Inktober 2016: My experience

As I told you before, I participated on Inktober, which means drawing and inking something every day of October. I wanted to write this post during the first days of november, but since I had a couple of intense weeks full of exams and homework I couldnt take the time for posting what happened with my Inktober experience.

First of all I want to tell you that I really enjoyed drawing every single day; I never thought I would be able to do it because I am always procastinating or stressed out with University. Somehow I made a time each day to draw, ink, paint and post, and it was absolutely amazing apart from exhausting. I feel proud of what I achieved, although my drawing tecniques are not the best ones and my fan base is inexistent. Anyway, I would love to do Inktober again next year. 

Now, I want to show you the drawings I did that have more likes on my Instagram: 

#5 Rapa Nui traditional clothing

#4 Belly Dancing traditional clothes

#3 2000's Digital era

#2  Kpop style

#1   90's last decade of the millenium

And these are my favourite drawings, the ones I enjoyed the most doing and the ones with the better results according to my appreciation (without any orden) :

I want to finish this post telling you that either if you participated in inktober (failing or succeeding) or you didn't, KEEP GOING. I am just starting and its getting better for me, although I am not professional yet. I really hope you start doing what you love and things get better for you.

Thanks for reading. With love, Sofía.

Inktober 2016: Half the way

I promised I would write a post talking about my experience so far with Inktober so here I am. First of all I want to tell you that everytime it comes a challenge (a fit challenge, a diet challenge, a whatever challenge) I struggle a lot to do it and when day 15 arrives, somehow I stop doing the challenge. Well, this time I will fight myself to finish every single draw of Inktober. Right now I am on day 16 so that's an advance.

If you are doing the challenge (or another one) this may help you to stay on track.

1. Draw and draw and draw: It doesn't matter if you are tired or sick or if you have a lot of things to do, JUST DRAW. I am the queen of procastination and resting, but this time I can't let me go to bed if I hadn't draw something. My days at Uni finish at 5:30 pm and I arrive to my home at 6 pm. After that I have to study a bit, make a homework, take a shower and toast the bread for tea time with my family, but I DRAW, and I end up super tired, of course. Anyway, seeing my improvements is worth the pain. So do the same and draw.

2. Practice the skills that you don't have: With this I mean, try to stay focus in your art and the draws you want to do, but apart from that try to practice drawing the things on which you always fail. For example, I can't draw nice hands or faces, so I started practising my anatomy skills. Remember: practice makes the master.

3. Post online: I know that you sell your best work and you have to let down the one you did not too well, but in this challenge the best thing to do is to show your work. It doesn't matter if you took a bad decision in your draw, post it online anyway. If there is something I have learnt doing the challenge is that people don't see your draws the same way you do. I have made horrible draws according to my point of few, and when I post them, I realized many people liked them. On the other hand, some beautiful draws according to my appreciation were not that popular on instagram as I wanted them to be. So don't stop showing your art; beauty is subjective.

4. BE YOURSELF AND GET INSPIRED BY OTHERS' STYLES: I know what are my flaws and I know what are my skills. I want to be better but I continue the line of my style. I draw in a certain way and certainly you do it too. I also get inspired by all the other people doing the challenge; I can't stop looking at the pictures of the girls I admire, but I know I am not them. Some people may love your style and might get inspired by what you do. Keep your style always, and if you have to change, do it, but never feel ashame for your art.

I wanted to make a bigger post but that will have to wait. I am planning on showing you my method to draw. The steps and all of that.

Thanks for reading.

With love, Sofía.

Inktober 2016: My experience so far

On october 1st I started the challenge 'Inktober', which consists on drawing something every day of october and inking that draw. The challenge states that people can 'participate' with a draw everyday, a draw every two days or just half october. People then post their draws on internet using platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, etc. 

This year I didn't plan to participate. On october 1st I was seeing pictures on Instagram and suddenly I realized it was inktober! I took the decision of participating really fast. I said to myself: you should do the challenge. So I created a new instagram account where I could post just illustration made by me, and then I drew something.

My theme for the challenge was (and still is) fashion through history, so I did a list of the different styles I wanted to approach in my draws and I made a calendar in order to organize better my days.

The list:

1. Medieval Period.

2. The Renaissance.

3. The Baroque.

4. The Rococo.

5. The Victorian era.

6. 1900.

7. 1910, The belle epoqué.

8. 1920, Golden Twenties.

9. 1930.

10. '40.

11. '50.

12. '60.

13. '70.

14. '80.

15. '90.

16. 2000

17. 2010

18. 2016

From that on I haven't though what else to draw. I want to continue doing Fashion through History, but I still have to think about it.

