Right, so I said I'm back in my previous post and then I disappeared again :)  Well, luckily I didn't say I'll be more consistent this year since I know how easy it is to fall into whatever is going on at the moment and just not carve out time for this. And this, this does take a bit of time, who would have thought eh ;)

It's August now and I'll do my best to be as short as possible to cover what was going on till the present moment.

For starters, I kept my morning pages routine. I found this adorable and irresistible blank notebook and decided it'll be my first "sketchbook" to fill up. It's pages were of absolutely no good watercolor quality but I know that sometimes such a thing makes you be more creative and more inventive and also makes the book less precious to use. You can see in my first photo, second picture, that I did use watercolors in it and it kinda worked. Paper buckled a lot but as long as I kept drawing on one side only it was ok. And I did come to the last page with two things going on in my mind:

1. I did it!
2. Let me get back to the proper watercolor paper now! :D

Looks like it really is a good idea to use the best paper you can, especially if you like using watercolors, as it makes for a huge difference in the experience of drawing itself. Not necessarily the outcome, but the doing, the painting and the way color behaves on paper. And since with a morning page one kinda sets up the whole day, it's good to have fun not experience bleh moments due to paper. I basically ended up using mostly black pens and fineliners as they worked really well on that paper so all in all, everything was good in the end. Phew! 

At the same time I launched, or better said, continued with my group activity over on FB. I resurrected My 52 Project and named it - My 52 in 2019.  What a surprise eh ;)  Since it was such a last minute thing I used the prompts from 2017 and only adjusted the second one, which covers Chinese sign of the year. I read my blog post abut the 2017 experience and how I wrote it wasn't as successful as I wanted it to be - mostly by doing a lot of catching up in the last days of December and how it wasn't supposed to be this way. Well, it's happening all over again :)  I'm in a big catch up mode at the moment and am using Di Metcalf's Sketchpack Project to come even with the prompts. I did do some at the appointed weeks but mostly not. There are two reasons for it if I think about it:

1. I did my morning pages every day and that made me think I already was creative enough and that I could do other things - Ego chat for sure, keeping me away from my own project
2. I'm creating visual posts for these prompts to post on IG and FB - and it kinda makes me think I did them already - really weird trap to fall in

Speaking about these visuals, let me put all we had till now right here because they look soooooo cool all together :D  And because I'm inviting you to use them and hashtag your creations over on IG should you wanna share them:

I don't want to be too long so I'll just write down my conclusions about art challenges so that maybe, somebody else can find some use in them. And for myself of course, because I need reminders! 

1. always finish what you started - what you said you will do - because if you don't, it will nag on you and make you feel bad and with this, lower your vibration significantly (and we all know that's a pretty bad thing).

2. if you like a challenge and would like to participate but don't know if you can commit to finish it - go in just for fun, no strings attached a.k.a. "I will do this!" as you don't want the line 1 to happen. Just do it and see where it takes you, you might even finish it and be really happy about it. Which is high vibrations and something we strive for :)

3. Jane Davenport wrote it down somewhere and now, I can only wholeheartedly agree with her - "Life is too short to use crappy paper." It was somewhere along these lines. So do yourself a favor and buy the best you can and use it with joy and pleasure. OR Know what your paper is suitable for and don't go over that. 

4. It's never too late to start and never too late to finish - so dust your art supplies and start finishing what you started and get all excited about it again :)  Yup, I wrote this in my last post too.

5. It's OK to fall back with the project because let's face it, life has other challenges as well. The important thing here is to not feel bad about it but to return to it as soon as possible and just catch up and be all positive about it again. There must have been a good reason it resonated with you in the first place you just need to remember it. 

