I've had a lull in creativity since I last posted. It's important to me to work at being at peace with my creative rhythms, so I'm not going to get down on myself for it. I did finish the embellished embroidery mini that I showed in my last post and I got started on the next one.
I'm going to just go ahead and cover the entire face on that sun because... I don't know, I just don't like it.
A few years ago I made a little 3-inch embroidery that was just some pretty fabric that I embellished with stitching and beads. I made it for myself, not to sell. Now there's a space on my wall that needs... something, and I think three hoops of that size will fill it very well. So, I need two more. I didn't have any 3-inch hoops, so I deconstructed a couple of hoop art pieces I had made long, long ago (it's fine, they weren't very good), wrapped them in ribbon, and picked out a couple of pieces of fabric with interesting designs in the right size.
The one on top is the one I made a few years ago. The raccoon is from a piece of fabric my oldest gifted me and has lots of other cute animals with flower crowns, but the raccoon is the only one that would fit neatly in a 3-inch hoop. Here's a couple closer-up progress photos.
So, after my initial difficulties with my early attempts at acrylic painting, I decided to try to be smarter. I know I have a real problem with impatience and expecting any new endeavor to go smoothly right from the start. I can't help it! It always comes out great in my imagination! Somehow I never can get reality to match and that's when the paints and brushes go back on the shelf and gather dust for a few more months. Or years.
So that was when I came up with the brilliant idea that surely no one has ever thought of before to make a test/swatch card.
I tested each color straight from the tube, with a little water, with a little white, then that with a little water, a little more white, then that also with water. I didn't try to do any mixing between the colors; just with white so far. This has helped me (and hopefully will continue to be a good reference) to better understand not just how the colors work in each of these configurations, but how they look when they are dry. This swatch card is still missing the browns though. Also, with some of these colors there is more variation in the irl view than my camera's phone could capture (especially with yellow).
I did watch a video that talked about color mixing and I learned a few things. There were a lot of concepts that I think I knew on an intellectual level, but had never really used in a practical way. But, that felt a bit too much like a higher level than I'm ready for. I want to put what I've learned from doing these particular swatches into practice before I try that. I really shouldn't have gone bananas with that previous painting.
I tried out my new paints. I took a reference pic of some just-purchased bananas. I sketched out the shapes with a Posca marker and then started laying down areas of color. It's pretty bad.
But! It's not terrible-horrible-awful bad. You can tell what it's supposed to be. If you look at it kind of sideways or through squinty eyes it almost looks good!
Notes: Yes, you can see the marks from the previous painting showing through. I'm re-using old canvases because it helps me be less precious about things. Yes, the pink background is very patchy. I was running out of paint and didn't want to mix any more pink at that point. I figure I can return to this and add another layer later if I feel like it.
Learning Notes: I need to learn how to mix colors better. I need to learn what the colors are going to look like next to each other. I need to learn what they'll look like when they dry.
Also, I hate to say it, but I think I'm going to need more paint. The set I got has 12 colors, but the tubes are pretty small. And it goes so fast. It seems so expensive though.
Anyway, may or may not try to improve this later.
Here's a couple of Ordinary Beauty photos, both taken in fast food restaurants.
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| Open |
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| Crazy Chicken |
I've been trying to think, how can I best organize this self-teaching experience? Because I want to learn techniques and practice them, but I also want to be thinking about style, and about what direction I want to be ultimately moving in. I feel like there are so many different paths I could choose from. So many appealing and inspiring art styles and applications.
And maybe this is what had me stalled out so many times in the past. It feels like too big of a risk that I will waste time of pathways that are ultimately not right for me. I do recognize this as being unhelpful, but my impatient mind wants quick results and certainty. Not trying and failing, and trying and failing, and trying and maybe learning a little something, and trying and maybe, kind of, sort of, creating something I might actually like, and then starting that cycle all over again. Not trying something out, realizing I don't like it much, and then moving on to the next endeavor. But that's all there is. The sooner I can get my brain to accept that, the better.
Yeah, I don't know. You just paint, I guess. And I guess that makes me a painter because that's what I've been doing. Badly, but what are you gonna do?
This is a page full of butterflies I've been working on today. They're not finished, but they're mostly experimental anyway. A lot of water added, a little water added, no water added. Using this brush, using this other brush, or how about this one?
