Ah! The dreaded artist block! When we keep staring at the blank page or canvas and nothing is happening. We are frozen, or we keep getting distracted, there is no inspiration. And internal voice screams “Why is this not working!!!! Gaaah!”

Well what if we could develop a strategy to deal with this mindfully. Instead of just worrying about this state, what if we could fix it. It’s better to fix it - I think we all agree. But HOW!?!

Easy 1st Step - Recognize

I think the first step is to recognize that you are blocked. And this condition could …

Getting Substack Newsletter Posts into a Pelican Site

A few weeks ago I started writing a newsletter at substack.com (which is an excellent platform btw, and I'm loving it). My newsletter is called ArtNoob. Now, substack allows you to export of all the posts on a newsletter, which is a very handy way to grab all the posts and host it on another site. And that's exactly what I wanted to do.

This is a static website https://abhishekmishra.in generated using Pelican. So all I wanted to do was to grab the exported posts and convert them into …

People call it being in the zone or being in the flow state. Some special conditions are required to get into the zone of creativity, where the mind is working smoothly and creative energy is flowing uninterrupted. Any interruption when you’re in this special place has a huge cost. You might not get back into the zone again that day, and even if you do, you would lose a lot of time.

Thus - protect the zone. Build a quiet workplace, let your partner, family, flat-mates know that you are not to be disturbed when you are in there. Such …

Dear Reader,

Wish you happy holidays. Have a wonderful time, and do spend some time to enjoy the beauty of nature. And if you have time draw, photograph, make music.

And last but not the least, don’t forget to set some goals for the new year.

I leave you with this painting of contemplation.

Abhishek (art noob)

I didn't know creating a powershell profile was so easy. I'm just going to document this in case I need it again.

The $profile environment variable holds the value of the powershell profile file. This file is sourced when a new powershell session is started - whether normal or elevated.

Here's the command to create a new profile file. In windows this will usually create a folder named <HOME>\Documents\WindowsPowerShell, where <HOME> is your home folder. A file named Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 will be created in this folder.

New-Item $profile -Type File -Force

One of the few useful things one …

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Dear Reader,

As a novice, I do not produce great art. At most times I produce works which are difficult to look at 😉. So what keeps me going. Well I have a goal in mind - it is vague and it shifts from time to time. But I would like to make professional quality illustrations and paintings, good enough to be able to make a decent comic book.

Now this goal pulls me towards itself. For this magnetic force to not frustrate and …

Dear Reader,

I would like to add a new type of post to this blog going forward. Looking at the great or famous pieces of art, or at famous artists from a noob’s perspective. This is also one form of master study. I’ve read that this greatly helps the development of one’s own skills.

I will start with artists in the comic book or illustration world, as this is what interests me most and then move on to other areas. I might start with Burne Hogarth or Frank Frazetta or Loomis.

Hogarth did a lot of drawing …

Today a new version of timed-themes vscode extension was released and published to the vscode marketplace. Timed themes switches between a dark and light theme based on a schedule. The schedule can be set using time ranges in the settings. The dark and light themes are also configurable. Version 0.3.0 includes two minor bug fixes as well as package updates to the dependencies.

Here's the link to the extension at the vscode marketplace - Timed Themes