Art Vs. Artist (instagram images from 2021)
Happy New Year! Vacation is wrapped up and I’m already back to work.
If you saw the previous post, I took 2 weeks off, which ended up being ok. It wasn’t all I had hoped for, but way better than if I had only taken off the usual week between the holidays. I’m back to work and feeling good about it. Never once had to say “now I need a vacation from my vacation”, so I take that as a good sign.
Top 9 posts from two different apps, showing my top images on instagram from 2021
In a perfect world, the second week I took off from work would have been like a test week off, to see how productive and scheduled I could be if I was able to work for myself from home. Ha! I know it is ridiculous to expect that, after having worked full time my entire life (sometimes up to 3 jobs at a time, 4 if you are counting going to school full time as work). I’ve often day dreamed of what would happen if I won the BIG lotto. In that world I take off anywhere from 2-6 months without any expectations, no schedules, no work, just to decompress and de-institutionalize my brain and body. After that, then I would dive in to my small art business full time, with a schedule that feels natural to me. But, take one week off without any obligations? Oh yeah, I’m gonna live that same dream in one week, ha!
As predicted, the week between the holidays is packed and can be stressful with many family/social gatherings, last minute shopping, holiday decorating, wrapping and cooking, etc. Week 2 started off to a great start. I created a to-do list of things I wanted to do while on vacation. Monday and Tuesday were good, Wednesday morning was off to another good start, but then I got a call from Matt that he had injured himself at work. It wasn’t a horrible injury, just sprain or strain to his arm when he fell and got his arm lodged between his truck and the weight of his body pulled on it. I went to pick him up an hour and fifteen minutes away. All the same, he is unable to work, so he is home for the time being. Well, as predicted, because even though I know I am like this, and I can’t seem to fight against it… now that he was home, the magic from being at home alone during the day got sucked right out the window. I still ended up crossing items off my list, but just not at the same rate I would have if I had been home alone. Writing this out, it makes me think that working from home is maybe not really a good option for me, and that in my dream world, I’ll definitely be needing my own dreamy mini cabin in the yard, to be my home studio, ha!
It was bitterly cold this last week, and with Covid raging, I rarely left the house, and yet, I was able to get in my 10K steps daily, and that alone feels like a success.
One of my top missions for the week was to make another 100 gelli prints to turn into envelopes that I use for my Life is Colorful and Scalloped Collage stationery sets.
Check ✓
Before the holidays, Matt and I also made not one, not two, but THREE kusudama ornaments. My sister-in-law (having admired the one we made for my in-laws) had requested one, and since Matt’s aunt has recently moved back to the area, I thought it would be a nice gift to make one for her too.
My sister in law had requested browns, sage green, white, taupe, and soft yellow, and for the other two, I just went with the flow and picked colors impulsively. The one that looks very yellow is kind of more of a yellow green and chartreuse theme, with what was supposed to be gold accents inside the petals, but you can’t really tell. It is the one we kept and I may go back in and add some gold paint to those edges, as I had envisioned it. The pink, orange, and green one went to Matt’s aunt and I had no idea if she was going to like the colors at all, but she immediately said “AND YOU USED MY COLORS” and it turns out she has those colors in her living room (which I never would have remembered).
At the very end of my vacation (and VERY LATE one night) I decided to start taking the Realistic Papercut Effect in Procreate on Skillshare, by Lisa Bardot. WOW! WOW! WOW! Can you believe I made this above illustration entirely digitally? I’m obsessed! This piece was intended to just be a simple “getting to understand the steps” illustration, but ended up being a lot more because it contains so many of my loves – paper cutting, collage, my actual prints, grass art, illustration. Maybe I’ll do a whole post on this, when I have a couple more pieces completed. Meanwhile, I did post more about this piece on instagram, with several reference images and a short video of the piece in process.
I did a lot more last week, but these were just a couple things I wanted to share. I also would like to add (since I also shared my top pics posts from instagram above) that I was very proud that I blogged at least once every month last year, if not two times. Blogging is not dead! Maybe this year I will aim for at least two posts a month? And of course, if you are here and would like to see even more content, you can follow along on instagram, where I share tiny updates a lot more frequently.
