2024 - a crazy year in review

Can I do it again it 2025?

When I look back at this past year, I shake my head because what I have managed to do blows my mind. Did I plan all of this? But more importantly, can I do it again?

Honestly, I have no idea how I managed all of that. Of course, I plan things, like we all do, but to have actually done it—I have no words.

But let me show you what I am talking about. This is the list of stuff I managed to complete in 2024:

Work: I am self-employed but contracted as a safety certification engineer by a testing authority in Pretoria. And I managed to do 59 jobs for them in 2024. That is more than one per week! Practically, that means that I did several jobs in parallel because the average time for the work I do is about three weeks, with some jobs taking two to three months.

Business: I also do consulting work for South African companies who want to export their high-tech products. I assisted with 9 technical construction files for EU and UK exports.

Books read: I love the Goodreads reading challenge, and 2024 was a fiction year for me. I did read one or two non-fiction books, but I wanted to read more fiction, and cosy mystery is my genre of choice. I would read when I was eating breakfast alone or had to wait for people. My Kindle lives in my handbag, so it is always at hand for those unplanned minutes. And by doing this, I managed 145 books. I cannot tell you how that happened, but it did!

Books published: Thanks to my fantastic editor, Vanessa Wright, I got two novels in The Nations of Peace series published in 2024. You can check them out here: A Memory for Love (book 7), and Prime Pledge (book 8).

Words written: I've been keeping track of the number of words I write since 2014. I have been writing since 2000, so getting that first number of words for the spreadsheet took some effort. In 2024, I wrote 163,000 words. I have managed more in previous years, but in my defence, I have been busy with other things.

The good news is that the series' ninth book is on my priority list to finish formatting and send it to Vanessa next week for editing. It is scheduled for publication in April 2025.

Art projects: I did one commission (6 drawings) in 2024. I finished the Inktober challenge in October (I post my drawings to Instagram), about 10 pieces in a sketchbook, and completed 13 paintings. I didn't participate in any exhibitions last year but may do so again this year.

Other projects: I love building models and finished two in December. I bought a few items to make an apothecary cabinet, which I received this past week. There will be some construction work, and I am considering sharing my process in a few blog posts.

When I look at this list, I shake my head mainly because I cannot comprehend how I managed everything. Am I particularly motivated or productive? Definitely not. But once I get stuck in on a project, whether it is work or a painting, I get it done.

I put everything I have to do every week in my planner, mostly so I don't forget to do the laundry, but it helps a lot.

I don't plan the number of jobs; that is out of my control, nor do I plan the number of art projects. I lead an art group, so I have to plan projects for them, but I also belong to a group where there are two challenges every month. All these activities keep the artistic and creative juices flowing.

Writing has been in my blood for so long that I no longer think about it. Several ideas are on my list, so I am never short of ideas when the muse strikes me with the urge to pen a few words.

This post is getting long, so I will share my 2025 goals in another post.

Have you had a year like I had in 2024? What was your secret to getting everything (and more) done?

Do something creative. It's good for you. 😂 Until next time!

💜 Linzé

What happened to my ideas in 2023 - part 3

 A few thoughts on future ideas (Part 3 of 3)

In my last two posts I mentioned how I get (most) my ideas and how I dealt with them in 2023. This post will deal with how I deal with the 'future todo' ideas, and my thoughts for capturing the new ideas that will sprout in 2024.

I have reverted to using a Bullet Journal again, my way. No colourful drawings or fancy layouts, just the basic structure to get the myriad of things done. And the 'future todo' ideas were the perfect items to add to the Future Log. so that I don't forget about them, but more importantly find the right time to implement them.

My Future Log for 2024 is not a long list, but with more ideas popping up, the list will invariably grow as the year progresses.

So how to capture my new ideas in 2024?

About two years ago I made a lapbook with two folders inside. But I have not used the lapbook for anything, so I dug it out and removed one of the folder things; it has two pockets inside and which gave me the idea.

My 2024 handmade journal (left), with the folder and booklet (right)

The folder will be my bookmark, and I can fit a repurposed booklet I kept from an old Daphne's Diary into one of the pockets. I made my journal for this year but forgot to add a bookmark ribbon, so the folder is useful for that too. 

