GrotesqueDarling13's avatar

GrotesqueDarling13

In My Art, You'll Find My Heart.
2.8K
Watchers
6.4K
Deviations
283.2K
Pageviews
Hello my lovelies,

      I really don't know how to start this journal off, so I will just dive into it. I have been absent from here for so many reasons. And those who were close to me understand the most, how the last 4 yrs were a whirlwind of chaos and death. It has changed me as a person and things that used to be a big thing in my life, an example, this site and the people that frequent it. I am not going to continue to update on this platform any longer. The 11 yrs I happily spent on here, within the rich, beautiful community that has turned into something completely different, has served me extremely well on my artistic journey. This site shaped me as an artist and I will forever be grateful. I would not be the artist I am today if it wasn't for the years I spent on this site, learning from others I looked up to, growing from my old likes into new ones. I did it all here, on dA. DeviantART will forever hold such a high place of beauty and love in my heart. But with saying that, I cannot see myself submitting here any longer. It feels unnatural. But I believe I grew out of the routine shortly before my father got sick, because my time was cut short due to him needing me, and my mother needing me for him because he straight up refused Hospice care. Taking care of my sick and dying father was extremely hard, I still have nightmares, 2 yrs later. The PTSD is strong, and getting a full time job last year has helped immensely. I work between 50-70 hours a week, yes, a week, depending on the busyness of the week. It's insane but I am loving my job and make really good money. But it leaves me with little to no social life. And then to top it off, I've been living with toxic family for a long time. I am working on moving out and gaining my own peace of mind, that I am simply unable to find at home. So life simply swept me up and IS MORE IMPORTANT then a website. You may wonder why I capitalized that bit. And that is because I have received straight bullying on here due to my absence. And I find it downright disgusting. Several assholes from my groups felt the need to message me through my groups and through my main profile shaming me, the first was shortly after my father had died!! By the time I deleted all 4 of my groups that I had for 7+ yrs, I had about 30 people with obviously nothing better to do then to shame someone who actually had a lot of real and hard life events occurring. It was appalling that the site I used to love, had turned into this elitist bullshit where other artists deemed it a-okay to bully another artist because she happened to let her groups go. Like fuck off, life is more important. So sadly, the sour of this site impacted me during my most darkest years. But we all must move on and do what is right for us. And I'm not right for dA anymore.
      With saying all this, I will NOT be deleting my profile nor any of my gallery. All of the support I have ever received means so much to me. So I cannot delete any of it due to sentimental reasons. And also, because I have put so much work into my gallery and profile over the years, I spent a decade on here, it holds so much more then most people would understand. I think that is why a lot of people leave but they keep their profile and gallery intact. Just because we don't enjoy the site anymore, doesn't others cannot continue to enjoy my work anymore either. I still get a lot of favorites, watches and comments. I appreciate every favorite, look at the gallery of every person that watches me and I read every comment. I may still reply to them in the future, but otherwise I will just haunting the site. No activity anymore. This will be my last journal. Because I felt like you all that have followed me for long deserve an answer, a last word. Instead of the silence these last few years have held. For which, I am sorry. You will all forever mean something to me, I appreciate you all being there for me and my artwork through out all these years!! I love you from the bottom of my heart, I know the ones that matter will understand <3

I am on Instagram, you can find me there with my Photography and my artwork, different profiles you can follow separately. They are listed within my bio. Easy as pie, like if you want to :D

<3
GrotesqueDarling13 aka Sheri

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Hello my lovelies!!

I am so very sorry it has been soo long since I have updated my journal- but I have been busy with life in general. From my normal job to my Photography work to personal relationships. Everything has been chaos. But thankfully everything is calming down- a bit.. that is.

In my last journal I mentions future photo jobs, one happened as planned, the wedding. And the other, the Live Birth was squashed when the client had to have an emergency C-section. Which is okay, all that matters is momma and baby are okay. Which is how everything happened. Nothing went wrong and everyone is doing good. She is a mother of two beautiful children, a 2yr old girl and a sweet little boy, so we have talked about doing a shoot soon. One for the new addition and one for his big sister. So she will still get photos taken, but this time of both her loves and I think that works out the best in the end.

