On Fire for Anxiety 4

This week’s comic dealt with what I discovered to be an entirely irrational fear of the Internet. It started when I first started using the internet a lot when I got my first computer. This was much later than many others as my dad had an aversion to them at first. Most kids had a computer in the house through most of their high school lives; we got our first when one was given to us as a perk through one of our installation renovation jobs when I was twenty. My main interest in computers was for my art, I had used really early versions of Photoshop in school and knew it would be a benefit for me to try and learn to use the program, especially as I hadn’t really found a colour medium that worked for me.

Of course with the discovery of my new computer came the Internet, unfortunately I missed the glory days of “all your base are belong to us.” and entered as the Internet was fast becoming “the new media” and a viable source of revenue. It was the dawn of what we now call social media, with a variety of websites providing a virtual space for people to share of themselves with the world…sometimes truths, sometimes fiction, mostly anonymous. Myspace, Live Journal, Deviant Art were some of the most popular. Being that I was an artist I only ended up joining Deviant Art, because an odd obstacle would be there to challenge me.

Where even something as simple as signing up for a website causes me unnatural and irrational amounts of anxiety. To the point where I would start to sign up for a website and stop several times, because the fear was so overwhelming.  Even with the sites I managed to make accounts for, just having and interacting with the account would cause me a variety of anxieties as well. Before and after posting irrational doubts or concerns would occupy my mind. But if I didn’t post frequently enough I would get anxious I wasn’t posting enough. I’d stew over the time I felt I maybe wasted interacting with these strangers online, but would also feel guilty if I didn’t reciprocate. Fears my work and ideas would be stolen, just an irrational fear of the Internet having record of something as intimate to me as my art. It just got to the point where even just using a DA account became unbearable, but at that point it was easy to just stop using it.

For a few years I danced and avoided the social media revolution, with friends pestering me to join Facebook.  Finally I did, just before I started school at Max the Mutt. It became most apparent that social media promotions were going to be vital to my future career when signing up for a variety of social media sites and creating a portfolio was assigned as homework, but that prospect meant using more of these sites at one time. At this point in time I had not yet come to understand or accept this part of my anxiety.

It was only after a few years of using it unaware of the effect it had on me emotionally, that I started to realize what was going on. The ebb and flow of my emotions became directly affected by my social media posting. Didn’t really matter what was going on in the real world, a post that didn’t get the attention I felt it deserved could ruin my day, and even the positive returns were diminishing. Someone unfollowing an account of mine could make me really sad, especially if it could be linked to a specific post, what about it made them want to stop seeing my work? It would consume me, unnecessarily. Seeing highlights from others’ lives would make me question my own happiness. Those people are happy traveling, should I want to travel? Those people are happy with their work, is my work really fulfilling enough? When really I never wanted much, and I have all I dreamed of and more. It got to the point I needed to consciously disconnect from the unhealthy emotional attachment I formed with social media.

I still experience some anxiety over posting online, this comic today was a particularly tough one, but because of my practiced detachment now, I try to put it out, and once it’s out let it go. It is no longer mine to control others reactions will be what they are. No longer will I let it control my happiness, or self-worth.

If you would like to support my work you can do so at http://www.patreon.com/beccatr

On Fire for Anxiety 4

On Fire for Anxiety 3

This week’s anxiety comic came as I started to better understand where this new intensity of anxiousness was rooted. Inevitably linked to the inherent instability of my new “dream career”. I feel artists are inherently hard themselves and their own work, never feeling its quite up to snuff. Mostly this drives us to do what we do. To always draw and improve, but when those feelings become a block that stop us all together, it may be time to let some of that go. Many of my early jobs also rooted a fear of being screwed over, because basically that’s what happened with most of my early jobs. People making promises and never paying. Instead of letting it overwhelm me and giving up. I got wise, I begain creating business policies to protect myself, and the clients still came, now more reliable ones.  Still I can never know what’s coming, so I try my best to be accepting of that and to be grateful for the opportunities I have been presented. 

If you would like to support my work you can do so at http://www.patreon.com/beccatr

On Fire for Anxiety 3

On Fire for Anxiety 2

This week’s anxiety comic focused on the insomnia aspect. I have always had bouts of insomnia, but with the anxiety it was different. More than just not being able to fall asleep because I could not stop thinking. It was as if a light, the flame brain, was immediately turned on, just as I was on the brink of falling asleep, (or more usual now, early in the morning) my body would literally jerk fully awake, and sometimes it makes me say or shout things involuntarily, always negative. My body would vibrate and tense up as the flame burned, sleep at that point was usually impossible, and it was often better to get up and be productive. At least it gave me one benefit that I am now a morning person, something I’ve never really been before.

On Fire for Anxiety 2

On Fire for Anxiety

Well, I am going to have to make a slight change to my game plan with my weekly web comic. This is mostly because I have had a lot of work coming in recently, with my recent move, (which didn’t go as smooth as may have liked, still living out of boxes) very little interest in my Patreon and a few other emotionally taxing things going on in my life. I haven’t had the appropriate time and energy to push through writing the dialog for Bolts.  Bolts being one of my oldest and most treasured stories, I want to make sure the writing gets the attention it deserves. So I won’t be running it right away anymore.

Of course so many years of neglecting to post my comic work has left me with at least 5 weeks of a small single panel comic to fill in with for the moment. It may even help to explain, in part, why there is so much I’ve never shown online. These mini comics were done more recently as an exercise for myself when I started going to counseling, for a prolonged state of depression and anxiety last summer. Depression and me have always been familiar bedfellows, I understand it’s as part of my emotional process, how to analyze its nuances, and move through it. This anxiety was something new and foreign that only happened to present itself more recently. It made me very uncomfortable, nothing like the almost familiar comfort depression had.

