Welcome to Debby's World!

Hello there! Welcome to the world of Debby's Inner Thoughts, where I basically dump ideas, headcanons, writing snippets, random rants and opinions, the kind of stuff that I would hop into a friend's DMs to blab at them about. There's not much rhyme or reason to my blog other than it's what goes on in my head and it's free to read, there's no actual posting schedule, and you can feel free to reach out via email or instagram (or another way if you happen to know me more personally) to keep the conversation going!

I started writing this blog post using a template from WIX and it was so professional looking that I more or less just got rid of everything, lol.

I want to start off my blog with a little introduction of me and whatever, so you can get to know me a bit! I'm going to structure it with some random questions I've been asked when people are first getting to know me, so now I can just tell them go to this blog post.

Who are you?

My name is Rachel Goldberg, aka Debby Gold. I'm a Jewish US-based artist from Chicago and I'm an undergrad at U of I Urbana-Champaign. I'm studying for a BFA in Studio Art, and I actually just started my winter break (a whole week early because I don't have finals as an art student!!). I'm a total nerd and geek, and I know a lot about tornadoes, dungeons and dragons, asian BL series (iykyk), kpop (specifically Stray Kids and ATEEZ), very select dystopian and fantasy novels and movies/shows, asian dramas (mostly kdramas), and random OC (original character, for the laypeople) lore that I've built with friends that I occasionally hyperfixate over and thus share with the masses (you guys!). You can expect me to be sharing my hyperfixations on occasion, because I now have a place to info dump about them >:)

Who is the bunny rabbit?

So speaking of lore, the bunny is the immortalization of a stuffed animal I've had since I was like 3 months old named Bobby - here's a picture!

Yes, she does still exist, and I do still keep her close at night. Go ahead, judge me for it, let's see if you're still confident when I expose your deep dark secrets.

Anyway, Bobby's pronouns are long forgotton so you'll see me refer to them as pretty much every matter of pronoun in the dictionary.

Bobby the digital mascot is basically the personification of my brain's voice when I'm drawing for giggles, like that one comic about the Instagram algorithm I made a long while back. She's also in my icons because of course she's a photobombing menace, just like my brain <3

What do you do with your life?

So there are 3 main things I do, really.

First, art. I draw, I paint, I create, I write. Easy peasy.

Second, I collect random hobbies, skills, hyperfixations, and ideas like they're Pokemon cards.

I recently became worthy of the title Plant Mom when I finally was able to have and take care of an entire botanical garden by my window, and I also became an official Stay when the adjacent wall became covered in Stray Kids posters (oops).

Their names are (from left to right) Daichi II (bromeliad), George (rosemary bonsai), Patricia (spider plant), Bartholemew (flapjack succulent), Minnie (aeonium succulent), Mulan (bamboo (favorite Disney princess who?)), and Jessica (jade succulent). She's not shown here, but I also have a pothos vine plant named Katelyn that's on my dresser.

By the way, this isn't my dorm, usually these guys have a much nicer perch on my dorm window ledge.

Over the summer I tried learning to roller blade (that ended when I needed foot surgery), and now I'm becoming a blogger. Hopefully over the holidays I'll be able to meet up with my friend (and the colorist for Unseen Encounter!) Liam to make kosher bao together.

I also have really weirdly theatric dreams, which you can be expecting me to share on occasion.

Third, I worship the true love of my life, my precious butt nugget, Kate. Kate is a rescue from Alabama, and we're not exactly sure what her breed is. We being my family, of course, because I for some reason have to share my baby with my parents and siblings. She's part Jack Russel Terrier, and we're like 90% sure the other part is coyote. She's currently got 20-something confirmed kills, she is the embodiment of the "bombastic side-eye" meme, and she is so smart that she will escape our backyard to hunt a rabbit, bring it to our front door, and go across the street to play with the neighbor's kids without thinking "oh yeah I'm free now". Spoiled rotten, I'm telling you. She also hates raw vegetables, which is why I love her because she is so real for that.

How did you become a drawer?

Okay let's address the important thing here: a drawer is a piece of furniture that acts as a smaller storage compartment within a larger piece of furniture. An artist or illustrator is someone who draws and makes art. Got it?

Now, my art origin story goes back waaay into the days of yore, when I abused my crayons and used food as fingerpaint. I've been drawing and making things for as long as I can remember, and my first taste of digital art was actually on the school computers in first grade when I drew a picture (its so cringe so I wont show it) of my mom tickling me.

You may have noticed, if you've obsessively looked through my website and read my artist bio, that I said I'm a "self-learned" artist. I'll go in depth about these sorts of things in the future, but I say self-learned and not self-taught because I didn't teach myself anything. Teaching implies that I knew something already and demonstrated it or passed passed it on, but for me, I found other people's teachings and advice and learned from these resources. When I was homeschooled, my mom had a library requirement that we couldn't check out more fiction books than non-fiction, so my little library bag was always filled to the brim with graphic novels, manga, comics, and how-to books for different types of art, like nail art, facepaint, origami and kirigami, and illustration. To this day I have an ungodly amount of art books, tutorial and tip books, and now I'm putting together a binder of things that inspire me (right now it's mostly kpop merch, though).

I learned on my own from the resources that I could access on my own, but the teachings came from other people.

Other than that, blood, sweat, tears, and hours and hours of practice and pain.

If I want to learn to draw, what is your advice?

Just do it.

I'm going to refrain from using higher-rated language on my blog, so I'll instead say that my motto these past few months has been "F it, we ball". Basically, if you find yourself freezing in front of a blank page, procrastinating on a project because it's not completely familiar to you, or zooming in and trying to get every detail perfect because you don't feel like it's perfect, stop it. Pause, take a breath, move on. Just do it and let it be bad.

Do the things that scare you and are uncomfortable. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and making things that look "beautiful" or "perfect" or able to get a good following but staying in your comfort zone will hurt you more than just trying something will. There are ways you can make the process easier, like using the pomodoro method or some other work/break system, or taking really small steps, like even just making a mark on the paper and testing out brushes or materials without making anything complicated. Holding back or overworking because of fear of judgement or failure is something I'm still working on very much, so I can definitely say I'm no expert in the realm of letting go of fears and perfectionism. What I can tell you is that it's helped me more to just let go, to just draw even if I think it looks bad, and to move on even when I'm unsatisfied, especially if I'm on a time constraint. There will be times when you can spend all the time in the world refining a piece or working on every little detail, but my guess is it won't be that often. Sometimes you just gotta sigh, maybe cry a little, and move on, and that's okay. You'll improve as you go, I promise.

That's all I've got for now!

If you're still reading this far into the blog post, I just want to say thank you for your patience and dedication. If I could, I'd give you a chicken nuggie right now. Hopefully you enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it! And again, if you want to continue the conversation, feel free to reach out to debgold.art@gmail.com, or @debgoldart on instagram!

Always remember, the Earth without Art is just Eh <3

Until next time!

Debby Gold/Rachel Goldberg

debbygoldart.com

patreon.com/debbygold