So I actually have a couple of new things up, and I hope you guys like em I don't think they're brilliant, but they killed time and I enjoyed doing them.

But this is a shout out to anyone who suffers from...is it spelled carpal tunnel? I appear to have it mildly in my right hand, my writing/drawing hand. Since my mother has since around my age been told she had been told she had arthritis, and it definately acts like it too- in bad weather it gets very sore, and hard work and heavy strain can make it worse. Its not unusual to see her wearing a heat pad on one arm during the winter, especially after a day of shifting around huge bolts of fabric at work. A few years ago, she was told by another doctor that it wasn't arthritis and that it was nerve problems. My Bear tells me that carpal tunnel is trapped nerves.

I think I may have the same thing my mum does- the cold weather does make my right hand stiff, and since its started to get colder, I've found using the computer mouse in this particularly cold room does make it hurt pretty badly. The pain can radiated from my elbow to my finger tips, but normall centres around the wrist and bones of my hand. Its gotten worse over the last year or so. Since leaving college, I've found it really difficult to write neatly by hand for longer than 15 minutes; when I write by hand now, its almost always with a flowy pen and in a really messy shorthand. Drawing seems mostly unaffected because even shading doesn't apply the same sort of pressure on my hand, but using colouring pencils does because its harder on the hand. Bummer eh?

I take pain killers before starting anything- writing or drawing- that I think might hurt me, but if anyone has any tips for combating this, it would be greatly appreciated

Also, I would just like tips on using colouring pencils for blending and putting in a lot of detail. Those of you who've seen my coloured works...you can probably tell that black/white/grey etc shading is more my fortee, but I do like to do coloured things, especially for illustrations. So if you do know of any good tips, let me know! I always like to try and improve my work, but you don't get a lot of books on these from my experience ; (them Watercolour Fairies sort of books are handy though ). So yeah, if anyone has any tips, please share n_n

Hope everyone is dandy, I'm going to go and do some badly needed ironing ; Woo fun eh? I think I'll watch a movie while I do it. Laters!