I pulled out my watercolors yesterday too. I won't show you the results because I just how it turned out that much. I can't make the pigment do what I want it to do. But I'll try again. The thing about watercolors is that I actually have a nice little quality set--Windsor and Newton--but it doesn't seem to make a difference with how things are turning out.
The acrylics, though...I still need to purchase myself some quality supplies, but even so, using them feels easier at this point, and I'm getting better results than I am with the watercolors.
Just keep going. Try this, try that. I painted, so I'm a painter. I made art, so I'm an artist.
If you say so, lady.
Firstly, I just want to make note of the fact that I am catching up on my 52 for 52 Challenges and I think I will be able to finish all of them by the end of the year. The challenges are (and I'm listing them here because I don't think I've ever put them all in one place): 52 creations (currently 5 behind), 52 Ordinary Beauty photos (currently only 1 behind), 52 blog posts (currently 4 behind), 52,000 words of fiction written (currently 26,314 behind, yeah, this one is the hardest for me), 52 books (currently on track), 52 albums (A-Z album titles, then Z-A artist names, currently on track), 52 dates (weekly dates with Pat, currently on track), 52 movies or full seasons of a series (currently on track), and 52 board games played (currently 12 behind). I feel like it's important for me to note this to myself because it's giving me clear evidence that being in school actually did hinder my ability to do all the other things I wanted to do, including being creative. That seems obvious, but I do think I was pretty harsh on myself for getting behind on my challenges even though I had classes for the whole first part of the year. Classes that required a lot of reading time, a lot of writing time, and a lot of general study time. The fact that I am managing to get caught up now should give my brain permission to give myself some grace and understand that time is finite (as is the amount of mental and physical energy I have to devote to these things). Whether or not I manage to keep that in mind moving forward is another story.
During the last week I finished completely my latest abstract hoop. In fact, I finished it before I had written my last post (about painting) but I didn't feel terribly motivated to share it, since my decision to step back from embroidery (for the purpose of selling) for the time being was at the forefront of my mind. But I did finish it and I do intend to add it to my Etsy shop in the very near future, along with the Orange Crush Cloudburst hoop I finished a while back.
As for painting, I took my two pages of messing around with making marks from last week and I added Posca marker to each of them, thus turning them into something a bit more intentional. I wouldn't call either of them ground-breaking or anything, but I kind of like them.
And finally, I did a somewhat more intentional painting on a previously used canvas. This, also, was an exercise from the painting book I currently have on loan from the library (Start Here: Paint, by Moira Clinch).
So, a couple of things I want to acknowledge about this painting. One, I don't like it. My lack of skill here bothers me. I think if I had executed it better, I actually would like it, so it's not the subject matter. Two, as usual, my phone camera is not showing the colors as my eyes see them. There are shades of blue here that actually look purple in real life, and the greens look more like blacks in the photo. And while I do think that that is a real issue with my phone's camera, I am also realizing, in this moment, that it's also a problem in terms of my color choices. I have seen videos in which people reduce their artwork to grayscale so that they can tell if their pieces have enough contrast and I think maybe I'm seeing a version of that here. So, that's something to keep in mind as I move forward. Something to learn more about.
But that right there is a demonstration of the success of this painting in facilitating what I want it to be facilitating: learning! And, so, as much as I do not like the way this painting turned out, I do like that I feel like I have learned some things along the way. The yellows in this painting, for instance, started out much more translucent, which was frustrating to me. But the book said something about adding a bit of white to create more opaqueness, so I tried that and suddenly the yellow was just popping off the canvas (so to speak).
Again, as I said in my last post, it's not that I have never, ever painted in this way. It's more that I haven't ever done it with the intention of learning, growing, and maintaining a steady practice. Here's to the beginnings of that journey!
In my last post I wrote that the embroidery piece I was working on was helping me re-evaluate my relationship with embroidery. As is sometimes the case, I wrote words about something I was feeling without fully realizing I was feeling them until that moment. I had to sit for a bit with the truth of them. And in doing so, I realized that what I actually need is to take a step back from embroidery, at least in the sense of my embroidering pieces to sell.
