These Last Two Months

Until these last two months of not writing, I had been blogging at least once a week for 8.5 years. There are, as of this post, 781 entries. That is quite a bit of writing! Although I don't plan on entirely quitting, it's become clear that I need some space from this blog in order to have time and creative energy to put into other areas of my life. Basically, I need to give myself permission to not blog at least once a week.

Ok, so now that's out of the way, what has happened in the last two months? Well, I met up with Connor in Japan. He had a two week business trip there. I flew to meet him at the end of it and we spent almost another two weeks touring around.

My favorite part of the trip was meeting the bowing deer of Nara

I gave travel journaling a go in Japan and really loved it. I'm still finishing up some paintings from the trip.

I spent a lot of time painting the sights. This is Kinkaku-ji, the temple in Kyoto that is covered in gold.

Once we came back from the trip, Connor and I joined a comic drawing group that meets up once a week. I found out they do a yearly anthology. When we joined, there were five weeks until the deadline. I decided to draw an 8 page, fully watercolored comic. In retrospect, that was a little nuts. It's taken a lot of energy, but I'm pleased with how it looks.

Just one of many pigeon jokes in my comic

I'm still knitting here and there. Connor has introduced me to Battlestar Galactica. (The new one.) I've found it to be a pretty good show to knit to.

Trials, Tribulations, And A Lack Of Guacamole

It's been a week, let me tell you! On Monday Connor got rear ended in a three car accident. We are thankful that he wasn't hurt, the car still moves, and the guy who caused the accident took fault. Then on Wednesday we learned that we were the victims of credit card fraud. We are thankful that it was caught early, we aren't on the hook for any fraudulent charges, and the very nice customer service man had a new card sent to us faster than their usual time frame. But the worst was yet to come! Yesterday we went to Chipotle and they were out of guacamole! There is no upside to that.

Ok, all kidding aside, it's been a little rough. In between the trials, I've been doing my best to insert some fun into each day. For example, last week I learned how to film a time-lapse of myself painting. I posted it on my @audrynicklin instagram page.

A post shared by Audry (@audrynicklin) on Apr 28, 2018 at 11:55am PDT

After stressing over what new paints to get, I bought a silly amount in order to redo my travel painting palette. (As I mentioned in my previous post, my current palette won't dry, so it doesn't transport well. I've switched the travel palette from M Graham to Daniel Smith watercolors.) It all arrived and I made a new swatch rainbow.

Bottom left is the new pallet, the top right is the old

Then Connor and I went to the ocean and I challenged myself to paint (with my new palette) the seals that like to sleep under the wharf. I'm not sure how successful I was as it turns out brown seals on brown wood looks a lot like indistinguishable brown lumps. I still had fun. And better yet, I was able to figure out some things that work about my new palette and some things that need to be tweaked.

Seal or lump? In a way, seals are just brown lumps.

I've also continued to knit on my socks.

Both of these are second socks. Yay!

Even though it's been rough, I'm thankful that my creative mojo isn't gone and that I've had snippets of time to indulge my interests.

Rainbow Of Possibilities

Have you ever looked at your to-do list and said, "I have no idea where to start?" That has been me for the last two weeks. Every item on the list was really 50 hidden jobs in order to finally cross it off the list. I've been doing my best to break down each job and work on them a little each day. Some of those items have been more mundane like returning a pair of pants or cleaning the fridge coils. Others have been a bit more fun to tackle, like the quilt.

I finally decided to do the quilting with 3 strands of embroidery floss (out of six) in a square pattern that doesn't match latitude and longitude. In order to make the lines relatively straight, I decided to baste little x's into the quilt. Part way through basting, my measurements started to go off and I raged.

Enter Connor. He offered to help and we've spent our evenings with him measuring and basting while I do the actual quilting. We've been listing to Anne of Green Gables on audiobook while working. Of course after watching Anne With An E on Netflix, Connor was curious about the book because I had so often yelled at the TV about how "that wasn't in the book!"

I didn't realize how big this quilt was until I put it on our Queen sized bed for the photo. I might need to make the quilt a little less tall.

I've also been trying to work out what brand of paint to use for long distance trips. I love M Graham watercolors, but they just will not dry in my pans. (I poured these more than a month ago and they are still wet.) It's fine working with them near home, but as we have a bigger trip in the works, it has become clear I need to come up with a new solution.

The reason I love M Graham is because they rewet so easily; great for painting, not great for tidy transportation.

Deciding what paints to use instead isn't easy, especially when you are still sad that your favorites aren't working out. I started by making swatches of what I do have. Then after puzzling a few days more, I decided to order a color dot card that will allow me to try out some new colors. I'm just waiting on that to arrive. Hopefully I'll be able to make a final decision soon.

