Utah-based illustrator & storyteller. Characters & music with soul. Exploring creativity, presence, and meaning. All is love. Goonies never say Die
Salt Lake
Joined September 2020
- Tweets4.3K
- Following3.4K
- Followers11.4K
- Likes31.9K
Pinned Tweet
As above, so below.
Sat on this one for a while.
~30+ hours poured into it… kept telling myself I’d share it after it was “ready.”
But this is it.
Prints and a Puzzle coming
#asabove #soBelow #asaboveSobelow #digitalart #illustration #creativeprocess #innerworld #artdrop
The Narrow Way
An ongoing conversation between the Father and the Child.
The Father
Narrow is the way,
And few there be
That walk with me
Eternally.
When you are here,
Your fears are not near.
I carry them from you
While you stand in the light.
And with them, I will fight
The great fight.
But if you stay true to you,
And do what you believe you ought to,
And to yourself you always be true,
Then you will shine so bright,
And bless everyone within your sight.
For they too will be touched by the light,
Until they aspire to shine brighter,
And like you, turn from darkness to light.
The Child
But good Father, what does all this mean?
For surely it’s not as simple as you make it seem.
My body doesn’t glow,
And there are no bright lines in the street
That show which way I ought to go
To find the person I’m supposed to be.
And sometimes I question:
What is it that makes me me?
How much of me is actually me,
And how much is what I want others to see?
How much of what I’ve learned
Was just to keep myself safe?
I can’t recall the old me
I stuffed in a grave.
All of the masking,
Refusing to stand out,
Hiding in the shadows,
Afraid of what might come about.
No one fights for the mic.
No one shoves to be seen.
Like competitive siblings
Fighting for the last scoop of ice cream.
All craving attention,
All wanting more love,
And sometimes it seemed
The best way was to shove.
To push one below
So that I could be above,
Competing for the very thing
We were all looking for: more love.
And then I carry shame
For the things I’ve done before,
As though the dreams I dream today
Are dreams I don’t deserve anymore.
I keep making debts
That can never be paid,
Chasing some future
That keeps getting delayed.
Always some other day,
Some other somehow,
Never quite here,
Never quite now.
Father, can you please
Show me how?
(Continued in comments 🧵
2
1
120
(🧵 continued 1/2)
The Father
For this is the whole truth,
Condensed simply:
When you live in the past,
You become a slave to shame,
Carrying blame
And punishing yourself
For things you cannot change.
As if you were a parent
Punishing a child you love,
Telling him he doesn’t deserve your love
Because he wasn’t perfect.
But he’s never been perfect.
And he never needed to be.
There is only the present.
And here, you are free.
You are not living in the past,
Where shame blocks the sun
From shining on your dreams.
And when you are present,
You can dream.
You can look toward tomorrow
Without fearing what it brings,
Without rewriting yesterday
Into everything.
For the past is not a prophecy.
It is not a promise of what’s to be.
It is a story you’ve carried,
But it does not have to be
The story you believe.
And when you look toward the future with fear,
You bring yesterday’s troubles here,
As if tomorrow were already here.
You take an old song,
A bad song on repeat,
And play it again
Until it drowns out the beat.
Once it may have served you,
But now it’s a headache.
You can change the pattern.
You can choose a new way.
You can choose to see
Each thing a little lighter.
You can still be
Like a child, an optimist,
Where every day is an adventure,
And dreams are still meant to be chased.
Just nobody’s having a race.
You’ve all got to go at your own pace.
There is no first, second, third place.
For this is the life
We can all make happen,
If we learn to live in the present
And be here now more often.
Not burying ourselves in shame,
Nor wearing our mistakes
Like permanent stripes,
But opening our eyes
And lifting one another.
Because that’s how we defy physics:
Together, we all become lighter,
And grow united
Like the warmth of a fire.
For it’s our co-creation.
We all get to participate.
And how do we do it?
By discovering what we do well,
What we naturally create,
The gifts we bring,
And the ways we can contribute.
To write, or to sing,
To bake the best bread,
To make clothing with love,
To help those who need it most,
To follow our hearts.
To listen to the voice we feel inside,
The very power that makes our hearts beat,
The awareness that makes us alive.
Not competing to be greater,
But learning how to complement.
