Back in the Saddle

Alright world, I am back!!! What have I been doing lately? Reading and defunking It's been great!!

 

But, I figured that I shouldn't be too neglectful or people will stop looking...

So!! Here I am again!! My Farmers Market papers are all filled out and waiting to be sent, my summer has been totally planned out (with pretty much no weekends free), and I've been playing with my loom, but I am quickly running out of yarn... So, to Wally World I go!!

 

Anyways, I haven't been doing too terribly much creatively lately, but I have been doing some business planning and scoping out a few things. First off, I have realized that there are absolutely NO professional pictures of me anywhere in the world. My solution? Hit up google and try to find a cheaper photographer that would be able to take some better portraits and headshots of me for my business page/everything business related.

 

I have also been researching how to take better pictures on my phone, because after talking to a couple photographers, they do not run cheap!! At the moment I really don't have any additional income to put towards that, so back to Dr Google I have gone! Turns out my ole Samsung Galaxy can actually take half decent pictures, which at this point, is really all I need.

 

I also did a reach out to some of my Facebook friends to see if anyone would be willing to style some of my wears for me (woven belts, etc.). I have a few bites!! Yay!! ...which also means I really have to start weaving hardcore... Thank God I have the next week off!! I think I'm going to be pretty busy with a lot of things!!

 

So, all of this is in the name of trying to grow my name and what I will be selling. Getting up to speed on the content is really the hard part. Ugh... But hey, at least it's with stuff that I genuinely enjoy doing!! Yay!! I'm also thinking of getting a Get to Work Book day planner to REALLY get myself organized. I also may have a journal/day planner fetish... Not my fault, they're just all so pretty!!!

 

Anyways!! Now that my darn Newsletter is done (for now...), I should have a bit more time on my hands to actually get to work on some of this stuff!!

 

TTFN, Ta ta for now!!

Newsletter Hell

So... I have officially forgotten how much work newsletters are... I've put in about 6 hours this weekend and I'm still not done... Ugh...

 

This reminds me that, while I absolutely love to write, editing it into a newsletter format is NOT my favourite thing to do. Ugh... Trying to get a hold of people for things is also super not overly fun...

 

HOWEVER!! The weekend was not a total hair-pulling newsletter fiasco, I also finally got off my ass and painted!!! Yay!!! This does require a little back story though!

 

So, last Friday it was pouring rain... My bus stop is about a 10 minute walk from work, down a sidewalk that is RIGHT beside a very battered road (I'm doing a photo-series on this, stay tuned), so there's puddles EVERYWHERE. Now, most motorists where I live either can't drive well, or are complete jerks, so, not only was I battling puddles on the sidewalk, drivers were constantly splashing me. I was also only wearing a hoodie and my runners (my rubber boots cut off the circulation to my legs, and it wasn't raining when I left home in the morning half asleep). The only thing I really had going for me was the fact that I had an umbrella. But, if any of you live on the bald prairies in the spring, it was windy as sin so my umbrella kept blowing inside out; not much help.

 

At this point, understandably I think, I was soaked and incredibly cranky. Oh! It was also pretty much the only day last week that I didn't drive to work, and it was the only day last week that we had a torrential downpour. So, completely soaked and incredibly cranky, my mind turned to what I had to get done this weekend. I had been wanting to paint for WEEKS (as mentioned in previous posts), and since water was currently the bane of my existence, I decided I was going to paint a puddle with watercolour. I have never used watercolour as an adult. When I was super young we had little watercolour kits we would mess around with, but that was probably 20 years ago...

 

Raise Your Hand Say Yes right? So for accountability purposes, I put it up on Facebook for all my family and friends to see. Not too sure about the rest of the world, but this is super scary for me. I don't normally let people know when I'm doing creative things. Up on Facebook it went, my sweeping declaration that I was going to paint a puddle with watercolour paints. BAM!!

 

Well, true to form I put it off, and put it off, and put it off some more. Even though it was something a really wanted to try. Finally, after looking at my art kit thing (got it at Micheals a couple years ago, first time I've actually used it:P) for a couple hours, I found my multimedia sketchbook, got a lil glass of water, and went to town. What did I find out? I LOVE watercolour!! It's super fun and easy to mix colours right on the page. My technique leaves much to be desired, and if I didn't point out the fact that it's a puddle I think most people would have thought that it was a blue blob surrounded by brown with some blue lines on it (it was still raining when I was painting, so more rain seemed apt), but it's still something I'm super duper proud of. For my first try, I had fun!!

 

Now, because I very seldom do things halfway, not only did I tell the people of Facebook that I was going to do this, I actually POSTED IT on facebook (and instagram, but I do that with all my doodles and trials so I'm used to that). The reaction? Quite a few likes and some real support. What did I think was going to happen? The absolute worse thing possibly imaginable, because that's just how I roll. Hi there Inner Critic! How are you doing? Guess what? I just totes outsmarted you, and I plan to do it again in the future!

 

So, maybe doing something absolutely terrifying and new isn't such a bad thing. I now truly believe that everyone should do it:)

 

Peace out Monday!!!

Spring?? Where did you go??

I walked to work this morning in a parka, toque and mitts... It's April... Not that this is uncommon in the great frozen North, but still. Come on, enough already!