I don't even know if I can explain it more than that it's just a feeling I have that I need to follow through on. But one aspect of it is that I want to devote some time and effort to learning more about painting, with acrylics, watercolor, and maybe gouache at some point. I've dabbled, but I haven't put serious effort into learning techniques and improving skills, or even into figuring out what types of painting I most want to paint (finding my style, I guess). And I think a lot of the time when I am choosing a creative activity, I opt for embroidery because I am comfortable with it, instead of choosing something that leaves me feeling so much more out of my element. But the only way to get more comfortable is to be uncomfortable first.
I also have been having some ambivalence about Etsy and social media, and I have been wondering whether those platforms are part of the right path for me, but that's a musing for another day.
The point for now is that I want to get more serious about learning how to paint. In that vein, I picked up a couple of books on the subject from the library the other day. Yesterday I did a very simple exercise, just making marks, getting a feel for my brushes and what kind of viscosity I can get with different amounts of water mixed in to my acrylic paint. Unfortunately, I learned that a lot of the paint that I currently have is getting old and kind of globby. It's high time I purchased a new batch of colors, so that's next on the agenda.
I've been working on this piece for so long. Or it seems so anyway. It's becoming filled up, maybe even too busy, but I also think it wants more stitches, more beads, more elements. There's one long meandering chain stitch in there that I think could be symbolic of the piece as a whole. I meandered. I took my time. I took breaks when I felt like I needed to take breaks from it. Sometimes I'd just add a few small stitches and call it good for the day.
I also think this piece is helping me re-evaluate my relationship with embroidery right now. I don't know if I could tell you where I've landed with that, but I am realizing that there's something in this piece and my stitching of it that feels transitionary in some way.
Another bit of art: a sketchbook spread of a mushroom forest. I wanted to play around with bright colors, make use of my Tombow markers and colored pencils, and kind of figure out how I like to make weird mushrooms. Not sure I've made them exactly how I want to have made them, but it was fun.
Over the weekend, we (Pat, me, one of our adult children) took a quick trip to Utah to visit family and celebrate my Grandpa's birthday. It's been a long time since we've even been out of town, so that part was good and so was the opportunity to see family members. Not so good was the fact that we weren't really escaping the heat of Vegas since it was nearly as hot there as it is here. Thankfully, there was a bit of rain on Saturday that cooled things down considerably. I took some photos of the aftermath and I am counting two of them for my Ordinary Beauty challenge, which catches me up completely.
Speaking of Ordinary Beauty photos, here's one I have not yet shared. It was taken in my house; just something on the shelf that caught my eye.
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| Upside-down SUMMR |
So, it is August. In July I had intended to, again, catch up on all of my challenges for the year and I, again, failed to do so, but that doesn't matter because I did get closer to being fully caught up and the finish line isn't until the end of the year, and we aren't there yet.
I've temporarily abandoned the embroidery project I was working on that I showed photos of in my last post. Why? Because it just wasn't pulling me to work on it anymore. I find I still have a lot of work to do to let go of internalized messages about being "wishy-washy," indecisive, and/or lacking follow through. The embroidery piece is still there on my work table. It will wait for me to get back to it. It's feelings won't even be hurt if I never do.
It's a process to get to a point where I feel comfortable following my own inclinations and honoring my own desires or lack of desire when it comes to my creative work. A process that maybe never really ends. Pivoting direction is okay. Moving to different projects is okay. Even quitting outright is okay.
In the meantime, I started and finished this painting of a butterfly based on the one I put on one of my bubble wrap packages recently. I used Posca markers and in the middle of making it, I took a trip to the art supply store so I could buy a different purple than the one I had. I bought 5 other new colors while I was at it because the per piece price goes down when you buy more than one marker. So, that was exciting and I can't wait to try out some more of my new colors.
I had the idea a bit ago that if I inserted a bit of structure to my blog posts it might be easier to be consistent in my posting. So, here is me, trying that out.
Making: Currently I'm focused on this abstract embroidery piece. It's all in pinks, purples, and blues--colors I'm drawn to over and over again. I am following the shapes on the printed fabric mostly. The lines I've added so far weave in and out of the negative space and I've filled in some of the petals of the batik flowers, concentrating on highlighting that almond-like shape. It's slow-going because I only add a bit at a time, which feels like a fine pace for it at the moment.