Not fighting for the light,
But becoming part of it.
And if we all did that together,
Imagine what might begin:
A world not without mistakes,
But one without the need to condemn.
For what is sin?
A miss from the bullseye.
A term from archery.
You took your aim,
But missed the center of the eye.
So you breathe.
You realign.
You take another try.
And in time, you’ll improve
Your aim and your sight,
But you won’t hit the center
Every single time.
For life is not a constant tone.
Some days will always be
A darker shade of gray.
But how you handle them
Will help shape the way
You meet tomorrow
And the next coming day.
You will stumble.
You will fall.
You will question it all.
But things will change
The more you learn to walk
The narrow way.
1
43
(🧵2/2)
The Child
But Father,
What if I stumble again?
The Father
Then you begin again.
The Child
And what if I lose my way?
The Father
Remember, your way
Is the way within.
My will is your will.
And right now
Is the only place you can begin.
The Child
And what if I’m not who
I thought I was supposed to be?
The Father
Then perhaps, my child,
You are finally becoming
Who you were meant to be.
The Child
And how will I know?
The Father
When you no longer need to hide.
When you can stand in the light
Without needing to shine brighter
Than the person at your side.
When you can look upon your past
Without wishing yourself away.
When you can face tomorrow
Without running from today.
When you can love yourself
Without needing to be perfect,
And love another
Without needing them to be perfect.
And love life,
And the world you live in,
Without needing it to be perfect.
For perhaps perfection
Was never the absence of blemish,
But the recognition
That every shade of gray
Has something to teach us.
From pain, you grow.
From discomfort, you stretch.
From sorrow, you change.
And to find your way beyond regret,
You learn to let it go.
You give yourself permission
To start over,
From here.
For here is all we’ve got.
You see, my child,
The narrow way was never
A road without mistakes.
It is simply the way
You learn to walk
Without abandoning yourself.
You torture yourself with your own misery
When you keep repeating the same story,
The one that tore a hole
In some forgotten part of your soul.
And though it may feel good
To be in control,
To hold on to what you know,
It doesn’t serve you anymore.
It’s time to let it go.
To stop letting yesterday
Define who you can become.
To give yourself room to grow,
And let the seeds within you
Become the life they’re meant to grow.
And when you do,
You’ll see:
You were never asked
To become the light.
You were only asked
To stop turning away from it.
For there is light,
And the absence of it.
Love,
And the rejection of it.
Haddy the Creator
18
The scribble method
Pretty simple
First you scribble
Then you turn it into something new. Something intentional. Order from chaos ;)
In this case we ended with a lovely Florida resident Lazard man sippin a cold Geko Light at the end of a long day.
#iliketodraw #creativepractice #haddythecreator #Gekolight #haveaniceday
1
1
169
Another scribble session on the books
Another sketch book page done 💪
Who’s your favorite? I kinda like the Swull-Gull
💪🪽
#doodles #sketchbook #iliketodraw #swullgull #haddythecreator
2
10
209
I had fun the last one so I decided to do another scribble session but try and stay on the theme of Halloween. The mouse shaman is debatable but hey he’s pretty cool- and has a spooky skull staff… so back off
#halloween #halloweendrawing #halloweendrawingchallenge #spookyart
4
17
246
Geez, that’s one aggressive large mouth river bass… stay clear of the switchblade and his slimy mouth…
#iliketodraw #largemouth #riverbass #baddies #cartoon #illustration
2
8
282
HaddyTheCreator retweeted
It's Day 4 of #MÖRKTOBER with "Marrow"! A horrible hound chews through bones with too many teeth! Bringing two values of combat to bare, this gnashing fiend always appears in your nightmares before hunting you until the end of your days! Perhaps sleep is just too much to ask for.
Another “Scribble Session” to get my engines going again. I need a little momentum.
I love to do these as a way to push myself to being creative and dealing with unexpected unfamiliar shapes. It’s always fun to discover what creatures may reside within a scribble 🥸
#ScribbleArt #DrawingWarmUp #CreativePractice #CreatureDesign #CharacterDesign #Sketchbook #HaddyTheCreator
The moon changes every night.
Yet no one accuses it
of becoming less itself.
