The CreativeLife weeks 34 and 35 in review

Hi everyone, this week's blog is covering two weeks mostly because the first week was kind of boring with much of the same happening every day - you know: work, and more work. LOL!

I did manage to do my inktober52 drawing for the week, but other than than time for art was limited. This past week was a different story...I got myself into trouble.

As a member of Artkula.com (I suggest you check it out) I try to do the monthly challenge issued by Phil. I still need to finish two of the challenges (time, you know) but decided to use his Sketchtember challenge as preparation for Inktober coming next month. I also managed to twist the arms of my art group to pull out their pens and sketchbooks to join in the fun.

Sketchtember prompts 1 to 15

With little available time, I decided to sit down and see how many of the Sketchtember prompt I could do in about an hour and a half. That meant no pencil outline before adding ink. I Googled images for each prompt and practically drew the first one that caught my eye, directly with ink. Are they perfect? Far from it, but neither are any that bad that I feel like scratching them out. What did I learn? Draw without thinking and the end result will be good enough for a practice challenge.

Will I do the same for Inktober? The plan is to spend a bit more time on each prompt but on a day where I don't have a lot of time, I know I can get it done super quick and still get an acceptable result.

The next 15 prompts will have to wait until a bit later this month.

September is usually the month where I do my vision board for the next year, and this year is no exception. I am blessed with living the life I want, so my vision board is focused on my life goals of self-improvement and living a life of mindfulness and gratitude. Since these are not goals that can be “achieved”, continually striving towards perfection is what my vision board is about. Making a new vision board for every year reminds me to continue to strive towards being the best person I can be.

My vision board this year will be a small one, instead of the A2 size I did in the past, but that is okay. It does not have to fill up half a wall to do what I need it to.

In my next post I will share a few words from The Keeper of the Dragon Key. Another project that I have to stop procrastinating on. Will I make the publication date in December? At the moment it is touch and go, but there is nothing so motivational than a deadline, right? So I better get back to editing otherwise that deadline is going to bite me.

Stay creative, until next time!

💜🇿🇦Linzé

The CreativeLife Week 33 in review

Greetings from a chilly yet beautiful Sunday here in Pretoria! 🙋‍♀️

I recently discovered ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) videos on YouTube. I have known about the concept for a while, but some of the things people do in these videos creep me out, so I wasn't a fan. Until I discovered a few bookbinding channels. I have found them to be useful (not silent because I prefer some noise), but still helpful when I am working and need to focus. Concentrating is difficult when I have to write test reports.

Making mistakes will cause problems, and getting distracted by things happening in the background is not a good thing at all. The same applies when I have to do calculations for the report. I never make the calculations during the tests themselves, since I often have multiple tests running at the same time. Often the tests are not for the same client or the same type of product. During testing I focus on capturing the measurements and the condition of the test samples so that I have detailed records for when I write the reports later.

My inspiration this week comes from exactly such an ASMR video ⬅️

I happened to glance up at my second screen (while writing a report) when I noticed the woman use a template for making the holes in the paper which she was going to bind into a sketchbook. Using a template for the position of the holes is nothing new, we all do that, but I have to say I rather like the way she made her template. Might use a similar idea for my templates. I like learning new things, and if they are practical to make my life or a creative project easier, even better. 😍

In our creative group we have been making a Lifebook. It is a monthly art journal entry with a theme. Unlike most of the art journaling you see on YouTube, this project (now going for almost 3 years) is a personal entry for each of us, where sharing in the group is entirely optional. I pick the themes, and sometimes also the medium or colour scheme, and we use that as part creative inspiration, part record of our lives in that month based on the chosen theme.

For August this year, I picked "sketch journaling" as the theme. The challenge is to pick any 7 days in August and then draw items or events of that day as a record. I prefer using ink and another medium to add colour to the drawing. I love urban sketching, and the idea is basically the same with the caveat of making it personal to me.

So far I have drawn three days with the third done at the lab where I work. I sketched a test setup that we don't often have to do and it was rather fun to draw all the test equipment and few details of the test sample. Since this is a reflection of my engineering work, it makes sense as a record of my life.

I am thinking about sketching a day in my studio where I am busy working on three small acrylic paintings of a bird, a cat and a hare. They are cute and fun and I was in the mood for something more playful to paint during the week.

Graphite pencil practice

We had a drawing lesson on Thursday during our usual session since we twisted the arm of one of the members in the group to start drawing again. It has been years since her last drawing, so we decided to draw with her. Drawing practice is always a good thing to keep your pencil sharp, in a manner of speaking. I picked a photo of a daisy from Unsplash.com, made it black and white, and then sent it to everyone with instructions on tools and a bit of prep to be done beforehand.

While I draw for inktober52 ⬅️ every week, it's been a while since I had done a graphite pencil drawing. It was a fun project.

I have also been testing some new watercolour paper I recently bought. I will share my thoughts in a separate post. I still have two more papers to play with, and I am rather excited to see how they perform. I will share links to where you can purchase the papers, the paints and brushes I used - if I can find links for the paper I bought in a local store. This brand is not unknown to me, but I have not seen it in one of our local online art stores.

Living a creative life is really satisfying, but also frustrating at times. I have loads of ideas for multiple projects, but finding time to do all of them remains my biggest challenge. Maybe when I am retired, I will have time to catch up on that ever growing ideas list. 😜

Thank you for reading.

Until next time!