Reading: I'm still in the middle of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I am re-reading in anticipation of reading James (Percival Everett). But I was waiting and waiting for the 7th Matt Dinniman dungeon crawler book, This Inevitable Ruin, from the library, watching my number creep ever higher in the hold-queue, when I saw that the e-book version was actually available without a wait. Which was weird because when I first looked at it, the line for that version was longer and waitier than the line for the print version, which is why I didn't bother with it. I guess they overestimated how long the wait would be for the e-book because now I'm finally getting my fix. (But I'm still number 2 in line for the print version and I'll switch when it comes in because e-books can trigger headaches for me.) This series is... something. I'm surprised by how much I'm liking it and I don't like having to wait between books.
Watching: I recently returned to some 90's and 2000's era movies and watched Father of the Bride (which Netflix is insistent that I know is leaving soon!!!), 27 Dresses, and High Fidelity. I don't even know what to say about these movies except that they give me a straight dose of nostalgia that feels so good. Makes me want to do another re-watch of Friends or something.
Playing: We recently bought a board game called Hummingbirds, which involves a whole bunch of sand timers and magnets and is fast-paced and fun, while still being super simple to learn and understand. I didn't take a photo when we played, so I can't show you and fully fill out this section like I probably ought to, but I can always save that for a future blog post.
Listening: In my album-listening challenge, last week I was on "artists starting with X" so I chose an X Ambassadors album called Townies. I liked it enough to give it four stars out of five, but apparently haven't listened to again since, so... ?
Adventures: This section is for talking about places I went when venturing out into the world; "adventure" in both big and small interpretations. So, the most recent little outing I went on was to the Hoover Dam, with Pat, and I already showed one photo from that day. I don't have a lot more to say about it because it was very, very hot and we didn't stay that long. We live close, but it's been quite some time since we've been there. Here's a few more photos:
Okay, well, I did the format. I am not sure I did it justice, but maybe I can settle into it as I do it more. But, frankly, I'm not completely sold on it. We'll see. (I did have potentially some other categories to add as well and, again... we'll see.)
I wanted to write about a couple of reading challenges I've given myself. They're not part of my 52 for 52 Challenges. They're just kind of... some interests of mine that are guiding some of my reading choices. I also, every year, do a reading challenge called Around the Year in 52 Books. It's from a Goodreads group and every year they come up with a list of 52 prompts to fulfill using your reading choices throughout the year. I like to read at least a book a week and this gives me a good set of ideas to draw from when looking for books. These loose challenges are also something different from that.
Both of these kind of, sort of, follow from experiences I had while earning my college degree recently. In some ways, I was disappointed in my learning experiences and felt like some of my classes were too short to fully delve into the topics. The way these classes were set up, they were meant to be easily fit into the life of a working adult, so each semester was split into two seven week sessions. Ostensibly, they took the same material that would be in a longer class and just presented it all in a shorter period of time. Practically speaking, I'm not sure that's how it worked. I do think some content necessarily got lost in the shortening of longer classes. Then again, maybe it's just the nature of institutional learning. Maybe it's a me-problem. I'm an autodidact at heart and I think I learn better at a leisurely pace.
The first is an extension of a project I did for an English class. I was to create a public-facing piece of media on any topic of my choosing under the broad umbrella of literacy. I decided to create a blog about retellings. What I mean by that are fictional works that revisit older pieces of literature. Sometimes these works tell the story from a different point of view. Sometimes it takes the narrative further into the future than the original author brought it. There are all kinds of ways authors approach retellings. I read and wrote about a few of these (Wide Sargasso Sea which grew out of Jane Eyre and Vinegar Girl based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew) on a blog that I set up for that project, thinking I might continue with it even after the class was done, but I haven't. I don't expect that I will, but I am still interested in the concept. One book that I read after finishing the project that would have fit well was called Longbourn and it was inspired by Pride and Prejudice. It's the story of the servants of the house and takes place at the same time as the the events in Austen's novel. Those events serve as a backdrop, but the main story is completely different. I want to continue finding new examples of this and reading both the original work, if I haven't read it already, and the new spin. Currently I am re-reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in anticipation of reading James, by Percival Everett. (I read Huck Finn in school, but don't remember much.)
The second loose challenge has to do with children's and young adult literature. I took classes on both topics and while I felt the classes were okay, I wouldn't say I got as much out of them as I was hoping to. So, I decided that I am going to read all of the Newberry Medal winners in reverse chronological order. So far, I have read the winners from this year and last year. I am sure I have also read some of the older ones previously, either in childhood/young adulthood or later with my kids, but I intend to re-read them when I come to their year of winning. What will I get out of this? A better understanding of children's literature and what makes it good, which will be helpful in my own writing journey, as well as, I hope, just a good reading time in general.