What kinds of things haven't been coming off of your to-do lists? And is it because of lack of time or a lack of a plan? (Or something else?)

Shaking Off Perfectionism

I've had a really rough time reclaiming my creativity lately, especially when it comes to painting. I look at different artist's sketchbooks on various social media and they all seem so perfect. Intellectually I know that it is unlikely that every page they have produced is perfection, but it's left me being too afraid to lay paintbrush to paper.

Filling some new pans with paint

But what could I do? You only get better by practicing and I am now afraid of practicing.

Empty Meeden watercolor tins

Eventually I realized that what I was most afraid of was not having any masterpieces to share. So I've taken a new approach.

Holbein, M. Graham, and Grumbacher tubes. Not shown is Daniel Smith. I'm most fond of M. Graham at the moment.

Even if I paint a masterpiece, I am not going to share any paintings online for a while.

Moleskine Art Plus sketchbook

I think it will be much healthier for me to reclaim painting as something I do for myself rather than something I do to earn accolades.

I got an adhesive magnet tape, cut it into little rectangles and adhered it to the bottom of the pans so they would magnetically stick to my tin.

In the meantime, I'd like to share some artists I greatly admire.
Missy Dunaway paints the most beautiful journal entries. Even she will tell you that she paints over some of her paintings repeatedly before she has something she likes.
Chandler O Leary has some awesome travel sketchbooks. She was kind enough to share what materials she uses. It helped me get a better idea of what I could use that would hold up to heavy use.
James Gurney regularly shares his plein air paintings. And still one better, he often releases videos showing how he did it.

Arizona Adventure Pt.3

Connor was going to be in Arizona a bit longer than I was because of his conference. So while it wasn't his last day in Arizona, it was mine. We met up with Brennan again (Sydney was at work) and went to the Tucson Botanical Gardens. There were just as many interesting critters around as there were plants.

After touring, we all sat down so that Brennan and I could paint a little. Brennan had been my art buddy back in college, so it was fun to be able to "art" again. I plopped down by the Mexican Fire Barrel to start with.

There were more than cacti to see at the garden, but I found the large variety rather inspiring.

It was sad to leave Brennan, but we had to drop him off so we could get back to Phoenix for the conference. Although, along our way, we stopped by the Casa Grande ruins. The Casa Grande ruins consists of a four story house that was built out of mud loaded with calcium carbonate. That made it stronger, but not immune to rain. A roof has since been built to help preserve the structure.

Around the grounds were lots of neat plants. I'm sure those of you from Arizona won't be nearly as impressed as I was, but I had never seen some of these plants. I didn't know that Prickly Pears could have any purple in them. I'd only seen the plain green kind.

I'd never seen a Palo Verde before this trip. When Connor and I first landed in Phoenix, we had a discussion over whether or not the bark had been spray painted; the green was so vibrant.

It turns out that the bark can perform photosynthesis even when the tree has no leaves

My favorite was the Ocotillo. It is sometimes used as a living fence. Often it doesn't have the green leaves, it just looks like spiney sticks. But after Brennan described them as Cthulhu emerging from the ground, that was all I could see. They all look like tentacle monsters to me now. Thanks, Brennan.

Of course while we were out and about in Arizona, we procured a few more patches and magnets for our collection. I've updated the patch map accordingly.

Even though I was only there for a few days, I came back feeling refreshed. It was good to see such a different landscape than I am used to.

Camp Layman - Family Vacation Edition

Connor and I just got back from a week vacation with my family where we had no internet, phone service, or stress. I often go into great detail with my vacation posts, but so much happened, I think a highlight reel will be much better.

We stayed in one cabin together for the first part of the week, then split to two different cabins later on because Dad decided he didn't want "that much" family time. I think that was inspired by the fact that we were five people to one bathroom.

This was the cabin I stayed in during my childhood.

Much of the week was about sharing my childhood memories with Connor. Dad insisted that we go to the train museum and ride the train. No complaints from us. We got into the car that had an upper viewing area and rode around.

There is an annual boat race that takes place on the nearby river. I hadn't participated before since it had started after I had stopped coming. The idea is to house a raw egg and have it get past the rapids in one piece. Connor and I built the S.S. Shark Tank. The egg survived. We placed third.

Earlier in the week, Connor and Dad did a longer hike around the Lakes Basin area. Mum and I took a shorter route so I could paint. After we all met up and the painting was done, Connor, Mum, and I swam to the little rock you can see in the picture. Or rather, Mum and Connor swam, and I got pulled along while I floated on my back because I was still recovering from my strict diet. The water was quite cold... probably because is was a snow fed lake. Dad stayed on shore, but shouted to us that he was "getting cold" while we were swimming back.