My experience so far has been pretty good. I feel that my drawing tecniques have improved with every new draw. I am very motivated to draw; although sometimes I am tired because of my University responsibilities and exams, I always find a little of inspiration to finish the draw of the day.

Later on I will write other posts related to this topic. Maybe I am going to tell you how I am doing with the challenge in the middle of october, and most probably I am going to write an entry when I finish the challenge, telling you my thoughts about it and showing you what I liked the most to draw and my final feelings about it.

I hope you are doing well. I encourage you to participate in Inktober 2016.

This is my instagram account in case you want to follow my works: iranoha.ink

Thanks for reading.

Being a freelancer (my dream)

Whenever people know that I don't really want to be a teacher at highschool, they inmediately ask me what am I going to do when I finish University. I always say that I want to be a writer, and I also want to be a translator and editor, but apart from that I would like to be an Illustrator too, so I started to say that I am going to work in the book industry by doing all of those things, which is something I really want to do. Besides that, I tell them that I want to be a freelancer, and most of the time they don't even know what is that so I have to explain it to them. If you are like me and you want to be a freelancer, you should read this entry.

First of all for the ones who don't know what I am talking about: being a freelancer means being your own boss. That's it. You work from your home (if possible) or from a place rented by you, of from your office, etc. The thing is that you decide everything on your 'company'. You choose if you want to wake up very early or more late, you choose if you want to wear a suit or a dress, or if you prefer wearing your pajamas, you choose how many hours are you going to work and who are going to be your clients. You decide the name of your 'company', the rules for working, the prices, the EVERYTHING. You are the boss, the employee, the secretary, the manager, the marketing person, etc.

Why do I want to be a freelancer? Weel, because I want the freedom that freelancing would give me. I want to do artistic work, I want to create, to write, to edit, to translate, to illustrate, to live a life full of creativity and joy. I know that problems may arise anyway, that clients can be mad at me for some reason, that money is not going to be falling like rain in my pockets, but I'D LOVE TO BE A FREELANCER, to feel happy doing what I like to do, and that feeling is what I am searching for since forever. 

How do I know that I will be happy if I am not a freelancer yet? My idea of being a freelancer started when I knew Frannerd. She is a freelancer illustrator from my country and she recently published a book called 'A punto de partir'. After reading her book I started watching her youtube channel and I couldn't stop! I always feel motivated and inspired when I watch her videos; it makes me feel happy somehow, with a lot of motivation to work and be creative...and that is how I realized that I wanted to have a proffesional life similar to her. I always wanted to work in my home, because apart from not liking the fact of waking up at six A.M to go to a job that wasn't the one I wanted (being a teacher of English), one of my dreams is to be a mother, and having the opportunity of raising my kids and being at home are some of the things I am most concerned with. Those factos collided (wanting a creative job and wanting to be at home) and I said: OH GOD I WANT TO BE A FREELANCER. 

Do I know the pros and cons of being a freelancer? Oh yes, I know that there are cons and pros. I have read a looooot of blogs and interviews on the subject and I also bought some amazing books that are related to it:

1.Steal like an artist from Austin Kleon, isn't a book about freelancing, but it is a book about creativity and in some way that has to do with the job I want to have.

2.Creative, INC from Meg Mateo Ilasco & Joy Deangdeelert Cho, It's an amazing book about being a freelancer and having a freelance business. It gives you tips about every single aspect of having that 'career', it motivates you and it also has some interviews of people that are already freelancers (all of them with different jobs such as Animator, Illustrator, Prop Stylist, etc.)

What am I going to do now? Meanwhile I finish my career I will also focus on making up my portfolio, which is (as I have read) very important when you want to work as a freelancer. I will also try to use my leisure time for creative purposes like writing, drawing and learning things about both topics. I also want to start working for people (potential clients), doing translations or editing. Hopefully I will finish my first book and do the possible to publish it.

If you are in the same road as me, I recommend you to investigate, create and try to do what is in your hands to fulfill your dream of being a freelancer.

With love, Sofía.

Languages I am learning

Studiying a new language is something I always wanted to do. I have been studying English since 2002, so although I love it, it is not something I wish I can learn more about. On the other hand, I really want to learn Korean, Dutch, French, Italian and German, but in my city I hadn't have the opportunity to take classes in neither of those beautiful languages. That is way I started doing it by myself!

Some years ago I began using the web page 'Busuu' to learn Italian. I did a lot of units (al least the ones I could, because I was practising with the free modality of the course), and I even obtained a 'certificate' demonstrating that I was in level A2 of Italian (which of course is not a big deal). Then I forgot about that web page and after some years I continue learning Italian with the app 'Duolingo', but since I stopped practicing, I am not longer learning the language (although I would love to take classes). Anyway, I have an Italian dictionary above my night table in case I want to practice some words.