I switched the template of this blog, but it's still a placeholder at this point. I've been putting off and putting off and putting off changing up the look of it. I have used a couple of different plain white ones at different times, both of them un-customized default blogger templates. Whenever I'd actually look at the blog, I'd be reminded that I needed to prettify it. This, too, is a default template using one of the provided backgrounds. I mean, I like those poppies, but ultimately I want something more unique to myself.
The bones of this blog are Blogger bones. I use it because it's what I've always used. And I used to have no problem customizing the look of things. I don't know what my problem is now.
I've been blogging on this platform since 2002, apparently. I just went to look at my old (private) blog and I came across this gem:
"Today I ate at Long John Silver's for the first and last time."
And you know what? As of right now, that's 100% true. I'd like to congratulate past me for her prescience.
If this post feels very filler-esque, it's because it is. I want to catch up on my challenges. I am determined to get to the point where I can go back to doing things on a weekly basis by the end of this month. In the meantime, it means my blog posts are both numerous and pointless. If it makes you feel any better, I have a Plan (with a capital P!) for when I go back to blogging weekly.*
*that is a joke, because I have never blogged weekly, blogging weekly is for people who have their shit together, and my shit, alas, is separate
Oh, and here is an Ordinary Beauty photo I forgot to share:
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| Thistle |
In looking at my old writing books, I decided that the best way to deal with my lack of motivation to write regularly was to reach back into my past and try to tap into some of the enthusiasm and excitement I used to have about it. That book, What If?, that I talked about in my previous post was a book that I bought when the idea of being a writer was fresh and new and untainted by the harsh reality that writing is hard and getting published is harder. I was falling in love with words and relishing my own self-assigned brilliance when I was able to string those words together in a way that pleased me.
The first exercise in the book involves writing a series of first sentences. These are just that, first sentences, with no expectation that you will take it any farther. It's about gaining experience in starting a story in media res, or in the middle. The most compelling stories are the ones that (ironically, for this post) do not begin at the beginning. When I was a teenager and had just purchased this book, I did this exercise a lot. It was fun and I enjoyed coming up with sentences that were surprising or funny in some way.
To try to kick-start (again) a regular writing habit, I thought it would be a good idea to try to go back in my mind to that time, so I started by returning to that exercise. And it was fun! I enjoyed it. But I have to admit, I also had a hard time with it. There's something different about a middle-aged, jaded brain tackling this exercise as opposed to an optimistic young brain (that is, perhaps, obvious). I reveled in it then; I found it more difficult to get into the state of mind needed now.
What is that state of mind? Open, careless, playful. That's where I need to be to write regularly because that's the state of mind that gives the practice a sense of joy. I need that state of mind for all of my creative endeavors, really. It's a matter of letting go of all the thoughts that bog my mind down (what will people think? is this too weird? nobody's going to get this) so that I can approach it weightlessly. Easier said than done.
Here is a photo I took yesterday that I will add to my Ordinary Beauty Photo Challenge. It's taken at the Hoover Dam. I don't consider going to the Hoover Dam to be ordinary, despite our relative proximity to it. But I wanted to look at some small un-noticed area and capture its beauty. Some small part of the whole that isn't the most obvious photo opportunity. I like the curved line of the shadow, the blues and greens, the tiny wavelets.
This is a photo of all of the books about writing that I have collected over the years. Some of them I have read more than once. Some more than twice. Some I have never finished and at least one I never started. That one called What If? near the top of the stack was a book my high school English teacher used when she was teaching a unit on creative writing. She had a well-thumbed copy on her desk and I asked her about it, found it at the bookstore, and bought one for myself. One of the few teachers I had who left a lasting, positive impression on me. Just today I discovered that there is a longer, more involved version of that book that is used in college writing classes and I am tempted to get that to add to my pile.
Where am I going with this blog post? I don't know. I've just been thinking about writing. I've been thinking about all the years in which I have wanted to be a writer and all the years in which I haven't written consistently. There have been huge gaps of time in which I didn't bother writing any kind of fiction at all.
I started and finished 4 (maybe 5?) stories when I was taking a couple of fiction classes in my 40s that earned me a creative writing associate's degree. Over the past couple of years, I got a good start on a couple of different stories, but just that--starts. No finishes. Most of the time I don't even have starts. Most of the time I don't even have random exercises.
