Video summary
In this episode of Inkblot Alchemy, artist Kim Deas Holm begins the session feeling physically and mentally exhausted after a series of demanding days involving work, meetings, and logistical changes for her channel. Rather than pushing herself to create something complex that requires intense focus, she decides to seek a simpler, more relaxing approach to drawing from a small, random inkblot. She explains that her fatigue is not merely due to the volume of tasks but stems from how she processes stress, particularly in social situations where she feels the need to appear calm and adjusted. This pressure causes her body to tense up internally, leading to burnout even when her external activity level seems low.
To navigate this state of exhaustion, Holm chooses to interpret the inkblot as three distinct figures, initially envisioning them as childlike characters with crossed arms who are looking away from one another. As she begins to draw, she adapts her concept to match her current energy levels, transforming the figures into more monstrous and easier-to-render silhouettes while keeping a central, larger figure that represents a parental or stuck element within the group. She utilizes the dual-tone capability of her ink setup, using pink ink as a sketch layer for hands with clenched fingers before refining the details in black, allowing her to experiment freely without the fear of ruining the composition.
The narrative of the artwork evolves into a commentary on social anxiety and the internal monologue of feeling misunderstood or having done something wrong despite doing nothing specific. Holm adds speech bubbles to the figures, settling on the phrase "What did I do?" to capture the sensation of being unfairly judged or stressed by social expectations. She acknowledges that while the final piece is not a technical masterpiece, it successfully conveys a relatable feeling of tension and the physical manifestation of stress in the jaw and muscles. The video concludes with her signing the artwork as "Unknowing," inviting viewers to relate to these shared human experiences of exhaustion and social pressure.
Read the full video transcript
Hi there. My name is Kim Deas Holm, and
this is Inkblot Alchemy, where we use
our creativity to draw something out of
chaos.
Now, what will we find in today's
inkblot?
So, it's a very small little inkblot.
Uh and I thought maybe
we can copy it like this.
This.
And
see if that sparks anything in us.
Today,
I'm a little bit exhausted. I'm a little
bit tired.
It's been some long and hard days. So,
what I'm going to be searching for is
something simple, something
that doesn't require me to
uh
to push my abilities to the edge, that
that isn't exhausting to do.
A little bit more relaxing. But, at the
same time, I don't just want to do a
another one-eyed ink monster. I I I want
to do a drawing of some some kind. So,
maybe these will be figures.
Or they may be the gaping mouths of some
creatures.
Or maybe they're silhouettes of some
city.
I don't know
yet.
But, while we keep looking and seeing
the possibilities, allow me to briefly
explain what Inkblot Alchemy is. Two
times every week, I draw something new
from a random inkblot and release the
video of the full process, unedited and
unscripted, except this intro script. I
may have ideas of what to draw,
but the ink always decides the
direction. It might get get dark, it
might get silly, it might get personal,
it might get political. If you want to
skip the whole process and just see the
final image, you are free to do so. The
final image is marked in the video. But,
if you want to come along, then random
ink drawings is not just drawing it.
It's fun, it's play,
it's magic.
It's inkblot alchemy.
Now,
the first thing I'm seeing here
is
that Yeah, what if we make them into
figures?
What if we take these inkblots
and say
the top part of them
is sort of a head.
These are three heads, okay?
I'm starting to maybe envision
uh
an image. I don't know.
It might be something something
I want something I want something light.
I want to do it like
simple or
cartoony or
Yeah, because I am exhausted.
I'm not exhausted
because I've done
so much, but but because I've
done things that are
too much for me. And that's
one of the
One of the things about getting a autism
diagnosis
at the age of 46
>> [snorts]
>> it is that it really
puts into
perspective
why
I
with regular intervals get so
burnt out and exhausted even though I
haven't done
things that
other people
might consider
exhausting.
So so for instance the last few days,
you know, I I worked a lot.
Um a couple of days ago
setting up uh the
the day where we
changed the
camera setup and the lighting setup and
came up with the name
Inkblot Alchemy.
That was a lot of work that day.
Not just with that but but with other
stuff as well.
And there's been you know
meetings, doctor's appointments
and all of that small random stuff.