6. Share your challenge with your like minded friends as they will most certainly support you and cheer for you along the way if not even join you. Everyone does better with a cheer-leader :)

7. For drawing challenges - if they take a while - choose small pieces of paper to work on (or a small sketchbook) as it will be easier to accomplish your daily task. Trust me on this one, my 52 in 2017 was about A3 in size O_O ! No wonder I procrastinated so much. It also had the crappiest paper which I had to gesso prior to creating on. Must be my take on learning the hard way :D

8. I asked my dear teacher Guy Steven Needler about getting out of a challenge before finishing it and he said this: "One can only truly stop before finishing if the experience of learning has been achieved and the rest is supplemental or a slightly deeper experience but with no additional growth."   It does make sense, doesn't it? Only, it's hard to know if we really learned all we were supposed to so I think it's better to finish than to be sorry later :)


Now let me wrap up this post as it's a bit longish and I don't want to keep you here too long.
If you have anything to add to my conclusions, please write a comment and I'll add it to the list. I can't think of anything else right now but I'm sure there's still something to be mindful of before jumping into a creative challenge. Right?

Thanks for reading and all the best, always!

With  much love,
♥
nini

Wow, it's July 29th, 2019 and I'm writing about the end of 2018. It might look crazy to you but I need a closure for the Blogging Project in 2018 so that I can move on. I just re-read my posts from the beginning and oh my do they look familiar. It's like I'm in the loop of the same things going on without much advancement. Well, maybe I did advance a wee bit since I'm actually listening to my own advice and finishing this off properly :) 

It's never too late to start and I think it's also never too late to finish something - don't let old promises weight you down.

Let's log the end of last year out, shall we :)

I made it to the new sketchbook for my morning pages and was really so happy about it. It made a huge difference on my days because I started the day with something creative and it got me connected right away. Looking at it now, seeing I stopped with my third full sketchbook, I could be missing it a bit. But I did need to stop for a while because it became a chore not a joyous thing to do every morning. August will change this but let's keep this for another post (yes, I'm back! :D). 

The second photo actually shows my word for a year! I received the word in November already and am still using it. It's such a great word to me, it definitely motivates me if I don't forget about it. Which I of course do. A lot :/ I think having the word of the year on your wrist is THE perfect way to go about it. Instant reminder and many times a day. Ok, making a note of this too :D

I actually got lucky with the Artober thingie (that was our Inktober hosted by the art shop) and won this lovely set of Micron pens. I also got to meet the uber talented Vixi who was also posting daily and doing an amazing job with her drawings. I'm happy to say we became friends and thanks to her, I got to know a few more Slovenian artists I'd otherwise probably never would have. 

Right picture shows my little collection of Daniel Smith watercolors - OMG FABULOUS! I finally filled the pans with the ones I have (posted about them here). They are all simply gorgeous and really hard to choose from! I still haven't finished with the color testings and haven't ordered any since. Well, I really don't need any new colours plus I've discovered (or better, Vixi discovered) Paperkay and her handmade watercolors which are, if you ask me, REALLY AWESOME too!  

In December our local art supply store Art invited me to host a needle felting workshop. I was really looking forward to it and I came up with this little mushroom ornament for this occasion but nobody applied so it was cancelled. Oh well. Maybe this year :) 

I also got myself this gorgeous looking unlined notebook to have as a diary, the one where you have a week per spread and I made it all in advance. But. The poor thing just never got used. Looks like I am not able to keep a journal/diary/to-do/bullet journal anymore. Really weird as I do have a few. Must be my Instagram and one photo a day project that killed it, in a way. I am keeping the covers of this little notebook to use for a watercolor sketchbook. They are the reason I bought it in the first place anyway :)

The rest of December kinda speeded by as I was busily preparing for a craft fair. It didn't go well at all, the fair I mean, but at least I made quite a few things that I was later able to donate for animal charity auctions. Glad to help if I can. 

So this is it, really. A quick review of my creative endeavors in November and December. Looking back now I am amazed at the fact I was incredibly creative throughout the whole year and yet it didn't feel that way at all. My initial wish for recording my thoughts about the won e-courses vanished somewhere along the way but I still have them and am happy I can watch them any time I feel like. I may have bought a few new ones since but who is counting, right? ;)

Now let me thank you 2018 for being so good to me and for bringing so many new people into my life. Things are definitely changing and I love it. 

And also, thank YOU, for reading this ♥

​
With much love and gratitude,
♥
nini

Ha, time speeded by again, but only relatively. Loads went on and I had troubles fitting 5 weeks on my cover photo here :D So let us see what happened creatively... 