I have not used the booklet yet, mostly because my thoughts have been occupied with organising my studio and home office, and working on a few projects already in process.

So I will have to see how it is going to work. To be honest, it will work if I use it. How successful I found the new process, will be the question to answer this coming year.

Until next time!

💜🇿🇦 Linzé

PS: Keep an eye out for another book feature coming this week!

What happened to my ideas in 2023 - part 2

 The good, the bad and the delayed (Part 2 of 3)

Last week I mentioned that I went through my journal of 2023 and found 44 ideas I had - to write, paint or draw, or generally improve my creative life. This week I want to tell you what happened to those ideas.

Some ideas happen when I am playing in a
sketchbook. I used gouache for this one.

I am sure that you are like me, hoping that every idea we have will be a great one, but reality tells a different story. Some ideas should be discarded, others tried out to see if they could lead somewhere, and then there are the ideas for which the time is simply not right. And this last group of ideas can sometimes make us impatient even though we know full well that bad timing can be as bad as a terrible decision.

From my list of ideas, the business ideas definitely fell into this last category. There are things I have to do first before I can implement these ideas, so they are on a future to-do list.

I also found an idea I wrote down without adding any details of what I had in mind. Why I did that escapes me, so that one is a bust. That will teach me. LOL!

As for the rest:

* Three ideas were not used. These were for art projects that I did finish, but I didn't use the idea I wrote down in my journal.

* Twenty-three ideas were implemented. These were a mix of art and writing. That makes it 52% of the list, and not bad I would say.

* The remaining 17 ideas ended up as follows: 

- For future implementation: 5

- Rethink (maybe not such good ideas?): 6

- On my todo list right now (for doing in the next 4 to 8 weeks): 6

In Part 3 I will expand more on how I handle future todo's and share a few thoughts for capturing those journal ideas in 2024.

Until next time!

💜🇿🇦 Linzé

What happened to my ideas in 2023 - part 1

There were more ideas than I thought (Part 1 of 3)

Over the years I have found that ideas for creative projects often happened while I was writing down my thoughts in my journal. If I didn't do something with the ideas, they were “lost” because I don't read past entries in my journals.

This year I had a plan: I would mark the idea in the text with a symbol (I chose a smiley face) and also record the page numbers in front of my journal so I could find them later on.

The inside cover pages of my 2023 journal

Most of the time ideas related to a book I was busy with were incorporated into the story within a few days because they were part of a story close to finishing. But they were not the only ideas. Then I had a brainwave: maybe I should check out my list and see what happened to these ideas I had this year.

A few surprises popped up:

1. There were more smiley faces than I had page numbers on my list. This meant that I was so into the flow of writing down the idea that I forgot to add the page number to my list.

2. While working throught the list, I also found ideas where I didn't add a smily face. Since I mentioned that I don't reread my journals, how could I know there were more ideas? The names of characters caught my eye. Since I don't use the names of actual people I know in my stories, it wasn't hard to figure out that I was “thinking” about a scene in a book.

3. I even had a few ideas related to my business. The ideas themselves didn't surprise me, but that they came to me while I was writing about non-business things was the surprise.

I am not going to give away my ideas, but I thought to summarise the number and types of ideas I had.

1. Book ideas - ideas for a new story: 3

2. Book ideas - ideas for scenes in stories already in process: 14

3. Books - cover ideas: 3

4. Art ideas for new/finishing paintings: 9

5. Art ideas for experimenting: 3

6. Art practice ideas to learn/master a new skill or technique: 2

7. Writing/journal organising ideas: 3

8. Organising ideas - studio and home office: 1

9. Bookbinding and other book art/craft ideas: 1

10. Business ideas: 2

11. Other: 3

TOTAL: 44 😳

In Part 2 I will expand on what happened with these ideas.

Until next time!

💜🇿🇦Linzé

Painting with a limited palette - a review of Roman Szmal watercolour paints

Hello creative friend!

