The last time I did a painting was in 2003. I absolutely loved it then. I had no boundaries and no reservations as to what I could achieve. And now we fast forward to 2008 and I am scared.

I was artistic as a child. I would usually spend weekends painting with Mum and sometimes Dad. These painting sessions would last for hours and even though all of those paintings would get thrown away, (thanks to Mum, who is the most anal cleaner in this universe) I always felt excited to just paint whatever I wanted. Art was my favourite subject in Primary School and then into High School where I did my last painting.

At the time, I was suffering quote bad depression and my painting of Jonathon Davis from Korn had a very gloomy outcome. Although I never saw it that way - I saw it as someone I could relate to in that point in time. He seemed like someone who felt tortured and who was harbouring a deep hatred of himself.

I always saw painting as something fun and something that I became obsessive about very quickly. Even though I am eager to do it now, I am still hesitant. I hadn’t touched a blank canvas in years apart from yesterday when I went down to Jacksons and bought one. Now all I need is an idea and I am sure I will hit the ground running.

So here I am. Starting from scratch. I’m not exactly sure what happened but for a while there my site completely disappeared. And then, so did the database holding three years+ of entries. I feel like I’ve lost something, but then again I know I have a back up of 18 months worth of entries on my facebook profile. In a way, it’s like a way to start something fresh and new. What is the point in holding on to the past? Nice memories are fantastic to hold on to, but there really is no point. But somehow I feel like I have spent years creating a painting only to see it washed down the drain.

I’m sure it will take a whole day to get over.

At my previous job as a web designer in a small business, I was exposed to a lot of things that I often found amusing. Most of these were contributed to our clients. Some of them were because we made up humourous name for each project - looking to liken a word in a client name to a swear word or something that just sounded plain wrong. But it was always the customers who came up with the most unimaginable senario possible.

As a web designer, most of the time the client leaves the job in our hands. The colours, the navigation - whatever. They usually cannot be bothered or do not even care how we go about it as long as it presents their business well. But there was one client in particular who just flat out made me laugh. I also learned that if a client tells you they like the way they had done their previous website or a mockup of a website, there is no point in deviating from it too much because they will always go back to what they designed.

This client was French. There is no real reason to point that out, but it proved hilarious in overhearing conversations between her and a co-worker, simply because there was an obvious communication break down. And she always used to bring in phonebook sized notes with her which was not only amazing but also fucking annoying. And since I worked right next to my co-worker, to hear this client yammering on for hours was off putting. But it also meant money for us.

She had provided an idea for a website that she had built herself in word. I was quite interested because she had gone to all the trouble of making up a sort of dummy website about what she wanted. We were all excited because it meant that it was going to be an easy job. So it seemed. That was until after designing a site for her for almost a week, she rang me up to say she didn’t like it. We tried to make the changes she told us over the phone, but after a while she must have been frustrated and started to meet with us - with her phonebook sized notes.

Eventually, we got the website done. But in the end, it looked exactly like the one she had done herself in word which made us wonder why was she even wasting her money on us when she could have done it herself? I guess it didn’t really matter but like I say - I learned that if a client says they like the way they did something - they always want it that way. It’s like a child to them - something personal. It’s fucking ridiculous.