Since my last post I've realised it's pretty easy to forget what I've done each day! So this is a sort of a placeholder post, to refresh my memory.
I have managed (just!) to create every day since last posting. Some days it's been with desire and intent, other days it's been an effort to fit something in to meet the challenge. Yesterday, interestingly, combined both desire, intent and challenge. It's simply not as easy to create while Z is around. Which is a real shame, and something that I hope will change as she gets older. The issue at the moment is mainly that she wants to do whatever I'm doing - and that usually means exactly what I"m doing! She wants to draw with the same colour on the same drawing, or cut the same piece of fabric... *sigh*. Yesterday I managed to set her up with a copy of what I was doing that kept her happy, but not without a fair bit of frustration first. So yesterday was about meeting a parenting challenge too... which I did, successfully, but it took some effort to shift myself from a resentful "this is My Thing - don't bug me" to a more open attitude. Huh.
I feel a bit of a tentative rhythm developing in my creative efforts, but I"ll dwell a bit more on it and share my thoughts in my Tuesday post. As I prepare to record my efforts, I realise that a fair amount of this is either project work or work that is not destined to stand alone. I'm ok with this for now, but may shift things up a notch in the future. (When I first envisioned this project I had notions of lots of small things being crafted on a basically daily basis... not so far, we'll see!)
Wednesday - Z's name mobile (day 6)
This was a mini burst of creating - just enough to pull this project out of the craft cupboard and take the next step. Crossed the line - just!
Thursday - Z's name mobile (day 7)
Got a fair amount done on the mobile, which is now basically finished barring final assembly. The end was in sight, but Z needed to be picked up from hanging out with Dad. Which I was ok with , because I needed to think a bit longer on how I want the final assembly to look. This was actually a bit of a power session, because it was done in 40 minutes after cleaning like a maniac and mopping the floor. Yeehah!
Friday - Writing (day 8)
I've got a private writing project going on which definitely fulfills my definition of creative self expression (in parts). Friday morning was spent on one of these parts. It was great to get a big chunk of this done as it's something that's very close to my heart.
Saturday - Matrioshka design development (day 9)
Another "just" here. I actually spent a lot of time first thing in the morning researching for another project that's been in the back of my mind for at least a year. This particular project is a velvet silk patchwork doona cover. I found some sources for silk velvet (devilishly hard to do) and did a few back of the envelope sums to work out material needs and costs. Ouch! It's looking expensive. :-/ Anyway, part of me wanted to class this work as creative - but strictly speaking, although necessary, it's definitely not. So, come late afternoon after a full day I still had to meet my challenge.
I was really feeling like getting into some lovely rich colour and using some enjoyable materials, so I pulled out the oil pastels (Z's kids set) and created a large scale matryoska in the design I'm using for O's set. It wasn't groundbreaking (because I'd already had the design worked out) but it was pleasurable working with the oil pastels - they're so rich and fun to create colour blocks with. Plus at this stage I'm happy to go for mass repetition of the designs, because I want to be as familar with them as possible when I create them on the blank dolls set. There's nothing I can do if I make any mistakes, so I'm happy to be drawing little doll faces repetitively till it becomes very comfortable. ;)
* * *
Oh... the first of the family is up! So I'll leave it here. Today is Christmas, so this post is likely to be my creative act for the day. Much eating, drinking and being merry awaits!
PS - photos. I haven't forgotten, I'm just trying to work out how to get over the hump and publish them.
No comments:
Post a Comment