If you are taking part in Inktober2023, then you are doing something fun and creative and I hope you enjoy every moment. My Inktober drawings this year are not as detailed as you might have seen in the past, because I have a full plate and my time is particularly limited this October. And one of those tasks is the following review. If you have used this brand of watercolours,nlet me know what you think about these paints in the comments.

I couldn't afford a large number of colours, so I limited my purchase to the following colours: Gamboge (hue), Green gold, Magenta, and Payne's Grey.

The swatches and more info I wrote in pencil

I swatched them on Royal & Langnickel 300gsm CP watercolour postcards, then did a painting from one of my own photographs on Pontentate 100% 300gsm cotton paper, also CP.

I mixed the colours to see what would
happen - there were a a few surprises :)

I did the painting with only these four colours, and then added white and black ink to finish the painting.

Painting with only 4 colours

My impressions:

1. The Payne's Grey was sticky when I removed the pans from their packaging. The other colours were solid, so I thought to give it a day or so. It is now dry like the others. Perhaps it was still not dry before it was shipped.

2. The colours are intense, especially the Payne's Grey. It is do dark that it obscured the black line I drew for the swatches to see their translucency. It is a cool grey, but it is hard to see the blue tone even when highly diluted. But once mixed with the Gamboge, the resulting green left no doubt on that score.

3. I like the paints, and found them easy to activate, mix, and paint with. Once my budget allow it, I will definitely get some more colours.

PS: I put the Roman Szmal colours into the same palette I made for the tube watercolours I own from three other brands.

Final result

If you live in South Africa, you can buy them from Artsavingsclub, as I did.

Until next time!

🇿🇦💜 Linzé

The CreativeLife - abstract painting #2

 Hey there Creative Friend!

Today's post has some more info on the materials I have used so far plus a close-up of the painting after adding the blue layer.

Note that I purchase my materials from my local art supply stores, or online from South African art materials suppliers. Any good art materials can be used to create similar effects.

The background colours

I painted the background with Mars Black, Neutral Grey, Titanium White using these brands of paint. Zellen is a local brand and their Zelcryl acrylics are thick and very nice for impasto work, but I thinned it down for this painting.

Iris is another brand from a local company Prime Art. I am not sure if the paint is actually made locally.

Mont Marte needs no introduction, I am sure. Their dimension acrylics are really nice to work with too.

The texture mediums

In my previous post about this painting I mentioned the textured mediums. I like both, but for this painting the smooth medium didn't dry as expected even after I added the additional textured effect with the sponge roller, so I use the coarse medium as a second layer.

Atlas is a local manufacturer.

Dala is more well-known internationally. This medium actually contains grains of sand which provided the texture I was after for this painting series.

First 2 layers of colour

Next up are the first two colours I added to the paintings. Both are my darkest shades of these paints without adding any black. The first layers were unmixed, but I plan to mix the colours for the next two layers - which I will share in my next post of this project.

Another Zelcryl colour - permanent violet, and phthalo blue from Daler Rowney's System 3 series. I have recently started using the System 3 paints, and so far I really like the rich colours and the thick consistency of the paints.

And here is the promised close up. The texture is visible, although the colours appear more subtle. But these are the first layers. Stick around to see how I add more layers to achieve the effect I have envisioned for the paintings.

Until next time!

💜🎨 Linzé

The CreativeLife - abstract painting #1

Hey Creative Friend!

About two months ago I pulled out the last three square stretched canvasses in my stash and put them out on the table in my studio. At first I just painted the background a plain neutral grey. Then added the black and white blocks with palette knives. I liked the result but it was not yet a painting, or three.

Holding the 3 canvasses next to each other

A few weeks later, the muse tweaked my ear and the first layer of texture went down. When it was dry I was rather disappointed with the result. It was too smooth. Then I pulled out the heavy stuff. And that texture is really rough, I tell you. Had to stop myself several times from touching it while it was still wet. But I love the result! Now I can start painting.

Disappointment :(

   

That's more like it :)

The purple is a favourite colour of mine but it is just the first layer of many. 

Purple 😍

Stay tuned, as this project comes to life over the next days.

Until next time!

