I have a problem that is in all honesty a lovely problem to have - I always have ideas for projects, I get really excited about them, and then I rarely get as far through them as I’d like before coming up with another idea (or life just getting in the way). Blogging every day of this holiday/artist retreat was one! I’m 22 days into it, with less than two weeks to go, and I have been stressing that I haven’t found the time to write as many fairy tales as I’d wanted, I haven’t drawn anything for months, and I haven’t even found the time to write blogs about what I have been doing.
Luckily, some very wise friends and family have been reminding me that I need to also be treating this as a break from my day job and that it’s important to actually do relaxing things, not just productive ones!
So today is just a quick blog post about what I’ve been up to and about finding the perfect place to work!
So far, I’ve finished at least a draft of five fairy tales. One I am very proud and protective of and can’t wait to share with you. The others I am a bit more ambivalent about! The problem with writing is that it’s harder to share than illustrations, but I’ll try to share some tomorrow. The one I like most is a retelling while the others are new stories (although drawing strongly on fairy tale elements and motifs).
What is next? I’m waiting for inspiration to strike with another fairy tale I want to tell! In the meantime, I could catch up on a project that never really got off the ground - book reviews! Or I could continue with movie reviews - I wrote one of Frozen II last year and I’ve just seen the live action Mulan and have so many thoughts! Or, I could start preparing for inktober, which is just around the corner… I would love to do another fairy tale themed inktober this year. I need to update my website with last year’s illustrations but you will have seen a few that I’ve been sharing on this blog.
cafe reviews
I’ve been to a few different cafes in the last couple of weeks but nothing that has really caught my fancy! Instead, my favourite places to work have been on a picnic blanket in Ainslie, the National Library (so quiet! So peaceful! Such lovely, empty tables to work at!) and today, my balcony! I cleared everything off a table to make it as National-Library-ish as possible (but with a beautiful view of Mt Ainslie!).