May I be wordy?

Got a lot to spill about May - good, bad and ugly

Good morning or evening, dear reader,

While June is slowly greeting us, it is time to talk May, shall we?

It was a month full of everything, and it took me some time to write it all down. When I think about May, the biggest takeaway that comes to my mind is shift. I have been through an existential crisis (yet again, it is a bumpy ride, folks), my painting skill expanded, and I seemingly came up with a time-proof idea of how I want to present myself to the public eye. There were also immigrant blues moments. I paid some of my fines for doing taxes wrong. And took an important decision. But let me give some juicy details one by one.

We will start with the sweet piece.

Painting process

As you know, I am going through an intense digital painting class since the end of March. We are getting to the midpoint of it. It is a 5-month-long course. We have classes 2 times a week — 6 hours of painting weekly — plus I try to work on my homework assignments, and additionally, our teacher urges us to do sketches from life. We also had 3 weeks of extra classes, which made it 3 classes of painting per week.

I am very much invested in this process, as finally I am learning how to ACTUALLY paint digitally. I am finally able to grab those ideas and pull them from my mind. I am not particularly good at painting still life, but I seem to be vibing a lot with landscape studies. And it makes me so happy. I am also getting slightly better with sketches from life. Now I use a fountain pen and train myself to be efficient and expressive with my line.

An additional challenge will present itself in the middle of June when I will be travelling with my family for almost three weeks. I hope I will manage to attend the classes. The good thing is that part of this travel will be with a friend who also attends the same course. So I am looking forward to painting together.

Immigrant blues and fears

I am slowly approaching my 3-year immigraversary in the autumn, and I have started to feel this itching sadness. It is very hard to grasp it and allow it to happen. I feel as if I live in two worlds simultaneously, and it is quite hard. My therapist says it is pretty timely and normal. My body and brain are slowly learning where we live now. The flair of novelty wears off, layers of context are piling. It is okay to be sad and tired and longing. It will pass. Eventually.

I feel immense gratitude to Catalonia and Spain. It is raw, complicated, and very much alive. I learn so much about history, culture, human connections, art, and everything. But sometimes it is hard to explain why you are sad while there is sun and sea in close proximity.

And here goes the most unpleasant part. I really want to go through it quickly because it is vulnerable. But I also thought that it might be of use to somebody to read it.

Fines and decisions

Recently, I closed my autónomo — the Spanish version of a self-employed legal entity — because social security payments were too big for my income. One has to pay social fees monthly even if the income of the month is zero. Unfortunately, I messed up and did not pay some of them on time and was ugly fined. My mistake, yeah. I am not blaming anyone here; it was an experiment that did not really work for me for now. I still have the right to work in Spain, and as I understand, I can accept payments and pay taxes as a person, not a legal entity, until I make at least a stable minimum wage. So it means that I still can do commissions and develop my online shop at BuyMeACoffee. I know now that I need to save up some amount of money which will fund my next attempt.

I also took a very important decision to search for a day job starting in autumn to ease financial stress for us as a family. I will start with publishing houses and then we will see. It will slow me down a bit with my YouTube and art, but adulting must be done sometimes, right?

I prepared a nice portfolio PDF of yours truly as a book art director, book designer, and letterer. I am actually quite impressed with myself. I think it might even be a nice way for a creative person to look back at the body of work and get amazed. We will see where it will lead me. I know that these positions are most often freelance, but recently I applied for an in-house remote position in a U.S. publishing house. So they exist. I got no answer, which is okay, but at least I saw there are options. I will keep you updated on how it goes.

This one is my favourite piece I did during the course so far.

YouTube progress

In May I uploaded only one video, but it did pretty well in the first days. I think that I never had it like that. It is the second installment of my vlogs from the North. In this video, I show you an almost abandoned village at the Barents Sea. I also pick mushrooms, eat berries, swim in the Arctic, watch birds, go out to the ocean in a fishing boat, and explore everything around.

The lack of uploading was due to crisis and a big load of painting. I still need to find my routine.

I filmed a sketchbook tour, but did not manage to edit it properly.

There will be the third and final part of my Northern trilogy left to publish. Then I will be traveling and possibly filming. And in July, I will be slightly transforming my channel and online presence.

Which leads me to the next part.