I really want to change that. I really want to figure out how.
My catch-up schedule (as referenced in the previous post) says I need to finish 3 creations each week in July. My previous post showed you one; here are the other two.
These two hoops are re-makes of a couple of hoops I made previously and sold. My customer (who shares my name and has an awesome collection of whimsical, colorful art on her walls) asked if I would revisit these designs. It's actually the first time I've re-made a cloudburst hoop like that. I usually just grab some fabric that catches my fancy and add elements as I go, without any definitive plan. I do think I prefer doing it that way more, but I also enjoyed the idea of re-creating something specifically because someone liked the original. And these two are designs that I really did love how they turned out the first time around. All in all, a good experience.
I got to the end of June without catching up on my challenges, but that was fine because I did get closer. And, honestly, I was being a little unreasonable with the timeline anyway. Whatever. New plan! I'm going to catch up on all categories by the end of July! I made myself a little schedule that told me how many whatevers I needed to do/make/watch/listen to in each week and then promptly set about not doing them. Today is Thursday which is the last day of the week (you might think the last day of the week is actually Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, depending on your particular philosophy of day-counting, but you would be wrong--at least for the second half of 2026...hello, welcome to my brain), which means I can catch up to my schedule by catching up to this end-of-week checkpoint. Which means I need to make two blog posts today. I'm sure this all makes perfect sense to everyone in the world, including, and especially, to me.
I also needed to finish creating some object or other by the end of the day, so I wrapped it up with this beauty.
And by "beauty" I mean "nope" because, through no fault at all of the pattern, I did not do a very good job with this piece. As it's a holiday piece, you can probably tell there was some amount of avoidance going on with it, but what would you say if I told you I started this piece in 2022? Probably nothing, as it's not really that interesting of a fact. It was a free pattern meant to be done as an advent piece. You stitch one element every day of December until X-mas has arrived. Obviously, I didn't do that. I did a few elements, set it aside, picked it up years later, did a few more, set it aside... and so on.
But it's finished now! Too bad my stitching is so inconsistent and weird. Too bad my color choices have created absolutely no cohesiveness whatsoever. It's done and it's going on the list.
I posted this one the other day thinking I was finished, or possibly that it just needed a couple small things added and to shift the hoop frame because the top was off center. So I shifted and added and it turned out I actually needed to add quite a bit more. But it's done now and I'm calling it Orange Crush.
I'm currently stitching two additional cloudburst hoops that were a custom order of two designs I had previously made and then sold. This custom order made me think I could probably make a custom listing for this size of cloudburst hoop, made-to-order style, in which one can order from a variety of designs I have previously made. So I'm working on getting that together, but first I need to make sure I have the materials. Then I need to decide which designs to offer. I do not normally offer commissions or customs, because it stresses me out. But remaking something tried and true is different and something I think I can enjoy.
As for my catching up with my challenges, I am at the point where I need to catch up with my catching up. Oh, well. No matter what happens at least I have made progress. And I do think I will get to where I want to be by the end of the year.
With an order that I took today, a custom request for two cloudburst pieces that are essentially re-making two cloudbursts I made in the past that sold, I have officially surpassed my highest year's revenue since I opened my Etsy shop. I won't mention what that amount is because my business is still really at the hobby level, but I just wanted to make note of it because having gotten to that point when the year's still not quite to the halfway mark feels really good.
In other news, yesterday Pat, one of our kids, and I went out to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge for some nature therapy. It was over 100 degrees, but there was shade (in places) and a breeze so the heat didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. There was a lot to see and hear (Merlin told me there was a Blue Grosbeak! (birds became interesting to us when we turned 50, that's just how it goes)) and I took the time to really notice the calm, peace, and happiness in my body that was purely the result of being in nature. Sometimes I think I forget how profound that feeling is and it surprises me when it washes over me again.
I've sent out a handful of orders in boxes that I upcycled by adding posca pen decorations to appropriate sized boxes I had received myself in the mail. I loved doing that and felt like I was adding a fun element for the person who had ordered my art. Not only did it give me a chance to reuse something that was essentially garbage, but it added something personal to the experience of buying some of my art.
