Jolly Bloomin' Christmas

A Daily Lie; A Sad Post.

One of the hardest things about being depressed for me is having to interact with people.

Happy people are undoubtedly the most difficult to encounter.

When I had depression (and I could actually manage to get the courage to go outside and socialise,) I remember coming across some really, genuinely cheerful people. When I went home, I would cry and cry and cry because it was just so easy for them, they weren't even trying to be happy. 

Everyday when I went out I put on my normal person mask (click for relevant blog post).

You've probably figured this out, I was a big time drama student. Everyone in my class thought I would go on to be an AC-TOR (read that word dramatically, like Ahck *pause*Tore)

My point is I was pretty good at faking happy, even though it took a lot of my energy.

I remember one day I went out to Woolworths and I was having a particularly low day. I did not feel like being pretend happy. I felt like feeling what I felt like. You heard me...

When I got to the checkout (before those AMAZING self serve checkouts came along, I love those things. No human interaction? I'll take 20)

Anyway I was probably buying noodles and biscuits or hotdogs, considering that was my diet back then. Anyway, I got to the check out & this happened: 

Pleasant Checkout Lady: Hi how are you today?

Me: I am...I'm bad.

Still being pleasant lady:...oh! Why's that?

Me: I don't really know.

Pleasant Lady: Well, it's the weekend tomorrow so surely that'll cheer you up!

Me: Maybe.

I got my bags and walked away.
She asked the next customer how they were today. The next customer was good, thanks.

I went home and I cried. Because I knew the weekend would not cheer me up.

Something Different

This is an old drawing I scanned in & digitally traced.
Tracing with a wacom is hard.

I'm not even going to explain this one to you.

The Bunny Story.

Once upon a time, I was feeling sick. I feel sick a lot because I have anxiety & it twists up my stomach. I ensconced myself in a blanket & smashed the couch. Yes, I said ensconced.

All of a sudden, there was a movement out the window.

I got up to check what it was. I peered out of the curtains, and what I saw made my heart burst through my ribcage & I squealed.

 I squealed & I squealed to Nick (housemate) what I saw. I told him what was outside. He thought I was hallucinating. Because earlier in the story I was sick, remember?

      

Naturally, I RAN OUTSIDE. 

I RAN OUTSIDE AND I CHASED THAT BUNNY.

I CHASED THAT BUNNY FOR HOURS.

I CHASED THAT BUNNY INTO THE SUNSET.

I did not catch it.

The next day, guess what I did?

I CHASED THE BUNNY!! 

At one point my screamy neighbour tried to help, she was on her son's scooter. Her name is Sarah. She's always screaming at her boyfriend & storming out of her house. Anyway at this point in time she wasn't screaming. She was helping me catch the bunny. Unfortunately, her sons then came out & they are insane. They scared the bunny under a car & it wouldn't come out. I was this close [ <--> ] that close to getting it gently, in a towel. Because it was winter and bunnies should not be outside in the cold. Two hours later, I went back outside. The kids were still waiting underneath the car for the bunny to come out. I decided to try again tomorrow.

I decided to try a new strategy.

It did not take long for my housemates to figure out why there were a billion carrots scattered about our front yard.

When I got home from work, I was ready. I never fully considered what I would do if I actually caught the bunny, but we would definitely hang out and watch Law & Order together. I was going to catch the bunny. we were going to be best friends.

My housemates had also made an attempt at catching the bunny during the day while I was out.

They told me this when I got home, as I was getting ready to go out & catch the bunny.

Then they told me.

Nothing could prepare me for this.

APPARENTLY the bunny (MY bunny) SUPPOSEDLY belongs to our weird, party crashing, bubble-blowing, sliding-notes-under-our-door-kind-of-weird neighbour.

SPECKLES?????

SPECKLES?????

That is BULLSHIT.

His name was BARRY.

Barry The Abandoned and Jumpy.

And I loved him.


The End.

In loving memory of Barry; wherever he may be (next door).

Slack.

Coming soon: An emotional story about a bunny.

Until then, this picture of a wolf will have to do:

Also I got interviewed for Erin's art blog which is really very good:

Erin Michelle Art - Interview with Bekky

A bad week.

This is what the week just passed looks like.

This is what a depressed week looks like:

The Lady & The Tram; The Screaming Man

The Screaming Man was on my tram today.
He didn't scream as much as last time, he rocked back and forth on his seat and shook his head from side to side, then made some garbled sounds and pointed in front of him as if he was getting someone in trouble.

He was on the 55 Tram once before.

I had sleep walked onto the tram as I do every morning and settled in to a mind numbing staring competition with whatever was in front of me, probably a pole.

Then I heard him scream for the first time.

I thought someone had been stabbed, or an appendix had burst, or the love of his life left him for another man (possibly his brother or a rockstar), whilst simultaneously she split his head open with an axe.
None of those things happened. It sounded like it. I've never heard a more heart wrenching sound.
His scream was not high pitched, it was like a deep manly shout, but it was long.
Like he was dying in pain & terror.
It sounded like hurt and sadness and desperation and it was really, really, really loud.

I was so frightened I nearly punched the guy sitting next to me.

I didn't.

I turned around to see the man sitting behind me.

He was scrawny, lanky, he wore a cap, his skin was grey & dull. It looked like his diet consisted of cardboard and maybe cockroaches, (you know, for protein). He had big glasses underneath his cap, I think his pale blue/grey eyes looked in seperate directions. His tightly clenched teeth were yellow and crooked. He looked old, but he had no wrinkles.
Then he screamed again, and again.

When his screams stopped momentarily, he would rock back & forth, stamp his feet, mutter incoherent words, shake his head, clench his teeth and his neck, raise his hands and hit himself in the head.