And instead of just being
mentally
exhausted by head,
I
get
physically
exhausted as well.
So,
yesterday,
even though I had done
reasonably little the day before,
>> [snorts]
>> I woke up and felt almost like I had
been on a long run
the day before.
And
>> [sighs]
>> in previous times, I would have
wondered, you know, am I sick? Is it
depression?
What is it?
And
now,
I'm starting to realize
that
it's
simply a reaction on how I deal with
stress. That
when when especially in like social
situations and
if there are people around, which there
are. You know, I have a wife, I have two
kids.
Uh
there are people around in some sense
all the time.
Uh
and
to protect myself,
I
tend
to tense up, to clench my jaws, to tense
my muscles.
To
um
to stiffen my whole body.
And even though
on the surface of things
I have done comparably little
but
inside
mentally
and also inside in
the musculature
I've
just been
pushing myself.
Pushing myself to
appear
normal
to appear
calm, to appear adjusted.
And
yeah, that's not a good strategy.
What am I drawing here? So so
I suddenly got this image in my head
of these two
for at first they were like childlike
figures.
They're grumpy
and with their arms crossed.
Each of them
looking
their own way
away from the middle figure.
And
as I began drawing them, I remember that
I I I'm tired today.
Instead [snorts] of
making them these
child figures, which is
a little bit harder to draw,
I'm making them these more
monstrous figures.
Monsters are easier to draw because
monsters are
they can be anything.
And then there is this
>> [snorts]
>> this figure in the middle
that's sort of
stuck, [snorts]
and he's
one of them, I I'm guessing.
He's a bigger figure, so that that means
it's a Maybe it's a parental figure.
I don't know.
Now I'm
I I I've laid down some
of the
uh pink ink
as sort of a guide to what I want to
draw, but I can also
change it. So now I've indicated
these
uh
hands that are
with the fingers clenched.
But, I can just
draw that
another way.
And then, I can go in and fix
the pink ink
afterwards.
So, that's one of the beauties with
>> [gasps]
>> working
with
two tones, with both black and pink, is
that you can
use one of them
as sort of a sketch layer.
Sketch layer, not the sketch the sketch
slayer.
That's a
my new TV show.
Buggy the sketch slayer.
I don't know what it's about.
So,
what I'm thinking
now
is
whether these are
things in my mind or or
or
things in my life.
I'm thinking that the idea is
>> is this feeling
of
the guy standing in the middle here.
Looks a little bit off now, but we'll
see if we can
get it to work.
Yeah.
Mhm.
Eh.
Okay.
>> [clears throat]
>> It is what it is.
Now,
go like this.
Go like this.
And we'll just make this
into sort of a speech bubble.
And in my head now, I'm trying to
figure out what am I going to have.
What is the speech going to be?
And I'm oscillating between two
alternatives.
One is
I don't get it.
And the other [snorts] is more of a
what did I did
I don't necessarily a what did I do, but
a what did I did
and I I think that's what I'm landing
on.
And I
Yeah, that's much better. Just a tiny
little thing
made it better in my view.
And then we'll write
what
did
What did
I
d d
I'm not terribly happy with
the the space between
the letters here.
Looks like
something [snorts] skipped.
this
and uh
Yeah.
I think
that is it.
It's not a
It's not a masterpiece.
But it is
hopefully
It's a feeling that I can relate to.
And it's one of those
social feelings that
makes my jaws clench.
>> [sighs]
>> And uh
uh one of those social feelings that
stresses me
out. And this has been
uh Inkpot Alkemene number 17, number two
since we changed the name, but 17 still,
and I will call it. What should I call
it?
Um
knowing.
I like that.
And it is
Inkpot Alkemene
number
017.
And signing it.
And if you like this piece of art, then
it's uploaded at to ungeheuerholm.com
both as print and
uh can also purchase a original that's a
great way of supporting this. I release
all my art for free use so you can also
download it, you can
change it, you can copy it, you can even
sell it.
But if you want more art like this then
find a way to support, please, if you
can or just spread the word.
We also have have a Patreon and we have
a lot of other art and I'm a
drawing course and you get all that
information on ungeherholm.com
and
just to finish it, I mean
I don't know.
What did I do?
See you next week or
in a couple of days.