The Wedding was beautiful and the Bride, who is a co-worker of mine, she looked so extremely beautiful!! I was very happy to spend the entire day by her side, capturing it all. I have several folders of photos to edit simply because I have been so busy with normal work, that I have to usually wait till I get home from work to work on my other "job" requirements. Lol. After a long day of working retail, I don't want to spend time with my computer, I want to spend time with my bed. Just saying. But I give myself a few more weeks and they will be done and ready for her & his eyes. I cannot wait to see their reactions to my photos :heart: And of course after they view their photos they will pick which ones they like, I move those over to a flash drive and then I print the photo, organize into an album and the deal is done. Lol. Weddings are a lonnnng process, tedious and tiring. Hence why I only do one a year. And I already have a Wedding to shoot next year.

In other "exciting" news, well to me its exciting because I didn't think it was possible to get something like this custom made. I want to branch out and shoot more baby portraits, more so new born to a few months old. I love Children Portraits as a whole, but baby portraits have been pulling on my heart strings for the past year or so. I was talking to a co-worker/friend who happens to be a Photographer as well, we were talking props, and I told her how I wanted a Baby Canopy bed, to be used as a beautiful prop in Baby Portraits. And she informed me her cousin was looking for some side projects to take up some of his free time after her got home from work and she asked him about taking on my Canopy Bed. He ended up being very into it, I drew him up some blue prints and he did his own thing while following my basic needs and wants. And in return, I got a beautiful, beyond perfect custom Baby Canopy bed. I have one more coat to paint, after already painting about 10 coats on this bed. But that is what I get for wanting a textured look to the bed frame itself. Lol. All I can say is that I am beyond thrilled about it and will be using it soon, with two different babies. And even a few animals. It shall be fun. Also, I am hoping this will knock me back into the my photography vibe, that I have been missing/lacking these past 10 months. The move jarred me to the core of who I am, and it has taken me a long time to truly settle.

I am starting a few new projects- so those will be revealed soon enough. Here and there. Hint, it is Nature themed, well actually, they both are. And two different projects.

Anyways, I am going to try, (key word) try very hard to do more updating here. Be it my gallery, journals and even my ID. I need to do that last one, it has truly been too long. Lol. But again I will say, I have dropped the ball. But a lot of personal chaos has happened these past 5 months and not knowing which way is up can be kinda suffocating to deal with. But I am better & calmer.

Now for some eye candy :giggle:

20 lovely pieces that have stuck with me for the last
few weeks, so I wanted to share these gems with you all!! :D

Img 1961-2 by snomanda haze II by Ceecore
365 Challenge Day 284 by Fleur-de-Noel Burn America by IMustBeDead
First autumn leaf by HackingDutchman Lavellan and the Dread Wolf by ApostacyArt
Blue by Feenmond Untitled by lordschaft
Backyard Exploring by kmarieg Is this ufo by KariLiimatainen
Eye of Sauron by FineLiquidArt Red hat by Akxiv
untitled by wolf-minori ooOooOOooo by marrgit
Butterfly by foxphotograpghy .Multiverse. by SynWav
Autumn behind the gates... by inDeevid toiles by Aldeb77
Birch Trees in Fall Forest by DeLumine Body Part Series II by Soot-Sprite-1995

Sorry for another long ass journal entry but thank you to whoever read it all. I really appreciate it :heart: And thank you so, so much again to all my watchers, old & new. I am so very grateful for the support, continued to brand new. Nothing warms my heart in such a special way. I really wish I could explain it better, but atm words aren't my friends but no worries, one day I will explain it perfectly. Lately, with how work has been, words don't exist. But mouth vomit sounding like drunken slurs do indeed :lmao: :thanks: :heart:



Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Hello all my lovelies!!