On 2014 I started listening some kpop music and trying to do the choreographies, and I also watched some doramas. It was inevitable I finished with the desire of learning Korean, but I didn't know how to do it. At the beggining of this year (2016) I searched on the internet some books to help me learn the language by myself, like an auto teaching method, and I found a very interesting book called 'Korean from Zero'. If you go to the web page, you may realized that the authors of the book are really amazing and awesome because they let everyone download the file with the pdf! Isn't that great? They say in their website that you can print the book for your personal use, but not for commercial reasons. They REALLY want us to learn the language for free and that is  something I really appreciate. I printed the PDF and I started learning, and I have to say it: the way they teach every lesson is a very good one. I learnt the Hangul (korean alphabet) super fast; the explanations they make and the exercises there are to practice are very useful. I really recommend the book for everyone wanting to learn Korean.

Recently, I won a scholarship to study Chinese online, and although I was very happy to  start the programme, now I am not THAT interested :( I would love to continue doing it, and I feel bad that I don't want to follow it anymore, but the thing is that I don't really think Chinese is a language I need to learn. I am less motivated for learning Chinese than to learn all the other languages I would like to. I will try to continue with the units but I don't think I can (on August 22nd I have to do the first test, and I need to finish four units in the following 9 days in order to succeed).

I am thinking on taking German classes next year in a German school located in my city. The course has a duration of a semester, and it is expensive, but I really want to learn a language other than English (I am studying English at University as you may know), and taking classes might be more useful than doing it my myself. 

So that's it! I would love to know what are your interests in languages, which ones do you want to learn, which ones do you already know, and which ones aren't really for you :)

Thanks for reading,

With love, Sofía.

Am I a writer?

I am a writer, and it took me a lot of time to figure it out. Ok, I haven't published any book and I am not famous at all, but I write and that is what a writer does, right? 

Since I am a child I have written many stories. My first tale was about an horror mansion. I was pretty obsessed with enchanted houses and misterious murders and at that time (eight year old me) I

was very inspired by the horror stories that older girls than me used to tell in the school bus. So one day I started writing a tale about a group of kids (inspired by the kids of my bus) who went to a mansion. Every day in the mansion was more terrifying than the previous one, and apart from that,  a new kid disappeared every new day. I wrote that story with different pencils and did many draws of zombies, ghosts and scary things. 

I remember myself a few years later writing a new horror story. This was better than the previous one, of course. It was about a picture; I know you may think that a picture is not really scary, but this one was a cursed picture. I can't remember any detail of the story so I'm not going to bother you with that.

When I started growing up I continued writing, but my stories were more about love, like teenager love. I was really amazed with writing romance and trying to get the attention of possible readers by getting my own attention. I always say 'If it doesn't catch ME, then it is not going to catch anyone alse', and  maybe that is why I get so upset when I realized that any of my stories is not really good for someone when it DID catch my attention.

I attempted writing a novel about a detective who was hired to investigate a crime related to kidnapping. But the story was very stupid itself; it wasn't a detective story but a LOVE story. The detective fell in love with a doctor who finally WAS the kidnapper and she also fell in love with the man who  hired her: another doctor who was the brother of the missing girl. VERY REALISTIC, I KNOW.

My next story was supposed to be my first Best selling novel, but it ended up being nothing. Why? well, because I don't know where it went.  It was about a little girl and a little boy who hate each other (they were neighbours), and over time they built a friendship. I wanted to write about how they managed to be friends after being enemies, and how they started falling in love when they were teenagers and adults.  I was so excited to write this, but one day when I was searching for the file on my computer, I couldn't find it. I am not sure if I deleted it by  mistake, or if someone else did it (when I say 'my computer', it really means 'the computer of my family'). Short story: I still cry on my mind when I remember this story which I was pretty excited to write.

I don't wan't to bore you so I am going to summarize my next writing creations: 

-I wrote my experiences and love experiences during eight grade in PDF, and It has pictures and quotes.

-I wrote a love story which was inspired by my love triangle problems of eighth grade (a very stupid story I have to say). 

-Another story that I still want to finish about two groups of people living in the middle of nowhere. (It's called AGAPI, in case you want to follow the trail of this one in the future).

-Just one chapter of a story about love and a girl who could see the aura of people and know if couples are meant to be.

-A few chapters of a story of a girl who dies and becomes an angel.

-I finished a fanfic about Niall Horan from One Direction. (You can read it in Spanish here: https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/18951396-i-never-thought-you%27d-be-mine-n-h )

-I recently finished another fanfic about Harry Styles from One Direction. (You can read it in Spanish here : https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/21155923-diamonds-in-the-sun-h-s  )
(I am also doing the translation in English here: https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/63826750-diamonds-in-the-sun-english-h-s)

-I wrote two 'Dialogues' which are in spanish and very very embarrasing so I am not going to show you that.

