase reminded me a song existed called that, but when I checked the song/lyrics I had to pair them. It fit perfectly with the theme of the pieces, and resonated with me too.

No idea if this will go any further than this. Who knows, if I polish up the other sketches it might be nice to do as a final set.

(It might be a ... "cute" ... redo of that old illustration for editorial project)

(I threw the songs together too, just to see how it looks.)

[etlu-yume]

Maybe I'll finish things one day

[etlu-yume]

I don't know about posting this one. It's extremely unfinished. And I'm worried that I'm not past the worst of this yet. Posting, let alone drawing about hitting the bottom feels like a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't think I'm actually there yet - but it certainly feels like I'm stuck somewhere in between.

If I'm lucky, hopefully my brain will let off and give me some credit in the next week.

If I'm not... then it's another week of this.

I know on a rage swing it gets progressively worse - irritability, snapping and snarling, rushing to do things and losing it when they don't work out *because* I'm rushing...

I don't really want to have to observe what a down swing does. It's already bad enough - social withdraw, that feeling of consistent sadness like a rock in your gut weighing you down, the lack of motivation to do things you should want or know you need to do, the tiredness that jumps out at inconvenient times to make you want to curl up and take a nap. The difficulty concentrating on the task at hand. Thinking you're getting better because your brain will let you observe your favourite haunts, but quickly scurry you away the moment you think of reaching out, of being perceived in public. Struggling to get out of bed because you're worried about just being a waste of resources (... okay look that's a very specific personal situation, that. I would be so much better with that if it didn't decide to also be cloudy and rainy for the last ~7 days or so, like at least half of the stupid brain goop time. They said we were out of La Nina - so where's my sunny, dry Autumn gone?)

All I know it's it's been 14 days and I am tired, exhausted and just want a break.