This forced me to explore these feelings extensively, to try and find the root of these irrational fears that had taken so much hold on my life, and try to find a way, if not to try and defuse it but at least mediate the feelings. I’m honestly not sure if it was the counseling, and it’s cognitive behavioral therapy, that was the aid or another option that became available, but I have had a marked improvement since then. I share the comics now, hoping they provide a little insight or comfort to others.

This week: Intro to flame brain

This was just basic visual representation to how exactly the anxiety made me feel. I felt as though my head was burning and the longer and hotter it burned the more chance my head would have to explode! Sometimes I wished it would explode for real, as if that would release the pressure.

On Fire for Anxiety

The Raven New Chapter

Chapter title page for chapter 2 of the Twisted Tale of a Tortured Raven is up at beccatr.com.

http://www.beccatr.com/view_image.php?location=raven&id=16

I am excited to release the new chapter, it is after great debate I’ve decided to release only this title page and the next page in colour, and the rest in black and white. I want to save some of the colour pages for print in a new comicbook for Fan Expo.

Releasing these comics weekly has really been the enouragement for me to do what I find to be the hardest part of making comics for me, writing the final dialog and putting it out there for the world to see. The commitment I made to myself and to those who follow my social media, helps me get over the desperate desired to hide away my most precious creations, and pressures me to create more, to continue these stories.

I appreciate all who follow and read!

You can also support my comic creation on my patreon at
https://www.patreon.com/beccatr

The Raven New Chapter

Friday the 13th Contest!

I’ve been wanting to do a contest for awhile now and it seemed like an appropriate time. There was an overwhelming interest in doing a contest for free comics, So I’m going to give away 4 comics, one for each social media platform I use. I’m planning on these being the first issue in the proxy series. Once the images are posted on Facebook,  Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram follow the instructions on the image to enter. You may enter over several social media platforms but only entry per account on that platform. Only one win per person, if you happen to win on two platforms the prize will be given to the runner up. If you happen to already own the first issue you will be provided with the second or another prize of equal retail value. Any information regarding your entry must be visible to me, this may be affected by your own privacy settings depending on the platform. If you win you must be willing to provide a shipping address to send the prize to or you will forfeit to the next runner up. I’m hoping to run the contest over the weekend and pick the winners on Monday,  but depending on the activity I may extend that time line by a day or two.  I appreciate the interest in my contest and wish you luck.

Becca

Friday the 13th Contest!

GTA Expo

I am very excited to exhibit the GTA Expo this weekend, being hosted from 10 am to 4 pm May 1st 2016 at the Toronto Sheraton Center at 123 Queen St. W. This is my first convention I have ever been invited to as a guest or featured artist. It is an amazing opportunity that I greatly appreciate, and the whole thing already has been such a great experience, and I haven’t even done the convention yet.

I first met 2 of the organizers Fareham and Chris in person at the Toronto Com-icon. They were incredibly nice, loved my set up and offered tickets to my cousin who was helping at the table and to me to bring some fiends to the show. They also brought up that the original Pink Ranger Amy Jo Johnson was going to be a celebrity guest at their show, and it might be nice for me to do an art print of her, something I had in mind to do as well.

All of this is very surreal to me in some aspects, Kimberly the Pink Ranger was on of my favorite Rangers and Power Rangers were a big part of my youth, and now we are both guests at the same Expo. All be it top vs bottom of the totem pole, it’s still incredible to me and makes me feel I am moving forward in my career, and am incredibly grateful for the recognition. I want the beauty of all the synchronicity I’d been experiencing to be reflected in the piece. Recently I have been working with water colours an unusual medium for me. But it just seem the right way to go for a Pink Ranger piece.

For the illustration I knew I wanted to do the more structural costume from the original movie, with the Pink Rangers avatar in that movie I saw an opportunity to do something angelic with the design. First I did a digital sketch, sketching digitally allow me to more easily mirror the image to check for mistakes, as well as it is easier and faster to correct those mistakes digitally. I find for me I end up with a much more accurate final drawing this way. Once complete I size the sketch and print it out.

I taped that printout to the back of my watercolour paper and worked off a light box for most of the painting process, this was nice as in the end the piece has absolutely no pencil lines. The above image was the my set up for my first round of painting, done at my best friend Syn’s place a fellow artist who really encouraged me to try more painting. See her work here synescape.ca.

Over the next few sessions I just began to build up the paint, ensuring to check the piece with the light box off.

My painting set up at home, the paint I’m using is not actually paint, they are Lyra Aquacolor hi-quality, basically a water soluble pastel or crayon. I find them very easy to transport and extremely versatile.

Finally after I felt the colour work was as far as I could take it I went in and inked using a push and Staedtler pigment liner.

Finally I scanned and prepared the piece for printing I will have a limited number of prints available in different sizes at the GTA Expo as well as the original art as well. I do have a few new smaller prints of various new pieces and more new full colour original art.

Finally and most recently the GTA Expo offered me 10 seconds of free advertising on their video screens through out the con. I made a few attempts myself to edit a video on my phone, but as you can see on my You tube channel, they were just a little too low resolution. So again my friend Syn to the rescue, who helped me edit a high resolution video to my specifications and adding even better lettering effects.

Overall I am blow away with how I have been treated by this convention I can not wait until Sunday, I have a bunch of friends coming and this will be the first convention my Dad is coming to as well. I’m sure this will be one of the best shows yet!

GTA Expo