October is the month to be drawing with inks as it's also called the Inktober. The idea behind this project is simple - draw something every day and thus grow your skills. But since some enjoy a more challenging approach a list of prompts is also given - not a simple one I must add. But as it happened our big art store decided to do their own version of this project and I decided to play with their prompts - admittedly in hopes of getting a prize but only IF I succeed to post all 31 prompts on time and IF I get randomly chosen :D  They haven't posted the winners yet but I won in my eyes as I managed to draw every single prompt on time no matter where I was and I pretty much like all of them. So a big YAY for me! :)

I made all my Inktober/Artober pieces on the same sized paper and in the same size circle so that they would end up being a cohesive group. I also had the idea of binding them all into a simple book - let's see if I end up doing it.

I also visited Vienna with two of my dear friends - Andrea and Liezl - and it was a lovely almost week. All was great but the afterwards math. I shall write no more but I will say this - being totally misunderstood sucks VERY much! ​

Immediately after Vienna I had to dive hard into creating for ex-tempore Bled - time to hand in the final piece was on 13th of October and because of Vienna I lost 2 days already. Well, kinda three but it happens. I got a really nice idea for the topic of "Celebrating the Bees" and I went straight for it. On a paper I never worked on before and which really challenged me. I was going with watercolors this time (not the usual acrylics) and this paper - 100% cotton mind you - hated the masking fluid AND the eraser. Oh my, I still can't believe I managed to pull it off anyways. I think I had a lot of help from above so here's a huge thank you to all my guides and helpers - Thank You All so, SO, much.

Above is a photo from just before I finished it and the finished image I submitted. I can happily report it won one of the prizes and I was really, really proud. 

After ex-tempore Bled the Inktober was still happening (meanwhile too) and my morning pages as well. I think my "25 days of tea coffee" really pushed me through some kind of artsy barrier because I have been doing something every day (morning really) since then. 

At the moment I am using the smallest Moleskine's watercolor sketchbook and after a bit of the struggle at first, I got used to the paper and can now paint quite freely in it  I am actually 2 pages from finishing it! Which is another milestone for me - I have never ever fully filled a sketchbook before! So OMG I think I can be proud of this as well! :) Here are two of my favourite images from it:

Another creative thing took place in October - a special watercolor workshop with the artist Minh Dam. I haven't done such a workshop before but I must say it was really interesting. We all painted the same scene - a yellow tram on busy streets of Milano. I was lucky to have Mr. Dam's help with my poor beginning so it looks quite cool now :D It's still not finished but I certainly caught a glimpse of a different type of watercoloring and I too love the way my tram came out :)  Looks like I just really can't stay away from rainbow colors!

All in all a lot of creating got done in these four and a half weeks - just like I wished for and I am very happy about it. I also sewed a tiny wee bit and made a few little fishes filled with polyfill and cat nip so that they can be auctioned at the upcoming online auction together with a few of my Kitty Cards. So here's my last collage for this post and a wish for a peaceful and creative November!  

Read you soon I hope :)

With much love,
♥
​nini

So I did went and had a hike with Alexandra and the group that was staying at the gorgeous place that week. I must say it was the best decision I could have taken. People I met there were all awesome and I had the most wonderful and exciting conversations. Pretty much all of them were creative or spiritual and I learned so much. But what I learned the most was about myself and things I need to pursue and continue with. This hike was a huge eye opener and I am so very grateful for it. Thank you guys! From the bottom of my heart! And thank you Big U for gently pushing me forward ♥

Autumn reached us for sure and it can be seen in a lot of things - cool and foggy mornings, different sunsets, gorgeous golden afternoon light, leaves turning color and mushrooms growing everywhere :) M and I picked up so much goodies like never before. Yummy too :) 

And it felt so good to be on a hike again. The one I had with Alex was beautiful and it reminded me of the ones we used to go on and that I actually missed them. My favourite type of hike is the one where the majority of the trail is in the forest because I just love seeing all the greenery and little things. And ideas just start pouring in and if I am not too tired afterwards, I definitely feel like creating and that's the best after effect for me :D

I also started watching my favourite watercolor teacher's new e-course called The Art of Bonsai and it sparked a whole avalanche of ideas! Oh I am so excited about diving into a real mixed media project - like a real mix of different materials mixed media. Nothing done at the moment as I am, well, busy with other things, but I am still very excited about this particular idea.