-AND MANY MANY SONGS, in spanish most of them.

I always though that you only become a writer when you publish a book, and I also heard from a famous author that he doesn't consider himself a real writer because he is NOT that good as other authors. So I always say to myself 'YOU ARE NOT A WRITER YET, YOU NEED TO WRITE AT LEAST FIVE BOOKS AND BLAHBLAHBLAH TO BE CONSIDERED AS A PROPER WRITER', and you know what? I am tired of thinking that way. I AM a writer, I have been writing since I can remember, I have finished some tales and some novels (or fanfictions), and I have written so SO many songs in my entire life that if that doesn't mean I am a writer, then what does it?

I am going to tell you a last thing to all of you who are just like me: BELIEVE in yourself and start calling yourself a writer, because if you have written a lot of things, although the rest of the world haven't read any of your work yet, does that mean you are any less? When you publish, you will just be PUBLISHED, but you have being a writer before that and THAT is what really matters. 

Thank you for reading and take care.

With love, Sofía.

How to overcome studying a career you don't really like?

For the ones who don't know, I'm studying for being an English teacher in High school level (English as a foreign language), but my dream wasn't that 

in the beggining. 

I have had many dreams during all my life; when I was a kid, I wanted to be a hairdresser and have my own beauty salon. After that, I wanted to be a doctor (like many other little girls in the world), but then I realized I was afraid of seeing blood and body organs, so I threw away that idea. As I grew older, I also wanted to be an actress, a singer, a chef, a writer, a vet, a professional cheerlader, a song writer, an astronomer, a militar, a filmmaker, a screenwriter, a psychologist, a vocational counselor, an ophthalmologist, a writer, a designer, a journalist, a waitress, a starbucks partner, a writer, an illustrator, a writer, a writer and yes, a writer.

You must been wondering how did I end up in such a career as English Pedagogy, when that option never appeared in the list above? Well, I will explain it to you with an easy word: Money.

I am the oldest child of my parents and behind me there are my two siblings, who eventually will have to choose a career for them. Right now, my family is fine in terms of money, but that doesn't mean that my father (not my mother because she doesn't have a job) can pay for three different careers. Apart from that, by the time I had to choose my university career, I won a scholarship to study the pedagogy I wanted. The only thing I had to do was finishing the career in four years (that means NOT failing any class), and after having my degree I would have to pay my scholarship working for three years in any public school of my country.

Of course that my dreams of being a writer and studying Creative Literature went to the garbage when my parents considered this new options of free studies. They told me that it didn't matter if I didn't want to be a teacher, because the degree I would eventually have, would be enough for me to be whatever I wanted to be in the near future.

I didn't want to be a teacher then, but anyway, I knew that studying for free was the best option to choose because I didn't want my parents to spend a lot of money in my education, so I said yes.

And now I am here, in my third year of English pedagogy, and I still don't want to be a teacher.

So, how do I overcome this exhausting frustration I feel almost every day while I go to University? 

Nothing.

Ok, I know that you read everything until here because you want to know how to feel happier and less stress in your careers (or in your jobs), but let me tell you that just YOU have the answer key for that. 

Therefore, I can't tell you exactly what would fit for your life, but I can tell you what I am trying to do right now to overcome this feeling of regret  that I have when I think that I should have chosen another career, one that would help me to achieve my dream of being a writer. So here are some tips:

1. Think about the good things that doing this major brought to your life. In my case I won more secury to talk in front of people, I am also less shy than I used to be in school. Despite that, I met some really cool friends and someone special; I met the boy who is now my boyfriend, my first boyfriend and my future husband.

2. Try to understand that, although you don't want to become in someone who works in the career you are studying, the things you have studied and the knowlegde you have acquired, somehow are now part of you and you can use all of that for your real dream job. For example, my improved English skills are know helping me to write this entire thing; As I am a native speaker of Spanish I should have been writing this in my native language, but I'm not. I chose to write in English and I wouldn't been doing this without all the grammar and text & use classes that I had.

3. Everything you are doing now, is going to be part of your experience tomorrow. With this I am saying that keeping yourself thinking about your dreams and the goals you want to achieve is fundamental to finish the things you are not enjoying at this moment. I always try to use the plans and  ideas I have for my future as a final prize; I try to pass all the stages thinking about my dreams, knowing that when I finish my degree, I will have a lot of time to do the things I really want to do, like buying my own house, marrying my boyfriend, having children...

And being a writer.