💜 🎨 Linzé

Art skills in lockdown: a personal story of 2020 #CreativeLife

Many people have mentioned that lockdown changed some if not all aspects of their creative lives this past year. It has been the same for me but in quite a surprising and unplanned way. I spent most of my available time writing and publishing books for the past ten years or so, but at the end of 2019, I decided to use 2020 to focus almost exclusively on improving my artistic skills.

I have been drawing and painting since 2015, but my primary focus had been to write and publish my books. With 25 books now published, I felt the need to change focus. Udemy courses, and TheVirtualInstructor.com, have been my primary sources of training and practice, but it was inktober52 that provided the challenge to take my ink drawing to another level with a weekly prompt for the entire year.

Then Covid-19 struck, and another dimension of art made its way into my life: teaching art to others. The teaching part did not scare me, as I have been training engineers over the years, but art? How does someone who is still learning herself going to teach others, and within the constraints of hard lockdown too? Although I was still learning, I have also learned that I preferred dry art mediums, except ink and wash, where I like the use of watercolour for urban sketching and landscapes. Now I was asked to teach others who might prefer painting. You might say that I could have declined, but it was lockdown and they are my friends, so I decided to do it to see how it would go.

3D dragonfly in my art journal

The first obstacle was the lack of face-to-face opportunities as I would have preferred to teach. It makes the feedback and personal attention so much easier to manage because they were all at different skill levels. One friend is more skilled than I am, but the others were real beginners, so you can understand my predicament. The experienced friend helped out where I needed help when it came to the painting mediums.

Of course, the most basic skill is to learn to draw and while I focused on that, everyone was itching to use the mediums they had, received from family, or could purchase online. A day or so of contemplation on how to do this, I came to the idea of using art journaling to get the ball rolling.

Quote from Marcus Aurelius
printed on acetate

Lockdown was extremely stressful especially at the beginning when the feelings of being locked in, and restricted movement had all of us experiencing a new level of anxiety. Journaling seemed to be the perfect solution to the situation. Everyone could learn to draw and paint and benefit from the process of journaling at the same time.

And it worked. The first six weeks were the hardest and yet we all came through it with our sanity intact, and a few more skills.

Teaching art skills during the lockdown

At first, I used WhatsApp and email. Since we are friends, it was a simple process of coming up with an idea, provide everyone with an example that I drew, or a link to a video from a website like YouTube or a free Udemy course. Videos made up for the lack of live demonstrations.

As lockdown progressed and people became more comfortable with online meetings, we moved our daily challenges to a weekly online meeting where I could demonstrate a new technique they were not yet familiar with, or we could chat and come up with new projects or mediums to tackle.

Before the online sessions, I found several photographs online (not always royalty-free, but I warned everyone about sharing their projects on social media) with increasing levels of difficulty to draw.

With the online sessions via Google Meet (thank you Google for keeping it free!) we made our challenging project to date: a lapbook where we can add a journal and another book such as a sketchbook, to continue our creative practice.

In South Africa, we are now on day 277 since lockdown started, and as I look back over this time of stress and anxiety, I think that our time was well spent in dealing with the effects of the pandemic by doing something of value to ourselves.

The road ahead: 2021

From a personal perspective, I am busy learning oil painting (and not yet sure that I like the medium, although it might too early to tell), finished the last of the weekly inktober52 drawings, after completing the inktober 31 daily drawing challenge in October.

My almost daily creative practice will continue with more art journaling, drawing and painting. I may even write another book!

You can also follow my #CreativeLife with regular updates on Twitter (#TheTinyBroom).

Stay safe and healthy, until next time!

●︙● Linzé 🇿🇦💜

A to Z Challenge: Day 26 - Z

Zucchini flower by Linzé

Not one of my favourite vegetables, but I have to say that I do like eating the flowers. But here is a gouache painting (using it like watercolour paint) on watercolour paper.
 

And with this painting, I have to say goodbye to the #AtoZChallenge for 2020. I hope you enjoyed all the creative posts and that you will remember to pop around in future for more posts about my creative life and those of other authors and artists.

Until next time!