These three pages are from my little Moleskine I chose to work in for my morning pages. They took much more time than anything I did before (splatters of color for example) but I enjoyed every minute. Except for the paper :D I need to get used to it; it's a good paper but still very different from the one I worked on before. 

There is just so much going on in my head I can't possibly keep up with all the ideas. Good thing but kinda exhausting!

I started making "My Traveling Pages"  - an older sister to "My Pages" project - because I am traveling next month and I will have the best opportunity to test these pages out. I am meeting two on-line friends in Vienna and I can't wait for it. I have been in Vienna many times as I fell in love with the city so it's always a pleasure to return and discover something new. I have a feeling this time will be extra special though :)

And because of my travel I decided to sew myself something new to wear there. It has a lot to do with Liezl's dress/tunic she sent me back in July as I have been wanting to sew something similar ever since I saw her wearing them. In NYC last year! Ohh, the awesome memories! I digress.... 

So I kinda copied the dress she gave me and made one out of a pumpkin fabric - it was an ok attempt but too big and weird. So I fiddled with the pattern just to make my dress no.2 even poorer! OMG, I need to learn how to draft a pattern from scratch. I really do. No excuses anymore. 

​Note to self - I need to start with keeping up a Project Journal. or more of them. One for sewing would be very useful as I seem to forget about mistakes and then I tend to repeat them. And having some sort of notes about the a-ha moments in a notebook would be, well, useful to say the least :)

Oh and just because I can, I started altering a magazine I found in Ljubljana when I was there with Alex. At first I wanted to have it for a special travel journal but when I trimmed it and reinforced the spine I so very much disliked the result I just wanted to toss it and not spend a minute more on it. But then I changed my mind. Currently I use it as my "getting the noise out of my head" kinda pages and I might add to them later on or I'll just leave them like they come out. It is therapeutic to just throw color on the pages without much thinking or just doing what I really like doing - making colorful splashes with acrylics :)  Who knows what will come out of this weird book in the end. 

I feel like I forgot to write about something but if I did, I'll add it later. I'm just soooo incredibly all over the place but it does feel good and I love all the creativity pouring out of me. I hope it doesn't stop anytime soon :D 

I hope I'll have more things to show next time. "My Traveling Pages" for sure! :)

See ya guys and have a great time till then. 

With much love
​♥
nini

These two weeks flew by quite fast but I did quite a few things too! 

Firstly I felt the need to do some loom knitting as I wanted to test out an idea. It was about making little kitties to stuff with kitty grass and have for animal auctions but it turned out it's not such a good idea to use knitted fabric for such a thing. Way to delicate for their little claws :)

I finished with my kitty illustrations for now and this was my last one. It's called "Fare Well" and is in my Redbubble shop with all the others. There is also something very exciting going on at the moment connected to these illustrations but I need to keep my mouth shut until it becomes more ... ehm.... real :)

This time of the year is also the time when Ex-tempore Piran happens and I have been part of the last two. It's an annual painting contest in which you have one week to make the painting. You go in and stamp your substrate and then you bring it in for the judges to judge. It all happens very quickly and it's this fact that makes it so interesting to be part of. At least for me as I do love a good challenge every once in a while :D

Not all of the paintings get accepted into the exhibition so to be a part of it is quite big too. And my first two times I don't think I got in this year either but at least i am not surprised :D

Here's what I made and how  the stages evolved - I always love seeing process photos.

And just today I finished with my fifth batch of "25 days of" that I keep making in the morning, before breakfast. Here's just a few of the squares:

I am thinking about taking on a sketchbook for this from now on but am so unsure about it. I think I will wait with the new one as it doesn't have watercolor paper in it so that the transition won't be so painful :D Looks like I made up my mind. The tiny watercolor Moleskine it shall be!

