Saturday, September 5, 2020

Dried Up Markers and Chief Cornerstones

 In 2016, I started buying Copic Sketch markers, even though they're more expensive than just about any other art supply I've ever used regularly.  One of their selling points was that I could buy containers of refill ink that would keep the expensive markers useful for much longer than a regular marker with no refills.

In the past year, the refill ink seems to have vanished from U.S. markets--or they cost so much that I can't decide that they're worth the price.  I thought I might just buy a replacement marker.

But in the past few weeks, I've noticed that some of the markers that I bought in the last year (or 2?) seem to be drying up, even though I'm not using them as much as some of the first colors I bought.  Do I want to replace them?

I tend to buy markers in bold colors that make me happy--and then when I need to sketch in some sand, I wish I had a beige marker.  But paying for beige?  I miss paints that are more blendable, even though I'm more likely to use markers because there's not much clean up.

I am sketching more these days because it's part of my morning devotions time that I broadcast from my church's Facebook page.  Part of me wants to buy more markers to celebrate and to keep my interests up.  Part of me wonders why I am bothering; I'm not a professional artist after all.

It's easy to spiral from there into complete self-loathing--I'm no good, no one will ever pay me, I'm too old/running out of time to learn to be better, why do I even bother?  These days, I'm noticing that I often slide down this difficult hole in my writing too.

Let me post this sketch that I made the other day.  It's a potent reminder of why we shouldn't give up in the face of rejection (both internal and external):




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