No Moss On This Rolling Stone

It's been another busy week at the Bear Ears household. Connor and I have been working hard to get the daily comic site up and running. It's been quite a job, but we have split up responsibilities and are making lots of progress. One of the things we successfully managed to do was get the banner to line up correctly on the site. (It was a feat, I assure you.) I'm not sure when we will be ready to show everything off, but I think that this year will be the year I finally have a daily comic website.

I've only been talking about having a daily comic website since 2010...

Of course that is not all that has been going on. This past weekend we celebrated a friend's birthday. We hiked, picnicked, and painted. I hadn't touched my gouache paints since last July. It's silly really, but I had painted a hideous painting, lost my confidence, then switched to watercolor because I couldn't bare to try with gouache again. Well, this time around I decided that I wasn't going to tape the edges to make it nice, I was just going to paint and if it was ugly, it was ugly. It ended up turning out quite nice, so I'm a bit sad that I didn't make the edges nice and straight.

I decided to paint a smaller composition rather than a whole landscape. I think that helped me from being too overwhelmed to try again.

I've also managed to finish my Haleakala Socks that have been on the needles since January. It's funny, when I cast them on I immediately didn't feel like knitting them because I just wanted to knit good old vanilla socks. What finally got them knit was the fact that I wanted to wear them. Of course it is too hot to wear them now, but they are ready for when the weather cools again.

I have also woven another scarf. I think woven scarves are going to be a constant theme in the blog for a while: I'm clearly obsessed. When I took the class in February with Deborah Jarchow, she talked about how she could do a scarf in an evening. I thought that was crazy talk, but on my third scarf, I was able to do it in an evening. I was sore afterwards, so I might not try to do that again...

So, what projects could I possibly be working on now? Well, my The Big O socks are moving along quite well. The first sock practically knit itself and now I'm on to the second. I did have to get creative with the heel. I didn't want to lose the lovely color progression that was going down the leg, so I took some yarn from the other end of the sock blank to knit in a heel flap.

I've also cast on another sock. This pattern is called Peeta Socks and I'm using Abstract Fiber O'Keefe in the Alfalfa color way. The pattern is heavily charted, so I haven't gotten too far since all my brain cells are being used on the comic website. It's still nice to have a slightly more complicated pattern on the needles.

I've already mentioned scarf weaving, but I couldn't end a post without showing off what I've got on the loom now. I'm using the yarn I bought at The Black Squirrel: Spun Right Round's Merino Worsted in Holy Crow. I'd seen 783Nora's Cosmic Wonder Dust Scarf on ravelry and knew I wanted to weave a scarf with speckled yarn. Mine is a bit different because I'm using worsted weight and she used fingering, but it is still looking pretty neat.

Whew! I can't believe all that got worked on in the last week. I've been highly productive and I hope I can keep it up. Despite the great momentum, that little voice in the back of your head that tells you that you aren't good enough has moved from being an occasional thought to a constant, loud shout. I've been drowning it out by listening to the Your Creative Push podcast. I highly recommend it. If you don't know where to start, I quite liked episode 203 and 220.

Does anyone else have any strategies to keep that "your not good enough" voice at bay?

Social Media - How Many Frontiers?

Since I've started to paint more seriously, it's been difficult to decide the best way to show off what I'm up to. Honestly, it is really tempting not to show anything at all. I feel like such a beginner again. But after reading Austin Kleon's book, Show Your Work!, I know that I need to show the paintings. All of them. Even ones I can see mistakes in. (Which would be all of them. But I don't think any painter is truly satisfied... ever.)

I have determined that I don't want to show every painting on this blog. If feels a little spammy to me. So instead I've opened up a tumblr account and I've been posting my work there.

I'm still figuring out how this blog and instagram (my other haunt) will work in the grand scheme of things. Questions like how much cross posting do I want to do and how much time do I really want to spend online are being puzzled out.

How has everyone else decided what to share and where?

