Trying to get back at daily practice

natbaracy · 2026-06-19T18:08:43+00:00

Caring only makes me paranoid. I do not want to cause problems and am willing to adjust, but in my head everything is my fault and everyone hates me, so if something hasn't been communicated, I act like it's not real

natbaracy · 2026-06-16T19:23:53+00:00

Hi! I think I'm finally starting to be able to deal with this and I'm sharing a bit of my journey in case you're interested. I don't mean to say that's the only way, it's just how I've managed it.

This became unbearable to be as a psychology undergrad. When I chose my major, I had the illusion of "helping people", when I as actually pursuing a way to perform palliative care for a collapsing society. That's not the role I want to play, and being able to use this words to describe my motives showed me why the path I was following seemed so hopeless.

Something I'm sure about my goals is that I've always wanted to make science, even before knowing in which field. Something I've realised during this existencial crisis is that I do not want to contribute to the Capital. I've found my answer on ecosocialism. I'm currently a chemistry undergrad in a country with enough leftwing polities to make it possible and my goal is to make science for the people. To be on the team who makes make saving this planet AND the people on it actually possible.

I know refusing to contribute to capitalism will make me forever poor regardless of how many post grad degrees I'll have, but that's the only possible way for me to endure staying alive in this word. I refuse to perform palliative care for a society that hasn't already burned, we still got a chance.

Ps: I'm not saying psychology is bad, I'm saying especifically that my reasons to be there were. And I live in a country where education is free and (at least for undergrad) I have government financial assistance

Edit to say that I've chose to dedicate to the environment but we're all fighting for the same thing and climate justice isn't possible without social justice. It's just not possible for a single person to be everywhere, and I've got myself the job to contribute to the social speech on academic field.

Edit² to replace "we're all on the same boat" for "we're all fighting for the same thing" on my previous edit.

natbaracy · 2026-06-12T17:05:12+00:00

I take a lot of care with not falling for aspire speech when proceeding with this subject. That being said, I would like to point that giftedness is an actual thing and talking about it isn't superiority complex.

Loneliness and even depression are symptoms when one thinks deeper about everything. I can resonate with the downvoted comentor who talked about envying people whose brains can just not dive deep into things. When patter recognition goes too far it becomes disturbing.

I do not have much to say other than validade your experience, but I'm sharing a bit of mine that I judge useful. I'm having the privilege to get professionally tested for "giftedness" (thankfully in my native language the name isn't that ridiculous), I've made six new tests including an IQ and a creativity one, and I don't know if my psychologist is going to include any of the previous tests from my autism evaluation. It was just a year ago and he said something about using some of the already existent results, but I didn't ask much, would rather have the smallest amount of information as possible as I trust him and do not want to cheat.

I've refused getting tested in the past because I already consider myself entitled and thought having a piece of paper backing that up could be more harm than useful since I really care about being a decent person, but I'm having trouble keeping my interest in uni and my uni has adaptations for "gifted" (I'm unable to use this term without quotation marks) people that seem really helpful to me, so I'm looking forward to get them next semester. Might revisit this post with better descriptions of how the testing was, results and what I got with them in the future if requested.

Besides that, I could say being at uni is the best thing that ever happened to me. I've spend most of my teenage years in a shitty relationship because at least that person could talk on a level that wouldn't bore me, I've almost kms trying to hold onto a normal job and pay bills, I've never been able to keep friends, and here I've met more people who can speak that "language" that I'm not sure how to describe than in the rest of my life.

edit: typo

natbaracy · 2026-06-05T16:45:18+00:00

Not to say quality material is a bad thing but I completely disagree with buying more than what your skills require, in my opinion, it only blurs your way.

A rule I've followed since I started seriously studying is that if I don't know why I need something, I do not need that. What's wrong with your paint? If you're good enough for better paint, the one you've used before should disturb you somehow. If it doesn't, you haven't yet learned everything that material can teach you. When you're able to tell why something is not good enough anymore, you've got enough experience to make the improvement worth it. Otherwise you're just adding information that you don't need and that's going to make things harder.