#characterdesign #worldbuilding #haddythecreator #worldbuilder #visualstorytelling
She carried herbs for pain,
roots for sleep,
and enough calm
to quiet a room without speaking.
#characterdesign #worldbuilding #fantasycreature #originalcharacter #haddythecreator
She carried herbs for pain,
roots for sleep,
and enough calm
to quiet a room without speaking.
#characterdesign #worldbuilding #fantasycreature #originalcharacter #haddythecreator
He trusted birds more than people.
Birds only took from him what they needed.
#characterdesign #worldbuilding #conceptart #illustration
He trusted birds more than people.
Birds only took from him what they needed.
#characterdesign #worldbuilding #conceptart #illustration
Ru-Haj could not map the desert all at once.
Even the greatest cartographers
must surrender to small steps.
One dune.
One line.
One patient mark at a time.
And Jarutto the tortoise understood something many men forget:
slow is not the same as still.
Together they crossed the endless sands,
proving that structure and consistency
will carry you farther than bursts of speed ever could.
#CharacterDesign #ConceptArt #WorldBuilding #CreatureDesign #haddythecreator
Ru-Haj could not map the desert all at once.
Even the greatest cartographers
must surrender to small steps.
One dune.
One line.
One patient mark at a time.
And Jarutto the tortoise understood something many men forget:
slow is not the same as still.
Together they crossed the endless sands,
proving that structure and consistency
will carry you farther than bursts of speed ever could.
#CharacterDesign #ConceptArt #WorldBuilding #CreatureDesign #haddythecreator
Lord Willow of the Scarlet Order
Who’s heart was sold
For secretes untold
#characterdesign #worldbuilding #bonearchivist #secretsociety #shhh🙊
Lord Willow of the Scarlet Order
Who’s heart was sold
For secretes untold
#characterdesign #worldbuilding #bonearchivist #secretsociety #shhh🙊
Some machines were built for war.
C1DR chose orchards instead. 🍎
#characterdesign #conceptart #robotdesign #worldbuilding
GM
At one point I wanted to start a business called “Imaginary Amigos” and draw imaginary friend type creatures over photos of peoples children. I got the idea after drawing on a couple of my own photos of my kids or niece and nephew etc.
But I never launched it- it was one of the many #AUDHD creative ideas I was both blessed and cursed with. Having ideas has never been a problem for me, problem is I have too many and try to do them all and as a result none get done. Getting a lot better at learning how to focus my attention and prioritize what actually matters to me.
But it’s always fun to try to blend my 2D art into 3D scenes in photographs, and to try and blend the two with shadows and highlights etc.
Ok Ramble over 😅
#iliketodraw #octopus🐙 #haddythecreator
3
5
208
Some machines were built for war.
C1DR chose orchards instead. 🍎
#characterdesign #conceptart #robotdesign #worldbuilding
He licks the salt because something inside him knows:
light cannot pass cleanly through a fractured crystal.
To lose your salt
is to lose the part of you
that remembers how to hold light.
The Salt Licker was not starving for food.
He was starving for structure.
#saltlicker #iliketodraw
He licks the salt because something inside him knows:
light cannot pass cleanly through a fractured crystal.
To lose your salt
is to lose the part of you
that remembers how to hold light.
The Salt Licker was not starving for food.
He was starving for structure.
#saltlicker #iliketodraw
Some devote their whole lives to carrying the temple
without ever entering it.
#characterdesign #darkfantasyart #conceptart #illustration #creaturedesign
Some devote their whole lives to carrying the temple
without ever entering it.
#characterdesign #darkfantasyart #conceptart #illustration #creaturedesign
Fire does not rush.
It transforms.
What endures becomes something new.
#characterdesign #darkfantasyart #conceptart #illustration #creaturedesign
I had some time to kill between kids sports games so I took some kiddos up the canyon and spent some time by Provo River. Something so healing about the sound of running water, and being in nature. The kids love it too, free from screens and chores. Throwing rocks and exploring nature…
Flute is from IAMSOUND.ONE
Promo code “HADDY” will save you 20%
if you felt the pull to get into music. These flutes are so easy to pick up and intuitive to play once you learn the basics. no pressure- just love 🙏
Thanks for visiting and listening
#flutemusic #stillness #presence #slowdown #naturetherapy
7
126