💜🇿🇦 Linzé

The CreativeLife Week 32 in review

 Getting back into the groove today of writing a newsletter of sorts 🙋‍♀️ Hello again! I stopped the "official" newsletter because it was frustrating me once I couldn't add links of channels or websites of other people that inspire me. So it's back to my blog and here I can basically do whatever I want. Yay!

  So to start off here is the YouTuber that has been my most recent inspiration. Taria is a South African urban sketcher and the reason she has been inspiring me is that she shares her process raw - there is no hiding the difficulties she has with sketching. Check out her YouTube channel to see how she deals with the realities of sketching with a limited timeframe.

  My goal of editing the 5th novel in my Nations of Peace series, is making some progress. Editing is not my favourite activity, so the progress so far is surprising even to me. My editor, Carmen, is liking the story so far too, and that is always a bit of positive energy to keep me going. Cover ideas are brewing at the back of my mind, especially after our last art class.

  I poured two panels and one of them is telling me that it should be on the cover of a book. One of the ladies in the group spotted that potential almost immediately, and my brain liked that idea a lot. The painting is dry, but it needs a tweak here and there which is par for the course for poured paintings. I will do that this week and then it is ready to be digitised. Interested to see how it will work for a cover.

One of the corners of the book press I
made. Sorry about the busy background,
I had to do it on a table with painting stuff around.

  On Saturday I went out in the morning by myself, Hubs had something else going on, and while I was eating breakfast at a local shopping centre, a lady approached and asked me about my journal. The design of it interested her and it was fun telling her that I made it myself. I also showed her the tiny sketchbook that I carry in my bag which I also made myself. Bookbinding has been an interest for a while, and I finally made a book press (Hubs helped with the wood work) as the last tool for my kit. Excited about making more sketchbooks and journals with all the right tools now readily available.

  Lots of creative ideas on my plate for the rest of the year, and happy to share those with you as they come to life. 😀

August is a really busy month with all kinds of life stuff that needs to be done, but I will be back soon with more of my CreativeLife.

Thank you for reading!

Until next time,

💜🇿🇦 Linzé

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 12

Not much of an eventful week, for which I am grateful. Life's ups and downs can throw a nasty spanner into anyone's planning. It was still a good week though and I completed three art projects.

Work is still taking up a lot of time, and with the blog challenge, April is going to require discipline and planning to get everything done every day.

A last note before I end today's short post: it is customary for blog visitors to leave a comment or link to their own blogs during the April A to Z challenge. Since the comments are disabled on my blog, please take a moment to pop over to Twitter to say hi. I would love to hear from you.

Please stay safe and healthy. Until April! 

Linzé 💜

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 11

 Planning is a good thing, but sometimes life has other plans

I mentioned in my previous post that planning is part of the creative life, and it is. It should be, and it is a good thing when you plan time to spend doing something creative. Last week life had other plans for me and my creative time did not happen until Friday.

Do I feel guilty about it? I do, but not because I did not draw or paint anything. I felt guilty for letting you down. I did not send out my newsletter and I did not post on Thursday, and that is letting down you, the person who takes time out of your busy life to read my blog twice a week. Even if you are not a subscriber to my newsletter, I respect that your time is as valuable as mine.

So, thank you for coming back today to read this post.

I cannot go back to change what happened last week, but I can only move forward and do my best again this week. The most important thing I have done is to not let last week (and all its issues) hold me back from what I enjoy. So I worked on a colour pencil drawing for a drawing competition due very soon and finished my inktober52 drawing for this week on Sunday.

Today is a public holiday in South Africa, so I will have a little more time to work on my drawing for the competition, but only after I have breakfast with a friend in my art group.

Even though it is a four day work week, I have to do a quotation for a client who requested that I do an evaluation of a new product. Exciting stuff!

I wish you a wonderfully creative week and remember to stay safe. Until Thursday!

︙ Linzé 🇿🇦💚

The #CreativeLife 2021 - review of week 10

This week I will share a little more boring(?) detail of my creative life. So here goes:

On Monday I went for tax training. But while the lovely lady explaining stuff to me went to ask someone else the answer to a question I had, I realised that I simply did not have the time to do the monthly tax calculations for my company. So I decided to let my auditors carry on with the task and just send me the invoice. I know that I can do the work, but I also know that my diverting my focus, is not the best thing for my business. I am an engineer, and I am happy to leave the fax stuff to the experts.

I have to renew my driver's license. Yeah, that pain the butt rolls around every 5 years in this country. So on Tuesday, I had an appointment to have my eye test to get the certificate to say that I can still see properly. Hmmm.

Then the struggle started to get the appointment for the renewal process. I wasted a lot of time on that on Wednesday. Will try again this week.

On Thursday my daily planning shifted because of loadshedding. Yeah, our power supply utility still doesn't know how to keep the lights on reliably. At least we have an app that does help with dealing with this situation to some degree. At the current status, this app will be the most used in the country until Wednesday (we hope!).

Friday was mostly work stuff. And another Netflix series binge started the weekend, ending on Sunday morning just before lunch. This time it had 48 episodes of 45 minutes each. I am nuts, I know, but at least I am getting a few hours of sleep and am not completely useless otherwise.

I finished my leprechaun junk journal page (art group project) and drew a Colonial Viper for the #inktober52 prompt due this week.

So the goal this week is to finish drawing the seashells for the first challenge of the South African Drawing Guild and write a post or two for the #atozchallenge coming in April.

Stay healthy, live creatively and I will see you again on Thursday.

︙ Linzé  💚💚