(And You Should Too)

Hey Gang!

First free membership post of the year! I’ve just had the four year anniversary of starting this membership since leaving Patreon (7th Feb), it’s gone very fast. Not a lot of art here to see, but hopefully will be interesting for you to read, and maybe inspiring…? I will try to aggressively edit all of it so it’s not too long a read!

An App Deletion Frenzy!

I didn’t plan on removing social media from my phone, but I was aware that I had a problem. I would pick up my phone in any kind of rest moment from work, instead of doing other things, like reading or sewing etc. It would be the first thing I did in the morning, check IG, FB and Bluesky – I always wanted to know what was happening (world news being my main drug of choice, traumatic) and it was not a healthy way to wake up.

I thought downloading one of those apps that restricted my app use might be a good idea. Well, I can’t remember what the app was called, but it hooked up to my screen-time use on my phone and told me how much time I would spend on my phone this year if I didn’t make any changes. HOLY SHITBALLS guys, it was really really bad. THEN it said ‘for £84 a year you can use this app and we will restrict your use’ – or something like that. Eighty four quid to do something I could do myself? Absolutely not. I deleted the app and then immediately after deleted facebook and instagram and all the games I had on there (although I only used one of them, COD Warzone, usually playing two or three times a day, once at lunch and a couple of times after work). I had already deleted TikTok a couple of weeks before (around the time of Trump ‘rescuing’ it).

In the first week of being socials free on my phone I did feel SOOO much more relaxed. I really noticed around 10 days in when I got back on SM on my desktop that I started getting sucked into the depressing news on my feed again and my anxiety levels rocketed. This was confirmation for me that I’d done the right thing.

Bluesky has come out on top as the best of the social media platforms for me now (You can follow me HERE) – it is consistently reaching new people and has even pointed sales to my shop when there have been none via FB or IG. It is a pleasant platform to be on as there are no ads too and everything seems to show up chronologically, lovely! The matter of most social media being totally dead for reaching people now is another post entirely!

I’ve now added ‘news feed eradicator‘ – it replaces your fb feed with inspiring quotes 🙂

What Has It Been Like?

I have more space in my brain. SO much more space. I don’t feel anxious. At the weekend when I don’t log into my computer (unless I am working on the weekend which I try not to do) I have a solid two days without it and it is honestly bliss.

I’ve already made several garments at the weekends, normally I take weeks to get a few pieces done – but no, I have a new medieval hood, a skirt, two medieval tunics and one almost done! Gardening will start to take over weekends as we get into March, so I’m whizzing through sewing projects before it gets out of hand. It will be a month on Friday since I deleted I think, I didn’t take note of the date!

Should you also delete your social media from your phone?

YES. Do it. You don’t need to be wired in to it all the time. Now, I absolutely (and intimately) understand the fact a lot of us only have connections online and not in real life, be it due to ill health, family and friends living a LONG way away, or whatever it might be. If it is what is keeping you sane, then obviously this tip is not for you, but for me, it was causing me huge anxiety – and I didn’t realise quite how much till I stopped.

I still have Whatsapp on my phone as this is how I am in touch with my family and closest friends, obviously it’s different for everyone, but I grew up without social media and didn’t have a smartphone till my late 20’s (might have even been later than that!) – you just don’t need to always be online. If nothing else, try it for a month and see how it feels.

But Emily, What About ART? What Are You Making?

Well, Magic The Gathering have an open portfolio application at the moment (closes on the 10th of March), so I’m going to do a couple of wee paintings to add to my portfolio in the hopes of catching their eye, worth a shot right?

I’ve got this dragon idea (Matt did a few briefs for me!) that I’m playing with for one pic:

I’ve got a little idea for maybe the colour direction I’m going to go, do you like it?

Savage Strangehollow!

I’m also delving back into Strangehollow (this one will be called Savage Strangehollow), for those of you who don’t follow my newsletter or socials you might not have heard that yet! I will be getting stuck into the art-making for that next month after shipping all my WANTED books out at the end of this week/beginning of next week! I am SO excited to get into it and have so many ideas. I can’t believe that it’s 8 years since my first book. I’ve already shared a small number of early sketches/ideas with my members, but I’ll have a lot more next month.