💜Linzé 
  

A to Z Challenge: Day 29 - Y

Yellow Fungus by Linzé

This yellow fungus appeared after a few days of rain in September 2017. It grew out of the wooden structure supporting one of our rainwater tanks. I have only seen it that once and never again.
Drawing done with Caran D'Ache museum aquarelle pencils on white paper.

A to Z Challenge: Day 24 - X

X-stitch by Linzé

I found this little cross-stitch kit in a magazine. I cannot remember when or which magazine, sorry. I did think that it would be a good project (and appropriate) for this time of isolation and it is small enough that it can be completed in a few hours.

So I stitched it, made the background as per the instructions and now it is hanging on my pin board right next to my table in my workshop where I spend my time drawing or painting.

Reflections on life during #LockdownSAExtended

Linzé's Sunday Thoughts and Things

I have been taking stock of life during lockdown. For me it has been busy with working, drawing, painting, supporting some friends, and issuing creative challenges to some of the ladies in my writers group.

Then last weekend the lab I work with, received permission to start working again. So we did this past Wednesday. At first it was weird driving on one of the busiest highways in the country without traffic. Sure there were other vehicles with me on the road, but the only things I had to focus on were staying in my lane, keeping to the speed limit, and generally just driving. I can tell you this though: it never felt so far to the lab than it did on Wednesday.

Coming back was just the same, except that I had a traffic police officer drive behind me for a while before going past me as I made my way to my off-ramp to go home. Not an unusual occurrence for them to do that, but for some reason it was more nerve-wrecking than normal.

What did I manage to achieve?

I had to ask myself that because 30 days (and counting) is a long time to be living a life outside of the norm.

I decided to make a list (yes, the engineering brain cannot get away from those):

1. I did at least one drawing every day. Some days I did more than one, and sometimes I did a painting with gouache. I am busy with another one today.
2. I managed to write 20,000 words for Camp NaNoWriMo. I was not happy with what I wrote, so don't hold your breath that those words will ever see the light of publication. No joke, sorry.
3. I sometimes managed to walk more than 7000 steps, but definitely not every day. I am not a fan of exercising, so there is nothing more to report.
4. Did I read? Yes, I got caught up on three issues of a magazine I subscribe to electronically now, In the Moment. Definitely worth looking into if you are on a personal journey of growth.

   

   One of my Inktober52 drawings

   I am also reading a non-fiction book, but it is slow going so it might take several more weeks for me to finish it. It is fascinating reading, I just don't spend much time with it though.
5. Did I gain weight as many of my online and face-to-face friends are complaining about more and more? No. That was the biggest surprise of this whole situation: I managed to lose 4kg. No diet. No exercise (see point 3 above).

I just didn't have time to snack so much as I normally would. In fact, last week Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm, was the first time since lockdown started that I wondered what to do with myself. It was odd, but the feeling didn't last long when I spotted my (still) unfinished cross-stitch project that I started 10 years ago.

I am not finished yet, but there is progress and I guess it will not be too long before it is finished.

But lockdown is not over. Here in SA we are on a 5 stage lockdown strategy. Right now, until 30 April, the whole country is at stage 5. From 1 May we go to stage 4, but thereafter the level will not be the same for the whole country. Different provinces, and even communities, may go to different levels going forward depending on the rate of infection from the virus.

Where I live we have a well organised community service (mostly to fight crime) but it also functions as a communications channel between our local councillor, the police and other government agencies when required.

So the weeks ahead will definitely be interesting.

Until next time - stay safe and be responsible to yourself, your families and your communities at large.

💜Linzé

A to Z Challenge: Day 22 - V

VIOLET by Linzé

Violet is one of my all time favourite colours. For the letter V I decided to play with pencils that I have that do not belong to a set. Most of them are purple or violet - no surprise! 😂

I found two Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer pencils and one Caran D'Ache Supracolor II in my pencil cabinet and decided to use them. The CD pencil was still in its plastic package. Mixing colour pencils from different manufacturers are usually not a good idea since the pigmentation and lightfastness will not be the same.

