Mire The Zucchini

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hello, Everyone! I hope you all are having a good day. For a little while now I have been thinking about doing characters with background stories, and possibly a few comics on here. Please let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts about this idea.

The reason for this idea is because I realized, when I was doing the post last week, I quite enjoyed writing about the character I created. I found it exciting and fun to show you guys, gals, and everything in-between, my voice for story telling. Most of what I have shown on here has been my informative writing, not so much story telling, so, I am thinking of diving a bit deeper into that way of writing.

Now, do not fret if you like the tips and tricks I give sometimes, those I am sure will still be there. Along with telling you short background stories of my characters, and who knows, if  I or others like them enough, I may make full stories or poems.

To start off, let me introduce you to this little guy, I found in my minds' eye while looking at some plants on my window sill. I decided to draw him in a style in-between modified contour and continuous contour after doing some sketching of him. The ground I decided to not do in full detail because I thought it would become a bit messy, particularly since I have not practiced contour drawing recently.

This little guys' name is Mire. His body is made from roots that spindle and curl around each other, and taper off at the ends. Upon his head is the same type of baby plant around him, since he originated from one of the seeds. He is a caregiver for these zucchini, making sure they look and feel dry when they need water, and helping to guide their leaves to the light source.

Mire will have a longer life than some of his relatives, for example those who take care of carrots, if the humans who feed off his plants take good care of them. For his kind only last until the last plant under their care is consumed or ripped up. But do not fret, more of his kind will come, as long as the cycle of life and death provides.

Nothing in this world is permanent, as his kind know. They live everyday understanding that their roots can be ripped up and their leaves shredded at any given time. They bathe in the sun, soaking up its energy and warmth, happy to be alive at all, sending out whispers to passersby containing wondrous words of wisdom about impermanence.


Poem of Mire
By Elissa Rosenthal

Take care of those you wish to keep and hold,
For the future can be not warm but cold.

Let your eyes gaze up towards the warm sun rays,
Maybe your eyes will burn while laughter plays.

Look back down upon my barren dry roots,
If you do water them there will be fruit.

Take care of those you wish to keep and hold,
For the future can be not warm but cold.

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Shading and Gesture

By Elissa Rosenthal

For this week I've mostly focused on my gesture drawings since I know it is one of the most important fundamentals. Plus, they really help you re-learn the proportions of the human body. I put some notes down with my self criticism, because this is my artistic journey, I know I have a long way to go. Then, even when I get to that point, I know I'll want to get even better.

I started off by doing the basic line structure to figure out positions for the body.

Then I looked at some references from searching on Google full body dramatic poses and did some slightly more elaborated gestures based on those references.

Along with the gesture drawings, I practiced some more shading on a basic shape. In this example a tub of lip balm. I'm going to try doing this type of exercise next week with my better quality pencils. I was disappointed with the lack consistency my mechanical pencil led had. Near the end it started to be more consistent because of wearing down the led on one side, however,  it would still make random harder marks on the paper if the mechanical pencil wasn't held just right.

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5 Tips For Beating Procrastination In The New Year

By Elissa Rosenthal

So your new years resolution is to beat your procrastination habit, well I have some tips for you from a proven procrastinator, me! Since my junior year in high school I have been working on my procrastination habits and there are five key factors which help me when I need to get stuff done.

#1 Put Away Distractions

Now you have probably heard this before over and over again, but it really does work. By having your phone off and away from your working area it really does help with productivity. It makes you less likely to go diving into your social media or other online entertainment. Though the thing with this, is it not only has to do with your electronic devices.

Put your hunger and/or thirst away before going into your work area. From my own experience, nothing is a better procrastination excuse than being hungry in the middle of a project or paper. "Oh, it will only be a snack.", I say in my head as my stomach rumbles, causing me to lose focus on what I was doing. Then it ends up being where I realize it's around dinner time, make myself a full meal and a few hours has passed by. The only slight exception to this is if you are going to be working for a long period of time on something and you know you will get hungry. Have a filling snack and a beverage close at hand within your work area, this way you don't get distracted from your project or paper by the demon I call The Stomach Monster. 

#2 Make Your Work Environment Work For You

Do you work better in complete silence, or if you have music playing? Do you work better sitting on the floor with your plans spread out before you or in a chair at a desk? Finding what works for you can help immensely! Personally, I used to love the quite and still do periodically, however, I've grown more accustomed to having some minor sounds in the background while I work so if a room is completely silent it bugs me to where I find it hard to get stuff done. So if no one is around when I'm working I'll turn some music on low in the background, nothing with lyrics though those have a tendency of getting my mind off track. 

Sometimes in order to get your ideal work area is next to impossible, particularly if you have other humans or animals to take care of, however, there are ways to get creative to get close to what you need. Do you like working in a quiet environment but you have kids? If they are young enough try to work while they are napping, or see if your partner or a friend can take care of them while you get some work done. However, if they are older children, but still need your vigilance to make sure they don't burn the house down see if you can get them to work on something while you do. 

Note: No I do not have children, however, these are tips I have picked up from people who I've known who have children or take care of them for a living. 

#3 Be Okay With Telling Others You're Busy

If you live with your parents you may know what I mean when I say they can be a big distraction to productivity. Though this tip does not only pertain to parents, in my own life they were the main inspiration for this tip. If you know anyone who will go over to you and start talking and talking while you're working, getting you off of task and pulling you away from what you're doing, be okay with telling them that you need to be working. Of course this is different if you are at your job and the boss it talking to you, but it still does apply if a co-worker starts talking to you while you're not on a break. 

You do not need to be rude while mentioning this, though be ready for some people to take it that way. Most people will understand that you're in the middle of something important to you and will stop talking to you for the time being. You can mention how you can start up the conversation later during your work break or when you're done with what you have to do for today. 

#4 If You Can, Do The Harder Parts First

If you have a massive research paper due for class, you need to do the research first, however, in other projects you may have a bit more flexibility on what you can do first. Figure out which parts of your project will take the most time and can happen first, and do them first. By having the harder parts out of the way the rest of the work will seem easy in comparison. Plus, from my own procrastination experience, if I did the easy work first instead I would take around twice as long on those tasks than they needed because I didn't want to do the hard stuff afterward. By doing the hard parts first everything is given its proper amount of time and effort. 

#5 Try To Make Your Work Interesting

There is nothing worse than doing something for a long time that you hate. If you have any flexibility in what you do, some way to make it a bit more fun, try it. If you are doing a research paper, do a creative twist on it which may make it more fun for you to write about. For example, if you are doing something for school, ask how flexible the subject matter can be for your project or paper.

If these tips have helped let me know in the comments! Let's have a conversation!

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