HaikuCat Creations

 I'm not sure where my mind's at right now, but I'm trying to show up for this little blogging challenge I've created for myself anyway. Two days later than normal again, but I never make my own rules hard and fast, so I'm letting that part go. Again. I have a bunch of potential topics for these blog posts in my notes app on my phone, but right now nothing feels appropriate and nothing is calling out to me. I feel like this post is going to be another that's got a phoning-it-in vibe. Oh well. I think part of the problem at this moment is a frustration with schoolwork taking up so much of my brain space, energy, and time. I don't always feel that way, but right now I do. I've got stuff due tonight and even if the actual work of it is only going to take an hour or two, it still crowds everything else out of my brain.  To top it off, I have nothing to show for my weekly creation. I do have a photo to share for Ordinary Beauty. Goose + Tree I just really lo...

 My blog post is coming in late this week because I got behind in my schoolwork and needed to play catch-up on Friday (when I usually blog) and yesterday. Going to keep it simple today. I'm still working on clarifying exactly what it is I want with regards to the Ordinary Beauty project. This past week, here are the photos I came up with: I like this because it's objects reduced to shapes and colors. I edited it as I usually do for my photos, cropping to frame it how I want, increasing warmth, and increasing saturation. I don't fully love it though. Partly because I didn't get the focus on the lamp post very sharp an partly because I'd like it to fill slightly more of the frame. I do really like the way the blue, the green, and the orange look together. Here is my runner-up: This is a "nicer" picture, I think, and it still does fit my criteria of what I'm going for, as it's a more up-close look at a plant than one might normally go for and I like t...

 I have been finding that in the doing of my Ordinary Beauty project, I am further clarifying for myself exactly what I mean to be doing. It's an interesting thing to me because when I set out this challenge for myself I thought I had a pretty good handle on what I meant. But, in the doing of it, I am discovering that sometimes my results are less than satisfying. I look at what I've got and I say to myself, "This isn't what I want." Take, for example, my results from week 5, which was the week of 1/29-2/4. I typically share what I feel is my best photo for this project, along with a runner-up if there is one, or at least that's how it's evolved over this first month of the project. But, this week's best photo left me feeling disappointed. Unicorn & Horse These are some statues in the corner of someone's yard. I think they represent ordinary beauty because I see them all the time, because they are kind of a little joke (they live on the corner ...

 I've been interested in block printing for a little over a year now, though I did have some experience with carving stamps for letterboxing when my kids were younger. I realized recently though that I wasn't experimenting or playing around with it much. The last time I carved a block was about half a year ago.  It occurred to me that maybe one of the reasons I wasn't practicing and playing around with this artform was that I was intimidated by the inking process. I have and have used water soluble block printing ink to make prints. It comes in a tube and has the consistency of acrylic paint. I find it difficult to get the ink on the block in just the right manner. I tend to either have too much or too little. Or, maybe I apply too much or too little pressure when I'm placing the paper to the block or the block to the paper. Of course it's something that requires practice to finesse and get a good feel for, but it seems like the frustrations surrounding my lack of e...

 Hey there! It's Friday which means it's time for my weekly blog post. Look, I'm as amazed as anyone that I'm here doing this on a Friday afternoon for the fourth time in a row considering I only posted two times in 2025 and once in 2024. The only way I can keep this up is by keeping it loose and keeping the pressure levels low, low, low. Therefore, despite the fact that my brain is yelling at me that this is supposed to be a blog about creativity and art, I am going to tell you about my experience with being a returning student. I am attending Arizona State University Online. I transferred all of my previous college credits from two different institutions to ASU in 2023 and I'm about to graduate (in May) with a degree in English.  I went back to school at an advanced age once before, in 2015 and graduated with an Associates Degree (English with a Creative Writing Emphasis). That experience was actually really great. I was 41-43 then and I took maybe 3/4 of my class...

 I decided this year to keep my creative goals as simple as possible. I slotted it right into the whole 52 for 52 structure I'm doing for so many other things. I decided I would make one creation per week and that I would leave interpretation pretty open as to what counts as a "creation." It could be a finished embroidery hoop art piece, or a carved stamp for block-printing, or, as it is for this week, a sketchbook spread. I figured I would know what counted and what didn't as I went along. For instance, this week I found myself already behind on this challenge due to not being finished with what I had planned on for the first week, and I knew I would need something non-taxing to get caught up. But I also knew a simple one-off sketch wasn't going to cut it, so I told myself I needed to fill up the whole spread for it to count. I did that, had fun, kept it loose, and I'm perfectly pleased with its imperfection.  As for what I did for the first week, it's a ...