Oh and I met with my online FB friend Alexandra! She flew over from Washington for a hiking vacation at a place called Pri Lenart but she had half a day to spend in Ljubljana so I met with her and took her around. It is just so awesome to meet online friends whom you know for years but a real deal is just so much more. What a lovely person she is! I think I'll go and have a hike with them!
​
Thank you for reading, all comments are greatly appreciated and see ya in a week or two ;)

With much love
​♥
nini

Now this is quite a jump isn't it? From the beginning of June to the almost end of August. But yeah, it happens. One gets sidetracked, looses interest, doesn't get the feedback one hopes for, is tired, lots of things. But guess what? I'm here now and will do a quick recap and then I'll just keep moving, exactly like Miss Sia says, and my oh my is she right! 

So the last time I wrote, I wrote about my 25 days of tea and coffee being bound into a simple book. That thing is long finished by now and it holds so well that I will do the next three ones too. Here's a little video I did of this little book:

​I continued with my morning squares and reached 100 of them! Just like that I managed to complete a 100 days project without even going for it and because of that, I have a few really cool designs in my Society6 shop and the Redbubble one to which I definitely invite you to if you are looking for something as a gift :)

I also started with another painting and had lots of fun with watercolors:

Watercolors were the big thing for my birthday in June and I am still not finished with trying out all the Daniel Smith's samples I received. I also got a few tubes and a big empty tin palette which I hope to fill up with the colors I love the most. So I still have a few samples to try and then decide which 35 will end up in my new tin palette box. It's not going to be easy, I know :)

​July was mostly about being outside. We climbed a lot in a new place to us - Buzetski kanjon:

I also met with my dear friend Liezl's mom and sister and lovely Miss Bell :) because they were visiting our country and I of course offered to drive them around a bit. Three lovely ladies provided a LOT of great new memories which ended up recorded in a special little journal I made out of all the wrapping papers I received as they brought along a lot of gifts :) 

Here's a short flip through video of my special journal. It was a fun one to make because I tried to do it "Liezl's" style :)

 
​It's funny how this blog started out as a need to log my creative endeavors especially after receiving all those awesome e-courses on Jeanne Oliver's site. I can't believe how often I forget about those because I get sidetracked by being outside and all other things that are happening. But this month I remembered and watched two classes. One was about simple landscapes and sketching them on location. I realized one really needs to familiarize oneself with their watercolors and choose only the colors we love deeply. And of course, having the best quality ones we can get makes a huge difference. I didn't go out and sketch any landscapes at all as it's not something I'm drawn to do but it was nice to see those videos. In case you're wondering, this is what I am talking about - Close To Home; A Watercolor Landscape Journey

I also got myself a pair of gorgeous roller skates and till this day, I skated only 2 times :/ I know, I need to pull myself together and start learning! :)

The second photo shows my start for the e-course called In The Garden: The Tunnel Book Course. It stopped there for me but I did love the videos and the end result. Definitely something cute to make.

Well, looking back like this makes me feel so much better. I actually was creative even if I always feel I am not creative at all. Gosh, the Ego sure loves to play tricks on me :/ 

​Now, August hosts a very special project called Sketchpack Project and it's hosted by this lovely South African lady called Di Metcalf. It's been going on for a few years now and I tried to participate in the last three installments. The goal is simple, to sketch every day through August. You can do it in the project's own accordion sketchbook or anywhere you want. There's a great support group going on over on FB and it's great to see what people do.

Well, my first year was about designs for my needle felted pincushions and I stopped at about number 20. I think :) Last year I tried to paint little faces but because I chose mixed media I wan't able to follow up at all.

This year I decided to paint little watercolor illustrations - postcard size (15x10cm) but of course fell of the wagon again. HOWEVER! I still do them because they are made with an intention of being gifted to charity auctions where they can raise money to help animals in need. And this is my way of helping out. I have drawn 13 so far and will continue to do so till I reach number 31. Here's the first twelve of them:

I am also still continuing with my morning squares only I made them bigger for this next round of 25. They are 15x15 cm now instead of 10x10 cm or 8x8 cm as the first ones were. And I still like splashing colors around the most as opposed to doing something intricate or even very mindful first thing in the morning :D And I think that's what's important the most - doing something that brings you joy.

Phew, quite a long follow up! :)

If you came this far I thank you very much for reading. I hope you found something useful for yourself and that I will read from you too :) (comments are certainly very much appreciated ;) )

Now, have a lovey rest of August and see ya back in September! 

With much love,
​nini