Holly Does Art: 2013

100 Piece Drawing Challenge

| at 5:48 PM

For warmups, I have started doing a 100 piece Sketchbook Drawing Challenge.

Feel free to do it with me!

Day One: A Zombie Parade

Day Two: A very bad fairy

Day Three: Rejected Beanie Babies

The Addams Family

| at 2:57 PM

Here is my Wednesday Addams inspired sketch as I schlep my way through my favorite Halloween movies!

New SB Boards

| at 12:34 PM

Here is a Spongebob test I did recently! This is the super clean version. I'll probably put the messy drawings up, too.

Fall is my FAVORITE time of year. Sweaters are my favorite thing to wear, pumpkin is my favorite flavor, Halloween is my favorite holiday - I AM A FALL PERSON. I am going to do a series of fall paintings! Here is the first!

City of Angels

| at 7:09 PM

Hey There

| at 4:50 PM

Holly Color Schemes

| at 9:36 PM

I like the idea of just using blacks, greys, and cherry red.

Matilda - Alt. Drawing

| at 9:05 PM

I think I like this Matilda better.

Holly and Matilda get a makeover

| at 6:21 PM

Playing with different drawing styles

Yeah, Sometimes I Faint

| at 10:57 PM

For those of you who know me, you know that I have a *little* problem.

I have a heart condition in which I randomly faint. It is not serious, it is just the way my heart works. It is incurable, unfixable, and most of all, really freaking inconvenient.

It is one of those things that is more awkward than life-threatening, so feel free to laugh at the below stories without feeling like a horrible person.

Let’s start from the beginning. It is called neurocardiogenic syncope. It is a condition in which your blood pressure drops and takes too long to come back up. I only faint while standing and I don’t have a specific trigger –meaning anything and everything could possibly make me faint. I am lucky enough to have several seconds notice to get myself onto the ground safely before I, you know, hit it, so it’s generally not a big deal and creates just really uncomfortable situations.

I see my doctor once a year for him to say, “Yup, you're still broken, please pay your $30 co-pay at the front desk.”

If you look up my condition, here is the list of things that could possibly make me faint:

Prolonged standing

Standing up

Stress

Any painful or unpleasant stimuli, such as:

Trauma (such as hitting one's funny bone)

Watching or experiencing medical procedures

High pressure on or around the chest area after heavy exercise

Severe menstrual cramps

Arousal or stimulants, e.g. sex, tickling or adrenaline

Sudden onset of extreme emotions

Lack of sleep

Dehydration

Hunger

Being exposed to high temperatures

Random onsets due to nerve malfunctions

Urination

Pressing upon certain places on the throat, sinuses, and eyes

The sight of blood or blood drawing

Violent coughing

Serotonin level

Swallowing

So don’t worry guys. As long as I avoid hitting my funny bone and being outdoors and stress of any kind or being tickled, I am FINE!

As you can imagine, since I either have to live as a vegetable or risk fainting, I have fainted in a variety of situations. Including but not limited to:

Physically onto a taco stand

At Disneyland (had to lie down on the filthy Disneyland ground. There will never be enough soap to undo this.)

While representing my sorority during a recruitment open house

At the beach

Going upstairs

At parties

One time I coughed

During a mid-term

Because my shoes were pinchy

Just to name a few.

But the absolute worst situation was when I was in college. I was a tour guide for my university and I was about halfway through a tour to a gazillion parents and potential students. I was talking about a few of our programs when ALL OF A SUDDEN, it happened.

I felt fluffy.

Fluffy is the term I use to describe the very specific floaty, fluffy feeling I get before my blood pressure is going to drop. It is light-headed, but it’s different. Think floating on fluffy clouds. But it actually sucks because it’s an omen of what is to come.

I just happened to be standing on some building's steps, so I quickly sat down. The tour probably thought it was a bit strange that their tour guide decided that this would be a great time to take a load off and relax. I kept giving the tour, trying to act casually, like we give sitting tours all the time!
But it was too late.

The fluffy didn't stop coming.

I was mid-sentence when I was soooo fluffy feeling that I could not remember the words for what I was trying to express. This is what came out in reference to our psychology program:

“And we have….. things…. And um… stuff… and the word is… the word for um…. Things and stuff…. In programs…”

The poor tour-goers started to try to help me.

“Sororities?” “Math?” “Class?”

I stared at them very intently and concentrated before saying, “Yes… We do.”

And I was sitting on the steps thinking, Okay Brain, think hard… We have… erm.. stuff…

By this point my head was floating away from me, and I was like, I should probably put my head down and even out my blood a bit.