Alright, rant done moving into actual content now :)

So, I've been kind of away from the whole Social Media from a couple of days now, been feeling kinda bummed out and stressed. Why? Well, I kind of figured it out yesterday when I was telling a friend how tired I am. She told me that she hardly slept last night, and I agreed yes, I don't sleep super great. Then I started adding up all of the things I'm currently doing/just finished/are coming up... It was exhausting just writing it! Anyways, here they are in their glory:

• Marketing Director for the Manitoba Animal Health Technologists Association Board (having to meet multiple deadlines in the next couple weeks)
• Company Softball team
• Active Member of the Manitoba Living Historical Society
• Just finished a very intensive Certified Insurance Professional course
• Filling in applications and making content for Farmer's Markets for this summer (most are due by 3/30/16)
• Doing an application for an Artist Mentoring Program
• Just applied for a new position at work

Whew... Oh and plus trying to have a life at home too with my hubby and dogs... Wow... So yeah, needless to say I'm going to be making up a to do list today with deadlines for everything!

Anyways, on the brighter side of life, I might be having a few guest posts in the next little while on here! I'm super excited about that! I'll also probably (hopefully) be doing some guest posts on some other blogs as well hoping to get a lil foot traffic around here, and just because I love to write.

Speaking of writing, the first Letter to the Editor I submitted to a big local paper has been PUBLISHED!!!!! Mine is the first letter in the link. Operation Bombard Local Papers with Letters to the Editor until they give me a Job is well underway!! Yay!! On the writing side of things, I'm also starting to brainstorm ideas for a literary non-fiction (writing in 3rd person, not super great at that) to submit to another magazine competition. It's kind of ironic that I was so worried about how I would write two short fictions, when now I'm having even more trouble writing a non-fiction. But hey, once I start things kind of just write themselves.

I'm also working on my weaving. I'm now on creation #3 and loving every minute of it! I REALLY need to get some new and fun yarn though... I need more vibrant colours and different textures for my weavables!!

Well, that's all for now!! Things are looking up for the moment, even though it's cold as sin outside!!

 

PS - This is what I got from Starbucks today to warm up! Yay for winning work draws!! 

Am I Really an Artist?

The other day, while purchasing this awesome sketch book, the cashier asked me a seemingly simple question.
 

"So, who's the artist?" I had also picked up a couple canvases (yay for sales:D), so I guess it was a fair question. How did I respond? I was completely dumbfounded.

I somehow managed to stutter through a "Me I guess." When she followed up with "What kind of painting do you do?" I had no idea how to respond. I think I just said that I was experimenting with acrylic paint. I think, but I was so shocked that someone would actually refer to me as an artist I can't really remember...
 

Why does this bother me so much? I make art (see my instagram), so wouldn't that make me an artist? I also write, so shouldn't that make me a writer?
 

This lead to a binge of the Raise Your Hand Say Yes podcast to pump up my confidence. The one in particular that I absolutely love to listen to (I may or may not have re-listened on more then one occasion) is episode 9 with Michelle Ward called Changing Dreams. The part I enjoy most is when they are talking about labels. I mean, if we want to be technical, when someone asks me what I do for a living I say "I'm a claims adjuster"... But that's not really who I am outside work (and even inside work :P). The cashier probably had it closer to the truth then my actual job title does.

Is anyone else like this? Pretty sure I'm not the only one:)

Monday Blues...

So, I have had an interesting and eventful weekend... I managed to get Friday off for "studying." Then, I got my reply from the scholarship I had applied for to go to a meditation retreat in Seattle in a couple weeks... No dice, and after looking into prices found that it's a little too much money to spoon out right now... So needless to say I spent most of my weekend in a bit of a funk amd as a result didn't really do too much crafty stuff.

However! I managed to drag my mopey ass over to Chapters and Micheals and got 2 new journals and a sketch pad. That helped considerably😜 I still haven't written in them, but it'll come😜

I'm also continuing on with my looming experiments, which are going REALLY well! When I was at Micheals I was also browsing through the yarn, but my will power held out and I didn't buy anything! Yay! There's lots of different thicknesses and textures that I can't wait to try out on my loom. And, of course, the bright colours. So many bright colours! I may have drooled a lil bit!

I also have plans for the sketchbook (other than the obvious sketching). I'm planning on trying to make an adult coulouring book (or kid if I can't make it intricate enough), and do a trial run with it at farmers markets this summer and see if anyone buys it😊 Pretty excited about that actually! Just have to get started now! Probably on lunch tomorrow (felt sick as death today). The bus ride blogging is also not really helping😜

I digress! The journals I have no plans for, but to add to my intricate collection of journals and maybe try art journalling... I should probably try to do some actual journaling too... Hmm...

I also REALLY want to start painting with my acrylics. Previously I took a couple classes on actual lifelike landscapes, but I think I kinda want to try abstract? Maybe? Look out for it on Instagram! @renaissance_renegade

Although I'm pretty bummed about not getting to go to Seattle, things are actually looking up for me😊 My next entry I'm going to be touching on being called an artist for the first time!! ...I'm mostly writing it down here so I don't forget...

Until tomorrow!!! ...probably...