As I looked at my painting from afar, I started doodling on scrap papers and drawing ladies. I’m caught somewhere between childish whimsy and more realistic features…then I start scribbling. I wanted to draw a bunch of ladies to add into my junk journal though…have to do something with that journal.

Of course, I get distracted easily and realized since I love my kneaded eraser so much, I have no need for the regular rubber ones that leave little bits all over the place. So I thought it would be a great opportunity to carve them into stamps. I want a leafy stamp to use in collage and things were looking pretty good…

Then my hand slipped and I messed it up! This rubbery stuff is way softer than linoleum, so I had to lighten my hand up a lot. I just started over, cutting up the eraser and using other ones I had lying around. I ended up with a bunch of leafy shapes, which is pretty nice to create variation.

Then I jumped onward to finish this recycled project of using a bottle to make a birdhouse. I used my trusty glue gun to make a leafy roof…I guess there is connection as I went from carving leafy shapes to glueing leaves…but honestly I just easily jump from project to project. My mind is whirling with too many things most of the time, so I have to let out the energy one way or another. I have to go grab more leaves to finish this up, but I was happily surprised how lovely the leafy roof looks.

So those are the creative happenings for me and I will finish up that birdhouse and show you the results tomorrow. The weather is so beautiful these days and there are birdies outside my window terrace every morning. I figure it can be put to good use asap. Also, I should mention that I listed the journals I made onto Etsy, since I don’t really have a use for them…I hope they find good homes. The lovely folks on Tuesday night vlog chat convinced me to do so. If you want a custom leather journal btw, just let me know. Now I can go visit all the other creative spaces via Kootoyoo…or actually go make lunch!

Otherwise, my creative workspace is filled with piles. Partial projects to be worked on, books and sketches here and there…

…but more interesting is some progress on these paintings I’ve had lying around.

I’ve posted previously about how I got stuck and wasn’t able to move forward with them. Letting it all stew in the back of my mind until I was ready. I realized that I wanted to add some words and since this all came out of the Italian book of lucky numbers, I added in little phrases in italiano. Hopefully I didn’t make a bunch of mistakes, since I’m not a native speaker and still have so much to learn. It’s funny how you can communicate in a foreign country perfectly fine, but still make a million grammatical mistakes

So I’ve always disliked my handwriting, very chicken-scratchy fitting the stereotype that math majors have illegible handwriting. Only mine doesn’t actually look cool illegible, like you see in mathematical proofs or mad scientist papers, it’s just really inconsistent and plain messy. It’s something people have always been surprised by because they assume a girl must have really cute neat handwriting. Oh, the woes of societal misconceptions! I’ve certainly tried to work on my penmanship and can probably do something decent here and there, but that’s with much effort. My natural handwriting is still crazy messy. I’ve realized like with everything else it just takes practice and learning. You choose the handwriting style you want to use for the particular purpose and go for it. For these paintings, I wrote really slowly and embraced even the mistakes. I think it fits with the theme of how we try to control and bend luck to our will, yet at the same time it seems to just happen by chance…flowing out in whatever which way…

I’m going to keep working on these today and see where it all takes me. Fun fun…

to colorful musings…

I hope to share more soon…I know I have the weekend to get lost into creativity.  Hope you have a lovely Friday!

I hope you can look back at your own work and see how much you’ve already accomplished. Or maybe an unfinished idea will spark up a new passion and sense of motivation? Don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back and then use the positive energy to inspire yourself to Spring forward. Happy Monday folks!

You can also see some of my Spoonflower printed fabric swatches above as I’m still trying to figure out colors and just ordered a color palette swatch to help out.  I realized after ordering that I probably need to order color swatches on all fabric types.  Don’t think I can invest in that right now, but we’ll see. Until next time…

I’m also experimenting with a new craft toy – a Kumihimo braiding disk.  I was so excited to receive it in the mail yesterday, except all the instructions are in German…eek!

I also cut into my beautiful orange leather – finally!  Now if I could only put it together…

Last but not least…working on illustrations that will eventually be paintings.  I can never draw the same thing twice without it morphing into something different.  I’m consistent at being inconsistent I suppose, perhaps I can call it originality?  Well, let me try and finish some of these projects now…have a fabulous Thursday and as always I appreciate you stopping by.

While I was sick and pretty much glued to the bed and didn’t get much done except outlining this little acrylic painting…

As I mentioned previously, I also did open up my Etsy shop before getting hit by the flu.  I am continuing to work on adding items to the shop, which surprisingly takes longer than expected.  Just to write out descriptions, get the pictures prepared and such.  Today I added a printable item finally, so please check it out and let me know what you think.  Thanks!

Afterwards, I just started doodling again.  I have a lot of journals, but can’t seem to keep it all together.  Perhaps a physical, nicely bound journal is just too much pressure for me.  I prefer working on whatever, whenever and I just keep it all in a file folder.  Usually it’s just printer/copy paper that I doodle on.  I think of my stack of doodles as an inspiration file, since doodles and sketches are good times to practice random things and experiment. Here’s a bunch of doodles I’m working on, perhaps I can turn them digital or even paint something…

These robots were inspired by a panda doll named Quincy, my friend owns (check out Quincy Adventures) That should explain the funky mustache look on both robots!

Just more doodling…I like the upside down bit a lot…think I will expand on that at some point.

In the end, I started another acrylic piece in the same color scheme as my first experiment.  I just like the colors and playing with dripping paint…