Welcome to my collection of studies! :’)

As mentioned in last week’s post, I’m tweeting about these study blog posts and selected close ups at my main twitter! I gave up running a secondary twitter account in the end so there’s less steps for me to post things.

Yay I feel good that I’m trying to iterate this process so that it’s easier for me :0

What is the human body

What am I doing

What is life

I’m too slow to finish these quick figure sessions (from Bodies in Motion) :<

Super muscular and athletic peeps!!

I’m not physically strong or consider myself super fit but at least I can see how rusty I am with human muscles :’)

“I don’t have time for this.”

Trying to get loose with contour drawing with portrait studies! All of these weird lines!!

I think I didn’t do contour drawing slow and deliberate enough; I was leaning more towards fast and loose but that’s fine too ;D

Contour drawing, figure and portrait studies!

“Are you sure about that?”

Not impressed.

So I did the portrait study on the left more recently since I was trying to fill in the space at the time, whoops!

I like both portraits so I kept them together (:

The learning plan from here

At the moment I am simply doing it one step at a time and will post studies and/or prompts for the day from the past week (if I manage to do them during that week that is!) I’m striving to do at least some studies (whatever I’m learning at the moment) around other shenanigans – daily or every other day. Somewhat regular as best I can.

I can’t promise an absolute posting schedule as I don’t know how frequent I can make this – it can be weekly or every other week or longer? Life is always a juggle but I’m glad I’m not as burnt out and I’m able to make this a regular habit again around my emotional and mental health and fluctuating energy levels :’)

Doing what I can at my slow pace, being present with things and juggling life!! This is where I don’t care as much about schedules (for my own stuff) and just keep doing what feels right for me.

I finally watched the Pixar movie Soul [spoiler talk]

Definitely an intellectual film for adults and for people growing up, figuring out life, suffering from harmful thoughts, misery, disappointment, depression and emptiness. Not the usual Pixar approach of making people cry and tugging the emotional heart strings; I was confused and not feeling it on an emotional level (it’s probably just me who has muted emotions because many seemed to have cried and related heavily with the film, on dreams and the struggle with the meaning of life).

I won’t go into the racial side of things as I’m not knowledgeable nor experienced in this area, but some good points have been brought up that the movie focused on having a universal message and how the body swap thing kind of made me uncomfortable with how 22 got away with acting as themselves in Joe’s body (plus racial passing happening with the body swap). It’s still generally good to see lots of non white characters, living their own lives.

“I heard this story about a fish, he swims up to an older fish and says: ‘I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.’
‘The ocean?’ the older fish says, ‘that’s what you’re in right now.’
‘This’, says the young fish, ‘this is water. What I want is the ocean.”

– Dorothea Williams (Soul)

It’s a story about a flawed, obsessive, passionate, self absorbed character (Joe) who believes that they exist only to become a great performing pianist, grows from this and learns to slow down, cherish the journey and live in the moment with the people who care around him. Meanwhile 22 breaks out of their comfort zone of a thousand years, learns that they’re happy about living in the moment, connecting with people and that not having a purpose, passion or huge dream is completely fine.

And I personally relate to Terry the most, someone who just wants to be appreciated for the hard work they do, even if it is part of a cog in an interdimensional machine :’)

Just as long as you don’t obsess stubbornly over the job over everything else; there’s more to life and things to juggle to get by! I guess I can see myself stuck in my little comfort zone bubble and routine too. I don’t really have a big dream, high expectations in life and I’m usually fine with living in the present. Essentially it makes it more manageable for me as an autistic person.

The movie makes a point that we can:

• enjoy the journey
• appreciate/live in the moment
• do whatever interests, excites, comforts you
  • (I strive to do this though it’s difficult when my feelings are muted and hard to distinguish/articulate!)
• connect with people around you on a day to day basis
• just do what you can to get by in life is cool and great too
  • (what I do and so do many others)
• cherish the small things in life, smells (and other senses), food and memories
• it’s not about chasing huge milestones, “right” answers, purpose, dreams, passions, ideal/pedestal version of your life, goals, hustle culture, prestige, fame, achievements, greatness, riches, popularity, luxury, power
• there’s no need to stress and worry about your value, worth, meaning and legacy for your life
  • it feels empty as the cycle never ends and the destination/target keeps moving out of reach
• life just happens and can be random; it’s not under your control and uncertainty is the constant
  • it’s hard and challenging to embrace and sit with the uncertainty and curveballs life throws at you though :’)
• it’s important to ask for help, value and help the people who support you (and who have earned it)
• hard work doesn’t always mean you get what you want
• passion and joy can lead to unhealthy obsession, disconnect from life, self centredness, selfishness, blind spots in perspective
• how things and values all depend on the individual
• people change their minds and feelings a lot
• it’s okay if you don’t have big goals or big dreams
  • (that’s me!! That’s always reassuring to hear as most stories are about ambitious goals, dreams, challenges, dangers, transformations, heroic deeds and so on)
• you’re meaningful because you are alive; be free to experience life

These are good reminders for, especially that it’s okay to be slow, not take things too seriously (things in moderation) and play it by ear! Embrace the journey (and to minimise burn out this way)!

I’d like to add that we all have grey and dark sides to ourselves and feelings (envy, resentment, jealousy, hatred, pettiness, selfishness, prejudices, viciousness, guilt, schadenfreude, entitlement, greed, addictions/obsessions, power/control hungry and so on) to manage (so it’s not at unhealthy/skewed levels) and it’s up to us on whether and how we act upon them.

It’s a good film and gave me lots of food for thought: why didn’t I emotionally resonate with the movie? Perhaps I don’t relate to “chasing a dream” since I was brought up to kill anything that may resemble a dream inside me. It got me thinking a lot instead! Currently I’m just focusing on what I’m alright/good at and trying to get by instead? It’s not a movie I would watch again any time soon :’)

Anyhoo thanks for reading and for coming by; let’s keep doing our best this week! :’)

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