Unfortunately I don't get appropriate-sized boxes that often. My usual go-to for sending out a piece of embroidery hoop art is a bubble envelope. But I want to keep my whimsy level sustained for all of my packages, not just some. So, I decided to pre-decorate a couple of them yesterday and today. The rainbow is cute, but basic. The butterfly, though--! I'm enamored with how that turned out.
I'm going to work on creating a small stock of decorated packaging, so I have it ready for any and all sales.
I wanted to talk about some of my other 52 for 52s. These are the ones I didn't talk about in any previous blog posts because I was trying to keep the blog focused on art and creativity. But, a) I don't really want to limit myself like that anymore and b) watching movies, listening to music, and playing games is actually part of the creative process. It's part of the input phase. The things we experience go in and the creativity comes out. A creative person takes inspiration from all kinds of places and I don't want to discount that part of the process.
So, games. We have a lot of board games. This picture shows only some of them. Another couple of shelves were cut out of the picture. This picture actually kind of sucks, but I don't like to make a blog post without a photo, so...
We actually used to have more, but last year we did a challenge in which we played all of our games in alphabetical order (one game night per week, playing two each time--you can do the math) and we culled some of the ones we didn't like very much. We did that because we were feeling like we never got any use out of the games we had. We bought them, played them once, and then let them sit on the shelf gathering dust. And then when we did pull one out we'd say, okay now, how do you play this again? And we'd have to relearn it all over. (I mean for the more complicated ones--we do know how to play Uno.)
I was still feeling like I needed some structure to make sure that we made use of our game collection so I included it in my 52 for 52 challenge. One game played per week. Only, you know, I'm way behind. I'll get caught up by the end of June. Yesterday we played Uno and Scrabble. Today we played Tsuro, and in a few minutes we will play Kingdomino and Zombie Dice. When I say we, by the way, I mostly mean me and Pat (the husband), but occasionally our youngest joins in.
Movies! I used to watch movies a lot more often. I have been feeling for a long time that I have let that particular pleasure of mine slip away. Maybe it's a problem of loss of focus due to too much social media. Maybe it's something else, I don't know. But when I was in classes at ASU finishing up my degree recently, I had more than one class that required me to watch some films and they kind of rekindled something in me. I have realized that I need to make time for watching movies. Time to appreciate the storytelling, the acting, the visuals. It can feel so good to just sit there after a good movie and let it settle in your brain. Again, I'm behind but working on catching up. Currently we have Apple TV (I like to rotate through streaming services) so I am trying to find films available there for these final days of June. So far, Pat and I have watched Outcome and On the Rocks. The first was okay, the second was better. To me, anyway. Pat thought On the Rocks was painfully boring.
And then there's music. We pay for a Spotify family account, but I feel like I don't listen to it often enough. Again, this feels like a thing that I used to enjoy more but that has inexplicably become something that I do less and less. It might have been a situation in which I listened to less and less over the years because it bothered the kids and the kids were who I was spending almost 100% of my time with for so long. But they've gotten older and I have more time to myself and listening to music isn't going to bother anyone, so I want to make it more of a habit. I'm trying to listen to both new-to-me music as well as tried and true stuff. I'm using the alphabet as a guide and listening to at least one album per week, with the first 26 weeks being albums whose title start with A, then B, then C, and so on, and the second 26 weeks I will listen to albums by artists whose names start with Z, then Y, then X, and so on. This is one 52 for 52 that I'm not behind on. I might list them all at the end of the year here, just for... I don't know, for the sake of something to post, I guess.
At the beginning of the year, I came up with a series of challenges, all related to the fact that I was turning 52 this year and there are 52 weeks in a year. 52 for 52. I intended to create 52 things (art/crafts), read 52 books (that's actually my usual goal number each year, so not exactly out of the ordinary), take 52 photos of ordinary beauty, blog 52 times, play 52 board games, listen to 52 albums, watch 52 movies, and...um, I think that's it? No, that's not it. I also wanted to write 52,000 words of fiction by the end of the year.
I have fallen behind on almost all of them. I have changed my internal rules about many of them. But, today I am determined to get back on track. There are 12 days left in June and when June is over, the year is halfway done. So, my plan is to use these 12 days to catch up on everything. Then I will get back to a more manageable weekly schedule for these things.
