Anxiety and medieval head gear

Apologies for the stop and go posting as of late. I've been struggling a bit with my mental health lately and have therefore not felt like doing anything creative at all. I'm still struggling but I think that the worst part of it is over and done with for now. I'm Starting with cognitive behavioral therapy in April, hopefully it will help me get over my anxieties.

Now instead of moaning about how depressed I am I'm going to share a sketch I made yesterday! Sharing creativity is much better than dragging everybody down in my opinion. Below you can see a pencil drawing that is slightly based of a photo I took of myself and also on a medieval head garb and dress that I was able to photograph when I visited Warwick castle in 2010.

I'm a big fan of history. I love to look at and visit old castles and historical sites. I'm terrible with numbers so I never remember years and dates, but clothes and architecture I remember. I'm particularly interested in nordic mythology and the medieval ages in western europe 

Below you can see the photos I used as inspiration and reference!

This was one of the wax figures on display in the Warwick castle

This is a picture of me from 2010

Until next time,

Anita Olsen Støbakk

Wintertime blues...

Yeah...so I'm not a big fan of winter. Which is quite unfortunate considering I live in Norway, one of the few inhabited places in the world with more winter than anything else! I don't have that big of a problem with the cold, I mean the cold has always been there. It's the nearly constant darkness that bothers me. Being bereft of natural daylight just makes me plain ol' depressed and bereft of energy. The dreaded - Wintertime Blues has struck again!

If you, like me have an issue with the changing of the season then you know how counter productive it is to any creative effort. I completely shut down for a couple of weeks unless I actually have a pressing deadline. So what can one do to get out of this slump?

I don't know if what works for me will work for you, but here are some of my creative wintertime tips!

1. Get smart, get a new hobby!
Use some of your creative downtime to learn something new or plunge into a hobby that you've been neglecting for a while. I have been beading like crazy for the past two weeks and the end result is that I have a ton of home made Christmas gifts to show for it. (Great hobbies are for example gaming, beading, reading, writing, scrapbooking, whatever floats your boat)

2. I know you don't want to hear this, but clean your house!
It's amazing how creative and fresh you can feel after all the clutter around you has been thoroughly cleaned and sorted.

3. Participate!
Participate in an on-line contest, or an artist forum or with your artistic friends on Facebook, Blogspot or Deviantart or whatever social platform you prefer. You are guaranteed to be inspired by someone or something in the end.

4. Do something new!

Do something that you haven't done before creatively, like trying to draw something you haven't drawn before or try a technique you haven't tried before. It may spark just the right plugs in your brain to get the creative ball rolling. I have never drawn an Atari 2600 joystick before but yesterday I tried it and that kind of got me going with other things too.

5. Don't stress out!
There is nothing more counter productive than stressing out over things you haven't gotten around to doing yet. I should know, I do it all the time. ust lower your shoulders and breathe a little bit deeper. If you haven't done anything yet then I'm guessing the world isn't going to end if you put it off a little bit more. The laundry is not going anywhere and neither are the dirty dishes. Life is to be enjoyed after all!

Yeah, this is what I do...except for the cleaning...
I do intend to rectify that today though, because even though I don't enjoy it it's necessary ;)

Until next time
Anita K. Olsen