By the end of the week, a hike to the Sierra Buttes Fire Lookout was planned. I was delighted to find that I had enough energy to join in and we made it to the top in good time. I enjoyed finding snow patches on the way up and throwing them at one of our friends. It made the hike go much faster for me. We had lunch at the top, but I chose to save a bag of M&Ms for the car. This was not to be. On the way down we passed some young parents with a child who was clearly out of energy and having a meltdown. I gave my bag away to help them out, but spent the rest of the hike mourning my lack of car M&Ms. 

Going up. The mountain we were summiting is just off picture on the left.

Before leaving town, Yeti insisted on getting an Orange Freeze from the Frostee. Who am I to deny Yeti?

You have to go to the Frosty 10 miles away to get an Orange Chocolate Chip Freeze as opposed to an Orange Freeze. Yeti wanted that during the week too.

Connor and I took a longer route back home so we could see Lake Tahoe. I hadn't seen it in (ahem) decades... and Connor had never seen it. He waded in and pronounced it "not too bad." I was impressed with how close the wildflowers were to shore. 

Per usual, we collected patches and a magnet from places we visited, which included: Donner Pass, the Feather River section of the Western Pacific Railroad, Plumas Eureka State Park which is where gold had been mined, and two patches from Lake Tahoe. One from North Lake Tahoe and one from South Lake Tahoe. I also quite liked the magnet that looked like a geological marker.

Far more things happened on our vacation. There was tubing, rounds of Ping Pong and Shuffle Board, walks to the bridge, star gazing... etc. But rather than record it all, I left my phone in the cabin and took it all in.

Sequoia/ Alabama Hills/ Death Valley/ L.A. pt.1

I have been rather unwell for the last five weeks. Two weeks ago I was certain that I'd be fine by the time Joe came to visit us. (Joe was the best man at our wedding and can be seen on the far left of the last photo on the wedding post.) Then another week passed... and another, and I started getting worried that I might not be able to go on the big trip we'd been planning for months. I kid you not, the night before he arrived, I started feeling better. Good thing too. I would have been sad to miss out on the Sequoia/ Alabama Hills/ Death Valley/ L.A. trip.

Our first stop was Sequoia. We were only going in for a few hours. I was horrified to find that we had to spend $30 on a week long pass. While I like to support the national parks, I wish there was a less expensive day pass option. It put me in a bad mood. Connor's response was, "There had better be some really big trees." And there were. We got to see the largest tree by volume, the General Sherman tree.

The theme of the day would be "Fees and Trees"

I had anticipated not having the energy to hike and brought my paints with me. So while Joe went off to hike for a bit, I turned around and set myself up to do a little painting.

Turns out I'm an angry painter. I spend lots of time muttering to myself that I don't know what I'm doing. It is only at the end when I put in the final details that it starts looking right. Midway through the painting, Joe came back and he and Connor hiked a bit while I muttered to myself some more. In the end I think it came out right. I did adjust a shadow or two when we got back to the hotel.

That night Joe, who was still suffering jet lag from being on Eastern Time, went to bed. Connor and I drove from Exeter (which smelled like orange blossoms all around, except at our hotel where it smelled more like manure) to Visalia to eat. We happened upon a nostalgia station (103.3 fm) and were thrilled to find that the Habit Burger we went to was 50s themed.

I love the neon!

The next day we started our next long drive to Lone Pine. We were treated to a rather under photographed bit of California. There are a lot of oil wells in southern California.

As we rounded the bottom of the Sierras, there was some concern over whether we would even get to see the Alabama Hills. I knew that the road going in was dirt, and it looked rainy. In fact, we had a ton of rain pour on us on our way up.

You can see a sign for Gus' jerky. It once said "Best Jerky in the World." Now it says, "Really Good Jerky."

We made a backup plan to go to the Film Museum in Lone Pine first. It was a good plan and we got to see all sorts of movie props from movies made in the area. The boys especially appreciated it as we decided that the roads looked dry enough to get out to the Alabama Hills that day.

To be continued...

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.

Un-Grinchy

Most people can't wait to get gifts at Christmas. I'm the opposite. I can't wait to give them. As soon as I got to my parent's house on Wednesday, I asked everyone if they would like their gift now or would they like to wait until Christmas. It didn't really matter what they said because I couldn't wait.

Christopher got a pair of Grinch Slippers. The pattern is adapted from Flint Knits Elf Shoes.

I gave my Mum a scarf I had finished earlier in the year.

I gave my Dad an oil painting I had done in the fields near the mill.

I forgot about poor Scooter this year. I suppose I shall have to sneak him some extra people food at Christmas Eve dinner.

I did get myself a gift. As my Mum would say, I've agonized over this decision. The camera I finally went with was a Canon 60D with an 18-135mm kit lens.

I'm very pleased with my purchase.