Except, actually, the writing. It was a really low bar I was giving myself there. 1,000 words a week is less than 150 words a day. For this one, to catch up, I'd rather just increase my word count goal for each day for the rest of the year. I subtracted the small amount of words I've already written from 52K, divided it by the number of days left in the year and came up with 245 words a day. I might/probably will write more about the writing stuff here later, but for now that's enough about that.
I've written about some but not all of these categories because I wanted to keep this blog focused on art and creativity, but I think I'm going to let go of those parameters and just let it be whatever it wants to be. Since I am going to need to write a blog post every day for the next twelve days in order to catch up to where I want to be on the blogging part of the challenge, I'll probably talk more about some of those other things soon. Or not. Who knows?
Anyway, I finished this hoop today.
Except for the part where I need to shift the fabric's position so the hoop hardware is actually on the top. Also, looking at it right now, I feel like I might want to add another orange bead in there. And one more sequin rain drop? Hm, maybe I'm not quite as done as I thought I was. Let's just say I mostly finished it.
I chose orange batik fabric for this because I was using one of my already wrapped hoops that I was recycling from a previous project. (I love glitter ribbon and need to get some more.) I started laying down tapestry wool French knots, ran out of what I was using, got some more, and only then realized that I was mixing blanc and ecru (white and a little less white). It was very subtle, but I could tell the difference in the colors when I looked at them in the light. I decided to lean into it and just make the whole cloud an even-ish mix of ecru and blanc and I think it turned out nice, though you can't even really tell from the photo. When looked at in the light, it reminds me of buttered popcorn.
I know I've probably said it before, but orange isn't really at the top of the list in terms of colors I like to work with. But I feel like I've reached for it often enough lately that I ought to rank it somewhat higher. Orange can be really vibrant and lovely and I'm coming around to appreciating it more and more. Also, looking at this is making me think I could make a rainbow set of cloudburst hoops, maybe. Maybe.
Okay! Now it's time to tell this one's story. I feel like I'm going to struggle because I'm not sure this one has as much of a story as the previous one. I don't want to go into the thinking behind every single minute decision I make on each piece, but I do want to hit the important bits.
So, I started off with the blue ribbon-wrapped hoop. A while back I went through all of my embroidery projects that weren't either on my wall or in my shop and took a bunch of embroidery art out of the hoop frames they had been in. The embroidery itself either went into a pile which I will use to create... something (I'm thinking some kind of book so that I can look back at my embroidery journey) or, (not really that) sadly, to the trash. So I ended up with a lot of hoops available for re-use. Some of them had ribbon-wrapping, some didn't. This one did and the ribbon's color went really well with some green and blue batik fabric I had recently bought.
The batik print was so pretty that I wanted to make sure to not fully cover it up with my designs and to just use it as a jumping off point for my stitching and line choices.
I braided a length of tapestry wool in blue and aqua and messed around with the placement before stitching it down to the surface.
After that there was a long period in which I didn't take any process photos, so no illustrations, sorry. In adding the line of tapestry wool and the stitched lines that followed I was attempting to follow the curves of the batik print as they already existed. I have a thing for swirls and whorls and spirals, so it was really pleasing to me to build upon the print. The center of the spiral on the fabric has a white spot, almost as if it is shining and that gave me the idea to place a nice, shiny, medium-sized, clear glass bead in that spot.
As I continued to add elements, it occurred to me that the piece was reminding me of moving water. Specifically, it reminded me of the little pockets of life you can find in a stream or creek where the flow of water is slowed down into a little pool. I decided I wanted to call it something reminiscent of that and ended up with "Currents."
These little pockets are typically teeming with life and activity; tiny fish, dragonflies and other bugs, reflections and shiny pebbles. I wanted my piece to bring that to mind. I continued adding bits and pieces here and there, lines and swirls, beads and chain stitch sections, and a smattering of various types of shiny thread and sequins so that the piece would catch the light in places in the same way that the flowing water of a creek will catch the sunlight and toss it back toward your eye.
Sometimes it's really hard to know when a piece is done-done and this one, I think, is somewhat more minimalistic than other abstract pieces I have done. But it was very important to me to let the batik underneath shine through in all of its glory, as it was the thing that guided and inspired everything I did.
This piece took roughly 8 hours combined to stitch (I think, I'm actually pretty bad at keeping track). I'm super pleased with how this piece turned out. Green is not one of my go-to color choices, but this fabric was just calling to me. This piece will be listed in my shop by the end of the day. (6/9/26)