In Which I Discover That Creative Fulfillment Requires Some Studying

These past two weeks have been marked by almost an absolute stop in all creative endeavors. Silly things have halted progress, like running low on paint, needing to get my spinning wheel looked at, running out of yarn for the shawl. Things keep breaking too: microwave, toilet, patience. I've been proactive about getting myself moving again now that Stitches West is over. I took my wheel in (I won't have it for a few weeks), I've removed the broken microwave, I've cleaned surfaces. (Especially around the toilet so that when the landlord came yesterday to fix it, we wouldn't look like slobs. We aren't, but I wanted to make sure that they knew that too.) I even ordered new paint... that was suppose to arrive yesterday. It didn't. Despite that disappointment, I went ahead and emptied out my blue tubes to work on this.

It is loosely based on a photo I took while hiking. I'm doing my best to study light and shadows. I, of course, am impatient with myself, so I have mixed feelings on how I did. But it is a study and I'm telling myself that it is ok not to be a master after three "successful" paintings.

I think this is Hound's Tongue

At least I consider the flower painting to be the third successful painting. The first I posted earlier in the month. The second I did of a sunset. The "unsuccessful" painting got me into researching everything I could about how to paint shadows better. Of course not before I had a meltdown where I was convinced I was going to be bad at everything, always, forever. It's times like these that I'm reminded that it is good to be a beginner at things so you can remember how hard it is to have your skill not match your vision.

At the moment, I'm taking pictures and interpreting them through paint. I think that is a good way to learn. The above painting is based on a photo I took by the stairs of our apartment one evening. It's been fun a challenge to experiment with different lighting situations.

So now I'll go back to waiting on my paint. Breaking news: The mailman arrived just as I was working on this post. I have paint!!! I bought primary colors in two different brands to see how I feel about them. I realized that I bought not quite what I meant to in one of the brands. I didn't realize they had two different lines of gouache. But the paint will get used and I'm sure I will get a good learning experience.

Searching For Creative Fulfillment

Recently I've found myself creatively frustrated. It has taken me until now to determine that the frustration runs deeper than just not having anything come off of the needles. I realized that I have somehow turned all my creative endeavors into work. Since being creative is what fills me up, and all my creativity has been turned into work, I have felt quite empty. I started abandoning social events because I felt too drained. I've also had a sinus thing going on, which hasn't helped matters, but has forced me to be quiet enough to do some intense introspection.

I realized that when Connor is at work, I make sure I am hard at work all day. (I work at home, so my time is more flexible.) And when Connor is home, I spend time with him. What I need in my life to be fulfilled creatively is time dedicated to doing creative things for the fun of it... when I am alone. After having a good talk with Connor and hearing him say things like, "Of course you should be doing fun things for yourself." I have finally decided to give in and let myself have some time to play.

I've been dying to paint for quite some time now. There are so many ideas in my head, but I've not let them out for fear of not staying dedicated to some arbitrary deadlines I made myself. I've given up those deadlines. (Like having more patterns out for Stitches West.) Patterns will come out when they are good and ready. Today I painted for a bit instead. Because I have such a backlog of ideas, I found myself getting a little intimidated by the time I would need and the fact that I haven't painted in, well, years. So today, in the interest of just starting, I decided to paint a still life.

My Granddad had found this glass Japanese fishing float along the shores of New Zealand after a storm. After my grandmother passed away, the house was sold and he moved to a smaller place. I was allowed to choose one thing from their house to ship home. Dad told me his wallet regretted not having any limitations on the offer since the float isn't small and the shipping was quite expensive. But I'm happy I have it.

So that's what I painted today. Something small and simple.

Here's a close up. It's not perfect, but it's better than I thought I might be able to do after so many years of not practicing. I used gouache paints for those who might be curious.

I'd like to give Ann Wood some credit. She often writes about the difficulties that she encounters as a professional creative. I especially liked her post when she decided that she needed to start sketching regularly. It inspired me to just start and reminded me that it is ok to start small.