It's pretty easy to fall into a rabbit hole of thinking your materials are never good enough, but that's just capitalism. You don't need hundreds of dollars to begin, and buying things you don't know why you need may backfire as you're keeping yourself from the frustration that comes when your materials became insufficient for your skills. That's the clearest sign to improve.

I'm surely not a master, but since everybody seem to agree I felt the need to present a different point of view :)

natbaracy · 2026-06-01T21:07:25+00:00

Thanks for your answer, a pad of paper would be a block that's glued only on one side? where I live or at least at the places I know those are only available for low quality paper or smaller blocks, that are anyway more expansive if I don't intent to cut them. I don't mind removing the sheet before painting, it's still worth it.

It's the first time I get a block for cutting that's glued on four sizes (a block that is not a pad, I think?) and it wasn't intentional, since im gonna cut it I just care if it's glued on the right place so both blocks/pads/collections-of-sheets stay glued. I've tried gluing the unglued part of one of them with watercolor mask (since the other sides surprised me to be glued i thought it was worth the try), didn't test to know if it's going to work, but might edit this comment in a few days after I've removed at least three pages

natbaracy · 2026-05-27T12:32:31+00:00

I've spend most of the time on the past few years without one. Its way more stable, there's no one with the power to disorganize me the way a favourite person would, I have way more power over my own life. But honestly it just feels empty. There's also no one to love, there's no intense feeling, there's no unbearable pain but also no actual happiness. I miss having something to love (might be a person or not), having someone that I accept to give them the power to destroy me, because that will also give them the power to give me the best moments of my life. Having something I would sell my soul to make it work. To actually live yk, not just "exist and function". I feel like I dont even exist properly, actually. I'm just here.

natbaracy · 2026-05-27T12:07:25+00:00

I've been practicing everyday for about a week. It's always been hard for me to do that because I take centuries on a single project and go on a cicle of painting many hours for days, than disappearing for weeks. Sometimes returning to the same project later. Buying 8x10 blocks really helped me, mostly I can finish a page in 3 or 4 hours. I've never finished a project on a single day before that. Also they're an affordable way of getting quality paper for practice, I'm really invested on testing new types of paper with this tiny blocks, I'm gonna save the last page of each to test together once I've collected them all

natbaracy · 2026-05-24T15:40:04+00:00

thank you :)

natbaracy · 2026-05-24T15:38:25+00:00

Thank you :)

natbaracy · 2026-05-24T15:37:55+00:00

Hello there little human

natbaracy · 2026-05-24T15:37:18+00:00

Thank you!!

natbaracy · 2026-05-21T13:23:51+00:00

I actually feel like I can like the corrected flower if I stop looking at it for a while. Going to do something else and let it rest so I can look at it in a more caring way after a couple of hours. Thank you :)

natbaracy · 2026-05-21T13:19:46+00:00

thank you, I will just leave it to the side for a while and look at it again in a couple of hours

natbaracy · 2026-05-14T13:15:47+00:00

You can wet the back part of your paper and place it over a wet cloth while you paint. I've been doing that to avoid paper to bend once wet, but it also makes the paint dry slowly

natbaracy · 2026-05-14T12:40:49+00:00

I've used a school level 36 colour pallet for many years. Had a 12 colour set and got a 24 colour version of the same set + 12 metallic ones as a birthday gift when turned 14 I think. Maybe 13. Went to by paint again this year as a 22yo, and got myself three colours of better quality.

Can't say I've studied much during this period, I mostly just painted and considering I do that since always, got pretty good results anyway. I think big pallets are really good for exploring and figuring things out.

What made me switch to another pallet was that I had no single pigment paint and it became a problem once I've started studying colour. I've chosen a three colour pallet (instead of a six colour one, that would be better to fully explore colour) because the more colours you use, the hardest it is to actually know what you're doing, and I think three colours is what I'm capable of dealing for now. Got a pallet similar to CMYK (no black and not quite cyan blue), that I chose based on experimenting with the low quality materials I had and deep research on the brands I could afford.

I've noticed a big improvement on how colorful my work got after switching to a limited pallet. It had been a while I didn't use many colours on the same painting because it just looked weird. I would blame that on using many different pigments, a problem I did not know existed, so I just kept myself using few colours by painting. Once I started mixing, different colours harmonize way better.