Then he would scream again and again. Loud, Painful, Heartbreaking. Sad.
He reminded me a little bit of my brother Joey, when he is upset.
Joey is a great big 24 year old happy-go-lucky guy, he also has Autism.
Joey is kind hearted, compassionate and very friendly. But when he is upset he can yell and throw things and he can be a bit scary if you don't understand what's going on. He is a good kind person who literally has no control over his actions sometimes. People do not understand him. People are threatened by him. My goofy funny friendly brother.

Joey is nowhere near as scary as this guy

it's just sometimes when he shouts it's that same uncontrollable, misunderstood loud noise that has so much feeling behind it you know?

This screaming man is terrifying.
At one point, he stood up, walked up right next to me, looked out the window and screamed.
I was petrified.

I was "acting casual" with sheer terror shooting through my body.
I didn't want to look afraid incase I hurt his feelings.
He stayed next to me, looking out the window, screaming.
He arrived at his stop and went shouting off down the street.

he sounded violent and threatening and scary and loud.

But I think he is harmless.
My fear turned into sadness.
I wanted to give him a hug so that he would stop punching himself.
I wanted to ask if he was okay.

Keep this in mind if you think someone is scary.
Maybe the fear is not of the screaming man, but the fact that you do not understand him.

Corel Painter - 30 Day Trial

Hey Champs, I'm testing out this program called Corel Painter and basically it's all legit paints & paint brushes and stuff that real artists use on real paper (oil paints, water colour paints, charcoals & other materials) but they're on the COMPUTER!!!

So here are some experiments I've been busting out, mainly random faces that I scribble up in a couple of minutes.

I really like using "charcoal" because real charcoal freaks me out. The texture of charcoal gives me the creeps, also I get it on my hands then touch my face and walk around all day looking like Oliver Twist.

Charcoal faces.

Random Paint Experiments Faces

I don't even remember what I did with this, I think oil paint & charcoal settings? Breaking ALL the rules right here.

I've been watching a lot of Law & Order SVU lately, so I just so happened to accidentally draw Detective John Munch (as in I wasn't trying to draw him, I was just drawing another silly face like the ones above, and then bam, it's Munch.)

This is Munch really.

This is what I would expect to see from myself in grade 8 art class. This is not progress.

This is something that I'm working on, it's not finished yet (obviously) but I was playing around with colour & line options in the program. I'm still trying to get used to it.



So I've got about 23 days left on my 30 day trial and as much as I think this program is cool and stuff, I don't know if it's $200 worth of cool, especially considering all I do is dick around.

My First Ever Video

Dia De Los Muertos Teaser 1 from Rebekah Halls on Vimeo.


This is it!

Follow my photography page on facebook to see the photos when they're released.


-B

My Really Big Weekend.

Okay so I said on facebook I would blog about my weekend.
I didn't get to draw in everything I wanted so that you could fully understand the weekend that I had, but I got some of the main events... sorry about my scummy line work as well, I didn't perfect this piece because I just wanted to post it.
Impatience wins again!!

Other things about the weekend:
I drove a lot on the weekend, and driving makes me really anxious.
I photographed a lot on the weekend and that makes me really anxious too, because I want all of my photos to be perfect ALL OF THE TIME.
I spent A LOT OF MONEY on things like flowers, fabrics, grapes. I am now very poor.

So in between all of the things I was doing, and also during all of the things I was doing, I was in a constant state of anxiety.

Considering my weekends usually involve sleeping until 1pm then watching Law & Order SVU all afternoon...then all night, I really wasn't surprised that doing so much stuff freaked me out.

Here are some Instagrams of the things I did:

Flowers from the suspicious 24 hour Florist, Zanelli's.

Amazing Artist Sarah Holmes

Nim.

Photographer Extraordinaire

Babed up.
Hair & Make up by LadyDay

Dress design sketch by Bekky.

So I was like Hey AtomicAnt can you make me this dress?

& AtomicAnt was like "Yep." and then she did.

The problem with being open minded is that ignorance is bliss.

I decided in High School that it was important to question things and not just believe what you're told.
I decided to try and learn more about lots of things instead of focusing on one way of thinking. 
At the time I was going to a school that wouldn't teach students about dinosaurs because they aren't relevant to the religious curriculum, so when I started to realise that not all life is relevant to the bible, it was rather cool.

I was “Being open minded”.

The problem I encountered was that there are things happening in the World that are most unsettling and I simply cannot understand them, I try, I try, I try but I can’t. 

"Why would this happen? How could they do that? Why did they think that would work? How many people died? What do you mean child sex slaves/Puppy farms/Poverty?"

Let’s stop there because I think you get the point.

So what I need is a filter.
I haven't invented one yet so I try to avoid really nasty topics otherwise my head explodes and I get really, really upset.

I hope that soon I will find a pleasant balance between the rainbows & the explosion in the drawing so that I can continue to learn about the World around me without having an anxiety attack.

xoxo

Further adventures with the Black Dog: What does depression look like? I don't know.

Maybe, Depression looks like a scary Ridley Scott Alien, but more like a person.

 

Maybe, Depression has big long scary fingers which hang creepily and inflict nastiness on folks.

Maybe depression looks like a great big bully that picks you up and fucks with you.

But maybe it only acts that way because it had a rough childhood, and this is the only way it can deal with its feelings.



 Maybe it is the same size and shape as me, but it looks how I feel.

We do not know what it looks like.

Maybe like this:

 Or this:

All we know is that we don't want to see it 'round these parts no more.

I need constant reassurance or I will die.

Hey Face.

Ink