No credit card

My bank won't allow me to have a creditcard, since I'm not officially a student at the moment. I will have to wait until I start studying again. Sigh, this really disappointed me. It means I will either have to wait for half a year or just not start a webshop on Etsy. Which was the place I wanted to start a webshop the most! (since I know nothing about Dawanda at all, and have only heard from 1 person selling there, ever). Blah.

I think this will mean I'll start a webshop soon, though. I suppose Dawanda'll just have to do. Having only one webshop to try, I guess things will go faster and I won't need every item twice. Which is much more handy. But it sucks that I can't compare shops, though. Oh well..

Some thoughts on style and popularity and networking

It stays hard, to experiment, to evolve, to become better but at the same time yourself. I've always liked drawing, and I guess I've always been "good" at it. Even though I've regularly had my doubts, people always kept telling me I was good, had talent.
Since at least a year, and probably since longer than that, my style has changed. This is only logical since I'm young and in search of myself and my own style, the things I like and find important. However, I still have doubts, doubts, doubts. About everything and anything. Since that year (or longer) I have been more focussed on abstract(ed) art, a sort of naivety has entered my sketches and drawings and paintings etc. Not a true naivety of course, I'm not a naive person. But my style is less realistic and more to the point, the images play more the role of portraying something deeper than of showing how something really looks.
I don't think it's a bad thing, but sometimes I see other people's work that is very realistic and I feel like people don't think I'm good enough because I don't do much of that work any more. I have to admit though, I haven't drawn or painted very much except for school or just sketches so, well... The realistic art is much more popular than other things, and so I sometimes feel unappreciated.
Sometimes this makes me want to be very good at realistic drawings and paintings, and though I know I'm not thát bad at realistic drawing, I know that I've lost some skills because I haven't drawn very much in a long time.
I mean, I'd love to get lots of attention, who doesn't! But I don't really mean it like thát. It makes me wonder, do I want to be the same as all those other people who draw realistic things? Or do I want to part from that and just do my own thing? But why couldn't I just do both? How can I turn it into the way I want to go myself? I mean, being popular is good, but that's a lot about connecting too, and social networks. Something I kinda.. stopped doing. It takes too much energy. Yet, if I want people to watch my stuff, to like it, to say something about it, maybe even want to buy it, and of course, if I want people to get to know me a little and look into my webshop (whenever that opens) and buy things, I'll have to get some more attention. And it doesn't come easy. And I know this very well, but I don't know if this is the right moment for me to get lost inside the internet again, and comment and tell things and be so very active. I just don't know how I can combine that with how I feel and everything. But I know I'll have to do some networking in the end, I do. We'll see.


Hmm, maybe I'm just rambling too much now?

Then I wonder again, ís this bad? Shóuld I draw more? If I really wanted to, which I think is the case, then I would, right? So this confuses me a lot.
I really want to do both. But I don't really know how to. At the moment I just really want to start drawing and painting again/more. We'll see what comes from that.

I have the feeling this blog entry is a bit... vague and well, me wanting to be popular. That's not really how I mean it, though. I just thought I'd say something like this on my blog XP

And all this, just because I was thinking of the good old days on Elfwood and DeviantART, and how there's still only one drawing in my online portfolio at www.ArtByInora.com
I was kinda afraid people would not know I can draw because there's only thát picture on there in the drawings section. But then again I really should upload more pictures, but that means digging through tons of files on one of my many hard discs... Not a fun job... But it has to be done, some day.

A little break on crafting

No crafting at all for me tonight! And hopefully I will be able to pull that off at least tomorrow as well. Not yet an hour ago being surrounded by such a big crafting mess and supplies, unfinished things and finished things waiting to be properly put in bags and price tagged and whatever drove me insane. So I decided I would put it all away, out of my room for a little while. Maybe now I'll be able to update more regularly ;) (And do some more things just for myself like reading and drawing, which are things I have neglected very badly the last.. year!)

Anyway, today the boyfriend and I went to a fair in my town, I bought a few lovely mouse hairclips (blue and pink) and after that, when we got home (my place) again we cleared the dinner table and experimented with filling a stand. A friend and I hired a stand on the 'Oranje markt' (orange market) at Queen's Day (30th of April) to sell stuff we made ourselves (as I told before). Although for her this is more for fun and maybe a little bit of money, for me this kinda is serious business. It will be the first time I actually get to find out if people would buy my stuff (except for my mum, grandmother, aunt and mother in law :P) and if they are willing to pay what I ask for it (though I must admit I lowered the prices VERY much for the market). After the market I'll hopefully be able to finally open a webshop :) I'm very excited! It gives me something to work for, something to do. Though it means a lot of stress as well.
But! Where was I? Ah, Kevin and I spent the whole afternoon experimenting with how I would put things on my stand. In the end 2 meters suddenly is very little space :S I thought I would have so much space left and the opposite is true! Having only two meters of space for my merchandise means I don't have any space for my left-overs (old jewellery I wanted to sell to make room for new things), cards, felt plushies and whatever I still wanted to make but had not yet started on. So, I guess this IS somehow good, namely that I've got less things to make so less to worry about. On the other hand I was pretty excited to make those things because this would be the perfect opportunity to see if people would buy them. Oh well, maybe I'll still make some little things.

Ah! This blog entry has become much longer than I anticipated! :P

So, what AM I going to do if not crafting?
I would like to..
- update my blog more often
- catch up on things I still need to blog about
- change the information on my blog, I need a new introduction fast!
- start on a nice lay-out for my website (I'll need loads of help from Kevin though since I've never made a website lay-out before)
- update and add information on my website
- Start accumulating pictures for my online portfolio!

Bye~