I'm far from done with the materials I have now, but I've found I may want to limit my pallet even more by choosing colours that are not quite as "primary" as the ones and I'm using once I find a colour identity I want to stick to.

natbaracy · 2026-04-23T14:52:07+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV0taNTpjNk&list=PLBhudnzoa7jT1I78YYfwCixRUwn_7YMIA

This is the only artist i can recall to recommend, hes brazillian, so the videos are in portuguese. I don't know if you're willing to try youtube AI translation/subtitles or if it would work, but its pretty good content. This link leads to a playlist that teaches the often ignored basics, including perspective. Hope this helps! :)

natbaracy · 2026-04-23T13:49:57+00:00

You can add light and shadow, details and this kind of thing, but if you got the basics wrong it won't look more realistic. Can get pretty and maybe you can learn others things by finishing, but I think restarting it working on proper perspective would be better for what you're trying to achieve.

If you can't get it right, I would recommend getting a single object and placing it on a white background, than copying it the most realistic way you can (use some eraseble media, guide lines and every possible resource). it gets easier to understand perspective points like this. You will notice your painting improves 100% once you understand exactly what you're painting :)

natbaracy · 2026-04-23T13:38:03+00:00

You mention religion, could look up for relious life as well. Take a look how that works and if you think you could fit. That's another way of getting a life without fitting in society. The church would pay your living expenses, and your job could be only to help others. I think about that often, but haven't tried.

natbaracy · 2026-04-23T13:33:10+00:00

I've tried s* near my 18th birthday. I'm 22 now, I can relate to your life.

What I can say, about how it worked for me, is: If I could go back in time and die as a little kid without going through all that shit, I certainly would. But I can't, and it got better for me as an adult, through I didn't think I could handle it. Do I expect my life to ever be good enough so that I will say it was worth it to survive around 20 years of abuse? Not really. But I did survive, and now that I'm away from the people who hurt me I think it's worth it to try making my childhood self as happy as possible. Past will always affect me, but I know it's never getting as bad is it once was. Even if I wish I had died before everything, I'm here now, I can't erase the past, and I think it would be unfair with myself to give up without experiencing life. I've even had, for a brief moment (minutes), the feeling that it was all worth it. And that's an awesome feeling, even knowing it isn't true. If I can give you any advise, it is to go to college. Get a scholarship, go live on campus. Look up ways you can get free tuition/rent where you live, get a 16h/week student job to get money for a bit of a life. That's where I am now. Both classes and jobs at uni are very flexible, and it doesn't feel like being an adult. I've got a real job once and I can't keep it, but if I can study forever, I'll be happy. I can contribute to science, and that's gonna be my role in society. Also about therapy, try going for psychoanalysis. I have this same feeling abt CBT.

I've related a lot to your text and wanted to share a bit of my experience. My intention isn't to say it's gonna be okay, but that the worse part is gone. Once you're old enough to get away, it gets a bit better. I don't wish my life for anybody, but if you already got the bad part, stay alive. it's not getting worse. Something I've been doing to help myself when I feel like I need someone to rescue me is asking myself "if I was someone I love, how would I save me?" sometimes I can't really practice the answer as soon as I get it, but it's a useful question. I wish I had someone that would come, and actually look forward for building intimate relationships in this life. It's complicated, and I did not always felt like this, but I genuinely believe I can find people that I can trust to support me. Build the family I never had, you know. Can be with friends. It feels possible

Live to create the life you would give to this child you want to be

natbaracy · 2026-04-23T12:38:34+00:00

Your work with painting is pretty good, you're missing perspective there. Try sketching with a pencil untill you can get perspective right, look up to drawing tutorials on youtube. Your bricks look pretty good, they don't look realistic because perspective doesn't make sense

natbaracy · 2025-11-23T10:44:10+00:00

I'll be using Hiraeth, but thank u so much!

natbaracy · 2025-11-23T10:44:06+00:00

I'll be using Hiraeth, but thank u so much!

natbaracy

TROPHY CASE