I struggle to know what to write about when I create blog posts for my artwork 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’ve talked about the drawing process and how I came to love charcoal as my focus medium. In fact, I’ve talked about it twice now 😆 So I think, this time, I’ll talk about the motivation behind this Star Wars series, because it might not be what you think.

Since this particular post is also something I’m writing to celebrate finishing another piece, I’ll share some photos along the way, as well. Because, at the end of the day, I sat for 13 hours (nonconsecutive) to create this latest piece despite back pain and other issues that made it difficult. And while I am in no way a victim in that experience, I am fucking proud of the accomplishment.

My Star Wars fan art series started as a Christmas gift for my husband

I’ve tried to watch the Star Wars movies for years. I truly mean that 😆 My husband and step son absolutely love the series and (in case you haven’t noticed) a lot of other people love them, too. I didn’t grow up in a big Star Wars household so it really just wasn’t on my radar for a long time. And when I moved into my role as step mom I truly tried to watch these films. I wanted to connect with my family on something they loved. But I just couldn’t do it.

Fast forward 15 years, an ADHD diagnosis, and a whole lot of self reflection later and I’ve realized a few things. I had a hard time sitting through the (very long) Star Wars movies for 3 reasons: I zone out during the fight scenes and get lost, I have a hard time recognizing different people of the same age and race unless they are standing beside each other (so plots were very hard to follow), and its exceptionally difficult to focus on anything when you have kids climbing you with their elbows 🤷🏻‍♀️

But I wanted to watch them because my husband loves them so much. And he’s sat through his share of 90210 episodes, Big Brother seasons and yearly screenings of Hocus Pocus, Practical Magic, and all of the Santa Claus movies 😆

So, this year for Christmas I committed to watching every single movie (and the shows… I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into).

Art is a form of power + a driver of discussion

We live in strange and difficult and scary times. As I’ve sat watching the Star Wars movies I cannot help but compare what happens in the movies to what I see unfolding in our world.

Now, I could spend this blog post convincing you of the similarities between Star Wars and the current state of affairs in North America and beyond. Or, I can just leave you with this thought for you to ponder. You can jump into the comments and share your thoughts if you like. You can go watch the movies yourself. You can choose to believe I was hired by Disney to get you to do just that (I was not, lol).

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

So what do you take away from it?

Here’s a bit of the drawing process. There aren’t videos to go with this because, honestly, I was watching the movies at the same time 😆