Sunday, October 04, 2009

My right arm

I've been trying to rest my shoulder. A few days ago, the pain was pretty bad, but it wasn't as bad as the whining. I took 600 mg of Advil (that's 3 of them) at a time and put ice on my shoulder. I was beginning to think I fractured it. Greater minds than mine wanted me to go to the doctor about it, but I really didn't want to. The solution would probably be a prescription for muscle relaxant medication. That's not going to cut it with me. I know if I took those kinds of medications, I wouldn't be able to drive my kids in the car. Plus, knowing me, I'd catch something much worse while visiting the doctor's office. Not to mention, I'm a hard head.

After trying really hard to rest my right arm and shoulder, it's doing better. I think I sprained or strained it. I am probably the only person in the world who can hurt their shoulder using a riding lawn mower - but I was going up and down a hill. I think the force and the hanging-on-for-dear-life was the final straw, but I also think I have been drawing so much lately that it's a bit of a repetitive strain thing too.

I finished up D.G.'s portrait (1-subject drawing) and C.J.'s portrait (a 2-subject drawing) and started a house portrait before the weekend. I have spent the weekend resting. I considered trying to draw with my left hand, but I'm just not that ambidextrous.

Tomorrow I will finish up the house portrait for D.M. and start work on a dog portrait for J.T.
I will have 3 more house portraits to complete for D.M. - I hope by the end of the week.

But the blessing that comes out of it all is that I realized I should cut back some of my portrait offerings, so I decided to not offer stipple/Hedcut portraits any more. They require very close-up work and repetitive motions that I don't feel I can be adequately reimbursed to do anymore. [Translation, you couldn't pay me enough!] Hee hee, but seriously - Impressionist art seems so easy after the detail work I've done. No wonder so many artists gravitated to Impressionistic art as they got older! I won't take my arms (especially my right one!) for granted anymore.

2 comments:

Nicole I. Hamilton said...

So sorry to hear about the pain in your shoulder, Darla! That had to be especially tough with all those commissions waiting for your talented touch! :) Hope they all went well and you are feeling much better!

DD said...

Thanks Nicole, I sometimes feel it act up now if I'm on the computer or typing too much - but I think in all, it's been a very good thing, because it's limited my computer time. I'm actually getting other things done and the computer (I call it the "devilbox" too) can't rob me of too much of my life! :)

 

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