So I put my head in my lap.

Here is the funny part. I was so out of it, that instead of saying, “Hi guys, I kinda need help!” I tried to keep giving the tour with my head in my lap.

I can only imagine what those people must have thought of their psycho tour guide who gives muffled tours from their own lap.

Not to mention, I was probably babbling incoherently.

When I put my head back up, phase two came. After fluffy feelings, I always begin to lose my sight. I start seeing black splotches everywhere. So when I looked at my group and saw darkness, I went, Yup this is happening. Humiliating.

At this point my tour group realized that I broke and that my university doesn't give muffled face-in-lap tours on purpose.

So naturally, someone starts screaming.

This the worst part for someone with my problem. It is soooo difficult when you're losing consciousness to try to explain calmly to people that this is a non-threatening situation that happens all the time.

I'm sitting there trying to string words together to assure them that I’m actually fine and just need a minute, but I couldn't concentrate on what those words would possibly be, as one woman tried to shove a granola bar in my mouth and someone else is shrieking to call an ambulance.

At this point I thought, Oh my gosh, my parents would kill me if they have to pay for ambulance. (Not because my parents are soulless, and they obviously would understand, but because there is literally nothing an ambulance could do, and once I faint, I faint for literally half a second, and also once you call an ambulance they have to take you regardless if the incident has passed and you’re fine now. Also, I’m not totally sure how health insurance works in regards to an ambulance but this was what I thought about at the time.)

Unfortunately for me, this is also when phase three happened – where my hearing goes out.

I finally submit and lay down on the steps – the only thing I can do at this point – and elevate my feet in hopes of physically pouring blood back to my brain more quickly.

Mind you, this whole event probably happened within a minute.

It did however give someone enough time to run back to the Admissions office and tattle on me to my boss, where somehow my little issue translated to I was dying.

So I somehow managed to convince the people in my barely conscious state not to call an ambulance but after I fainted (again, takes half a second), I was either shoved into a school golf cart or I walked to the health services center. Oddly, I just realized I was still pretty out of it, because I remember them trying to get me into the golf cart, and I refusing it and saying I could walk just fine, but I don’t remember how I actually got to health services.

Anyway.

In conclusion, I got there, was totally fine, because this is just how my life works, and I traumatized quite a few parents and children.

I lied down for a bit and went back to work in the office, where I had to convince my boss that I was alive.
But I’m sure none of those kids came to the school where tour guides gives tours from the safety of their laps.

So that is how I ended up fainting mid-tour and creating what may possibly be the most awkward college tour experience for several families.

However, I am pretty confident that while that is my most awkward story to date, it will get more awkward.

In example, several of my friends have asked me to be their bridesmaid this year.

I can only *sorta* promise to remain conscious the entire time.

Drowning and Drawing

| at 1:50 PM

New business card designs!

That Time Yoga was Ruined for Me

| at 11:02 AM

This is an old post, but it was misplaced during the redesign so here it is again:

I’m kind of one of those people that can’t sit still. I’m always doing something (or ten things) and probably fidgeting and thinking of 30 other things to do at the same time. And so, this brought me to yoga.

I originally thought yoga was stretching for soccer moms and the elderly, but as someone who spent high school PE tanning on the football field while eating vending machine snacks, it thoroughly kicked my A-S-S. And as it turns out, I am sooooo stressed about being able to hold up my plank position for three more breaths that I don’t think about anything else. So it’s actually kind of relaxing (ish).

I do, however, get a bit insulted when the 105-yr-old woman next to me holds her plank longer than I can.

Anyway, so as someone who can never relax, yoga has been a nice release. Until a few weeks ago.

So there I was, dying of hyperventilation/suffocation/asphyxiation (typical), when finally we get the absolute JOY of lying back down on the mat.

And I’m like, Oh thank GOD, I can breathe again and the mat is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, when for some reason, I decide to open my eyes a teeny bit.

I should also mention at this time that I have an absolutely crippling fear of spiders.

So I do the only logical thing I can.

I squeal and jump into the corner and cower with my mat.

Unfortunately for me, everyone else in the class fails to notice that I am THISCLOSE to being, like, killed.

I am frozen in terror and then I realize the woman next to me is judging me. Now first of all, she is the one of the strangest body shapes I have ever seen in real life. She is so pear-shaped, she is more pear than human. When most people say that term, they mean just the torso. This person's entire body is a pear. It’s really like just a normal pear, but human-sized and with eyes and stuff.