This time I just played a bit to see how they would look when activated with water especially since I don't have any more of them to do a multicolour drawing. I found a stencil in my collection and used that instead of drawing from scratch. I think the end result looks rather nice.

I used Monte Marte Premium watercolour paper, and a Monte Marte 16/0 brush to activate the pigments since my watercolour brushes are too big for the fine detail in the ropes.

A to Z Challenge: Day 17 - Q

QUIRKY bird by Linzé

I did an online Sketchbook Workshop while in isolation and one of the lessons was this quirky bird. The artist/presenter of this lesson was Tamara Laporte (https://www.willowing.org). I loved the concept and shared it with the artists in my writers' group who also made their own quirky birds. But here is mine. Enjoy! 💜

PS: Thank you for visiting my blog today. I love reading your comments, but I am still having difficulties replying. I do apologise and hope I can get this sorted out very soon. 💜 Linzé

A to Z Challenge: Day 16 - P

POT by Linzé

One day I was itching to draw something a little more challenging, so I decided to compose a still life. I photographed the greyish pot standing on a draped piece of black fabric I found in Francois' studio. I used my phone to capture the still life.

It was done with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils on black paper.

A to Z Challenge: Day 7 - G

Green by Linzé

Inktober52 had it first colour prompt last week (due this week). I have been drawing several nature related prompts, so this time I went abstract with my drawing.
I bought a book about the medieval practice of decorating books and used that as inspiration to tackle this prompt. When I was done I noticed there was a second G in the background. Just goes to show you that sometimes the creative process can produce surprises too! 😁😁

From Linzé's Moleskine sketchbook

A to Z Challenge: Day 6 - F

FUN in art by Linzé

As I am writing this post I am watching a video clip (part of an art course I have been doing) about discipline in practicing creative activities.  Although I have art as a goal for this year, I make a point of it to do fun things too. Art projects can sometimes take many hours and often it can be tough to get those finished. I prefer dry mediums like colour pencils, which is one of those that do take hours and often days to finish a drawing.

Now the fun things can be just as satisfying. I dug out my Caran D'Ache NeoColor II crayons a while ago and just played without thinking about anything except being colourful.
NeoColor II crayons can be activated with water and that is what I played with these four art cards from Hahnemühle that I bought last year.

Fun art project by Linzé

A to Z Challenge: Day 2 - B

BFF and my creative partner by Linzé

Today I want to share a portrait I recently painted of my best friend, Vanessa Wright. I have drawn portraits before, but never painted one.

I am busy experimenting with gouache paint on gouache paper. So why not paint my best friend?

Fortunately for me, she liked it!

Vanessa Wright

Managing ideas: a new method for me

  This year I have been trying new things, and that includes managing those new ideas. I have often read and heard people say to you should carry a notebook with you to jot down that "idea" that pops into your head at the oddest times. To be honest, I have done and said the same thing for many years. My problem is, that most of my ideas strike when I am writing in my journal and then those ideas get lost because I don't make the effort to rewrite them in that ideas notebook of mine.

Notebook, pen and bag

  About two weeks ago I came across a website about this very thing, but it is a touch more comprehensive than keeping a notebook. It is called the Zettelkasten method and it uses cards for noting down those ideas. I have tried cards in the past too, but they have never quite worked for me. What I liked about this method, is that the system caters for follow-up ideas and notes, without having to use bigger cards, or more notebooks to keep your notes together.
  Since I have been trying it for only about two weeks, I have not yet found anything not to like about it, but to be honest have not used it that much either. Not for because I lack ideas, but I am focused on #inktober52 mostly and immediately sit down to sketch my idea(s) since the deadline is a week away and there is not time to waste if I want to keep up.
  More on this method as I use it, but give the Zettelkasten method a try, it might just be thing you have been looking for.
  Speaking of new things. It is Valentines Day this week, and if the blog host sends me the info in time, there is a new book for you to explore this Friday. 
  Also a new #JournalArt2020 post on Thursday, and my next newsletter is out tomorrow with something special for subscribers.

But now it's time for me to go see to a few chores in preparation for the week ahead.

Until next time!
💜 Linzé