Digital shop / studio

These dispatches you are getting from me are called Chronicles from Afar; my YouTube channel is also called the same lately. As much as I love telling you a story of my own life, I realized that I don’t really want my life to be my marketing asset. I want you to see more of my art and studies and discoveries and to feel my sense of wonder. Besides, quite big parts of my life are usually concealed — like my son or my partner, whose privacy I respect — and when I show you my life and don’t show them, it feels non-authentic. So I thought that Chronicles from Afar is such a precise and clear image, actually. I already have it and mostly will fine-tune it. You are welcome to my studio where I reside and work on stories I collected. There still will be vlogs, but more art-focused ones. I want to film the art-making process more. I have space for an easel, and I have my paints.

I absolutely love that a lot of people tell me they come to my videos for a calming and soothing effect. And it delights me. You know me, and I am not a person who turns away from the dark sides of the world. But I will leave those to my own ponderings, real-life political discussions, therapy sessions, or volunteering. I am not good at making public content out of it. I respect those who do video essays and journalistic pieces. But this is not my strong suit. And that’s okay. I am also not good at business tips videos. I would love to give a go to tutorials at some point. But there is one thing I am sure about: I am good at providing a space to soothe an anxious heart. And oh boy, we need that, right?

Also, I have to be honest: I am garbage at shipping stuff. So having merch is tricky for me. I have some, and maybe will do a bit more. And will take part in local offline events. I am good at offline events, as I enjoy talking to people. But I cannot do shipping. Also, now shipping is so expensive, and I will be thrilled if people bring their money to their local artists and support them. Let’s get local. But I would love to sell my art, of course, so I have started to develop a collection of digital downloadables which will be at my online shop. And I am always super thankful for donations and membership at BuyMeACoffee.

If and when I get a day job, my personal art will just slow down, which is also perfectly implemented into the Chronicles from Afar concept.

Summer plans

Exciting part, no kidding. In the middle of June, we will go to Germany to attend our friend’s wedding. She is Ukrainian and an amazingly talented author, and has been through a lot. She wrote a book about her experience, and I will let you know when it is published in English. After that, we will visit my father’s family, who left Russia same as us, and they live in Hamburg now. And then we will take a car trip to the north of Sweden with our friends who live in Berlin. This whole trip (wedding, parents, north) will be roughly 3 weeks, and then we will be back home and spend July and August here in Spain. It will be my first summer here, and I am afraid of the heat, but also curious how bad it will be. Supposedly it is a bit milder here than in Turkey. So hopefully, with the help of siesta and staying indoors during the day, we will be able to manage.

Tourists are slowly pouring in, the season is up, I am curious how crowded it will become in July and August. Last year I escaped to the North. It is an interesting situation, to be a dweller of a place that gets crowded in the summer. I wonder how busy the beach will be after dark, as that would be the only time for me to go out. I deal poorly with heat and sun. My skin is very Northern, so it is not me being picky. After I moved to the South, I got so many new moles. They say this is a skin reaction to a lot of sun exposure. And mind you, I am soaking in sunscreen.

On recently published works

I did lettering for a game logo! It is something I wanted to do for ages, and finally, here I am. I did a piece for a pixel indie game, Deep Pixel Melancholy. They just released the demo, and I urge you to give it a go if you like Eastern European vibes and want some beautiful narration.

Hopefully, in the future, I will be able to do more lettering for games. This is just the beginning.

And on such an uplifting note, I will wish you a beautiful June.

How is your summer looking so far? Let me know in the comments, if you will. I am always curious.

see you in the end of June,

(also scroll down more for my curiosity picks)

V.

What did I find curious last month?

• Some time ago I started playing Disco Elysium, far from finishing, most probably I will have to start over. But our art teacher recenly shared this gallery of portraits with us and I feel the pull to get back.

• I am slowly readin Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, I may have said re-reading, but I read it so long time ago and I remember everything so poorly, that I wouldn’t state it. Also now I read it in English and I enjoy it immensely. Book turns 25 years old this year, whoa.

• Sketchbook tours are definitely my genre, loved tiny little egg Kristin take on her tiny art talens sketchbook. She visited Barcelona and it was wonderful to see the city through her art.

• My talented friend Kaya makes insanely appealing craft videos. She just released a new one, but I will send you to the one that I recenly watched. It is quiet, artsy and skully.

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