I wanted to write a journal as bit of an update and because it has been awhile since I have written one. It is time, it is time. Lol. Plus, I wanted to feature some beautiful works of those who watch me, two works from 10 random watchers. Artwork picked because they popped out at me, so those were the pieces chosen for this journal+feature :D

I am so, so sorry I haven't been very active here in the past month or so- I was going through some shit. One extremely personal but it is over and done with now, so its no longer a stress or worry- same with the 2 other stresses that were troubling me and not helping my flow much, lol, destroying it more like. All I did was sleep and go to work. But early this month everything came to an end, and life has been wonderful. I got answers, wishes granted and truth all in the matter of a few days. This goes for all of my stresses and worries.

I said above wishes granted, I had a horrible terrifing scare, my external hard drive of 3 years started to act up out of no where, randomly. At first it wouldn't let me view my photography on the drive, then it wouldn't show up on my computer. I waited a minute or so, it reappeared and I ejected the hardware like they always recommend should be done. This is how I always take out my flash drives and external hard drives :nod: And I was so scared that the photos were corrupted. I did a ton of research and found out the flash drive I happened to own has had more failures on the reliabe side, it just up and fails one day. Doing more research and it happens a lot with the name brand in general. So... I learned my lesson and did e v e n more damn research- I do this for everything- and bought 2 external Hard drives. The first ones is a Toshiba 500gb and the second is a Seagate 1tb. I realized those were the two most highest rated brands in customer satification, reliablity and overall service. And when I went into Best Buys Geek Squad to get advice on my WD My passport to see if my photos were still there and able to be removed from the drive. To end this horrible story, every photograph was safely added to my laptop and I will put them on me new hard drives soon- and two other methods of back-up too. I know now, I can never be TOO safe with the work that I care about. I have tonsss of family photos and photography period that mean so much to me, words cannot explain the terror and nerves my mind and heart were experiencing. Bah, it was awful. So, I will protect my work against this, I learned my lesson!! But now this journal also explains the poll I posted a few weeks ago, lol :nod:

I have nothing going on for the rest of this month or in July but August, I have two Photography jobs- a Wedding and a Live Birth. Wedding, this will be my 3rd. I feel like I have done way more but they are a lot of work. I learn something with each job. Lol. That is how it should be though, if you aren't growing and changing, then you aren't moving forward. I am excited for my friends Wedding, I work with her and this is how we became friends. She is an artist too and really loves my Wedding Photography- so it means a lot that she has picked me. I cannot wait to capture those precious moments for her. And the Live Birth is something so new I didn't even know it was a thing but I agreed to shoot the idea/offer pitched at me. Thought long and hard and did some google searching and such, and in late February I agreed to photograph the birth of her second child. That sentence makes me nervous.. and excited. I value new experiences, anything that I never thought about, something different. I was again contacted my a friend, but an older friend, we shared our late teens and early 20's with each other before we parted ways as friends often do. But I feel honored to photograph such a moment for her and her family. I plan on taking scenes most people don't see, I plan to capture everything as beautiful and graceful as possible. I need to do more research, for fucking sure. But those two jobs will have me pretty busy for August.

I plan on uploading a lot of work, catching up sort of since I have been inactive and I am sorry but THANK you to everyone who hasn't unwatched me because I don't upload daily. I love you all. And here are some beautiful features from 10 artists who watch me- 2 works from their galleries. If anything interests you, I highly suggest you check out their profiles!! :heart:

FEATURES:

:thumb528151560::thumb528152069:
Chevrolet Ornament Hood by kablaha Flower and Ants by kablaha
Bench by smellyfeet2015 Fire Escape by smellyfeet2015
:thumb469011299: :thumb457863508:
:thumb521458835: :thumb445448790:
Beauty echo by ViereMorr More blue spring II by ViereMorr
:thumb516380789: :thumb356739042:
Strange Mosquito 2 by PhotographyRW Blue Flower by PhotographyRW
Into The Light by Ikarusthefirst After the Rain by Ikarusthefirst
Rose Treatments Series - 006 by JamesInDigital Robin in the Grass HDR by JamesInDigital



Thank you to everyone who watches me and has supported me and my work for a long time now- it truly means so much. I have been on dA for awhile. Getting more loyal watchers and friends as the years go on. I simply love this!! Thank you!!
Every new and older watcher, I appreciate you all :heart: :thanks: :faint: :squee:


Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Hello all my loves,

Hello everyone!! I really hope everyone has been doing good. I am actually doing good too. The hardships, chaos and sadness that became my life in early January are now in the past and I am ready to begin this brand new year from a positive outlook. Instead of a negative one. Like the one everyone else in my family seems to be stuck on. Which I get 100% but nothing can be done now so there is no point to waste energy & time on the past. Wasting the days we have with things that are out of our hands, I cannot make sense of staying in that angry, resentful mindset. This next year is going to be hard but new things are coming my/our way, as early January told me, an odd sort of blessing. I plan to move forward with my life like never before. Making changes I need to make, starting new things~ some hobbies, goals, mindsets, etc. Because what this new year has taught me already, truly, down into the depths of my heart, you cannot stay in one place forever. Everything i s temporary. And that change is always around the corner, welcome it or it will only seem to destroy everything in your life that it touches.

Anyways, on a brighter note, me and my family are living a few miles down on the same road in a different city but still in an area I know and still close to where we used to call home. The house is beautiful and larger than what I had only known and it is an older house but has been maintained and updated as well. In a neighborhood that my grandparents used to live in. Which is lovely but odd in the same way. The house is even set-up in the same way.

I am sorry I haven't been active for about a month and a half. I was going through some shit. And still going through some heavy shit but I am not letting it get me down but it is slowly slowing me down. And for this, I say sorry. I love all my watchers and appreciate you all so much. And so for the watchers who have not unwatched me during this difficult time, (about 10 people did, you're dicks) thank you & I love you!!! :hug: :D I signed on when I could, uploaded what I could when I could and that makes me get unwatched. Which is lame, because anyone of my loyal and long term watchers can tell you, I am a very active dA member and upload all the time. Lol. But I really don't care, it is the moral of everything. And that is why is bewilders me :shrug:

Lots of new works coming; Paintings, jewelry, sewing projects, sfx make.up, and gonna try to do some self portraits, Macro and Nature photos. I have been feeling very crafty lately though. I now have a wonderful work area for my Macro scenes, which is exciting but yet that still doesn't make me want to work on them right now. So lame to me, lol :giggle:

Later in the week I will be doing a lengthy feature. I was going to do it here but I want it to be in a journal of just a few words and then nothing but artworks. How it should be. And so this journal became an update journal to those who have read my last journal from Jan. 4th and commented with loving words of wisdom, support and understanding. I love you all, I truly do. In a way that I cannot fully explain :heart:


Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
nothing says sudden like, NOW!
Hello all my lovelies!! :huggle:

I am going to again be absent from dA but only for a week tops (I hope- I really do, I am actually afraid), I will sign in as much as I can buuuut no new work until everything gets settled. Long story very short, one word to be exact- foreclosure. My familys home of 30yrs has been ripped away from us and we had/have about 3 days to get this all accomplished. I still live in this family home- so it is extremely hard for me, for everyone in my main family (sisters & brother, parents) so it makes the process even worse and the short time frame is enough to make one go crazy and sick from pure nerves alone. Today will be a hard day, it won't be easy and neither will Monday. I am very thankful for all the friends I have & the women who others see as mere co-workers but they are infact family. I am so thankful & blessed to have such souls in my life, even more so when I really, really need them the most. I was able to get shifts covered, so work is the least of my long list of worries and pains. But anyways. I wanted to give you all an update- I will submit work, just whatever I have unpublished on my laptop. Otherwise I will be pretty MIA. Everything feels like the goddamn twilight zone... I am actually still waiting for everything to be.. just a nightmare.

I will not go into more details beyond this, I hope you understand but know that I appreciate the interest/care. I will never leave dA :no: Here to stay, so please don't unwatch me due to a bit of inactivity. Hold on, give me time!! :]

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Featured

I Say Goodnight To dA by GrotesqueDarling13, journal

when we give up the chase, we give up our wishing by GrotesqueDarling13, journal

Youre just another story I cant tell anymore. by GrotesqueDarling13, journal

+pessimism of the spirit, optimism of the will+ by GrotesqueDarling13, journal

-30 years in 3 Days- by GrotesqueDarling13, journal