I bet you thought I forgot about this.

I've been blogging rather sporadically since spring semester ended. Mostly because I've been working on my other creative endeavors and completely immersed in the creativity challenge. HA! I bet you thought I forgot. Witness the Etsy link to the right and the new blog banner above. Disclaimer: I'm still working on my banner and need to take better product pictures. I never said I couldn't profit from the creativity challenge. Heck, I if I profit, it's all the better, no?

Since I'm almost finished with Hypermedia, which was a refreshing change from W&I drill camp, I'll have even more time to get my creative sh*t together. Because I'm nuts, I'm also thinking about taking an online digital photography class. I think it would be fun and clearly I need some assistance (see: disclaimer) in that department. I will say, my camera is crap and I'm planning to buy a new one so that could be part of the problem. I have to hold down the stupid "take picture" button forever before the thing actually goes off. Yes, the batteries are fine. It does this with new, old and everything in between batteries. The poor thing served me well, but it's on its last legs and it's time for an upgrade. Two upgrades, actually- this one and this one.

I'm going to California for vacation the first week of August and it would be really nice to have a decent camera to take pictures of the scenery. Although, with the situation out there, the scenery will be all burned brush and fiery hillsides. Hopefully, they'll get that under control soon. California's too awesome to go up in flames.

Summer, coding, and craftiness

I'm taking Hypermedia this semester and I'm not sure what to do with myself since I'm not drowning in projects and homework. Not that I'm complaining. This is a welcome change from the insanity of Words & Images. But really, code is boring. I understand why I need to know it, but actually going through the process of learning it kind of makes my eyeballs roll back in my head. At least the instructor is amusing and makes an effort to make it interesting.

So, since I have all this free time, despite taking a 3-credit summer class, I'm making some major efforts to get my etsy sites up and running.

~(Tangent: I'm obsessed with etsy. It's a problem. I waste large amounts of time perusing that site. It's fabulous and it never gets old because there is a constant stream of new, fun things to buy. I justify the large quantities of cash spent on etsy by reminding myself that I'm supporting fellow artists, artisans and crafters. Kind of a "you buy mine, I'll buy yours" thing.)~

So, anyway, back to my etsy sites. I have two- one for paintings and digital art and another for jewelry designs. Right now, it's looking like the jewelry design one will have items first. I took inventory of my supplies last weekend, made a list of what I need and made a few pair of earrings. Sometime in the next week or so, I'll order the missing supplies and make a bunch more earrings and a few necklaces. Time to start making some money.

Another summer endeavor of mine is to get my other (personal) blog back up and running because, let's face it, there are some things you just don't want to put on a blog that professional colleagues are reading.

Lastly, because I constantly have to be learning something new and stretching myself as a crafter and as an artist, I'm going to learn to make soap. Luscious, smell-good soap. This will probably warrant pictures as it will most likely be somewhat akin to a 2-year-old attempting to paint.

Midweek ramblings

It's Wednesday (I think) and I'm halfway finished with my illustrations for project 4. I'm not sure why I decided to illustrate all of these projects. It's kind of making me crazy and increasing the workload tri-fold. But, I'm halfway through and I'm liking the results, so no sense in backtracking now.

And project 5 is officially on hold until Saturday night. It's the only way I feel that I can get these projects done and do them right.

Project 6. Yeah. I've barely given it any thought. And the thought I have given it has been, I've got nothing. Well, not nothing, but nothing that I want to pursue. All of the ideas I've come up with are on the snarky side, but I'm using snarkiness for project 4 and I would rather avoid using it again for project 6. But, if I don't come up with anything that's not snarky (and not boring), then I guess snarkiness will rule.

Snarky. I like that word. Before we were dating, my boyfriend and I got into a debate about whether or not it was actually a word. I thought it was, he thought it wasn't. So, to prove I was right, and in true snarky form, I printed out the definition of snarky from dictionary.com and left it on his desk (we were coworkers at the time).

In between all the craziness, I managed to complete one creativity challenge project this week. It's actually from Sunday, so sadly, the past few days have been void of any creativity other than work and school. But, the school assignments are stretching and improving my skills as an illustrator, so I say they count. Hey, it's my challenge, I can make up and change the rules whenever I feel like it.

Saturday thoughts

I intended to come home tonight and work on my projects, but my brain is burning and there is no way that any good ideas are going to come out of it tonight. So, I gave myself a break and continued on my creativity challenge. Here's the result-it's colored pencil, not a medium I'm all that used to, but I'd like to learn more about it (and get better quality pencils).


I'm feeling (slightly) better about the flash project. I have to finish my illustrations and I think I'm going to change my song to Dave Matthews "The Space Between." I find it more appropriate for my story. Speaking of my story, I know my storyboard was a little cryptic, so here's the gist-
Girl needs a dress for her fiance's birthday, which is one day away. She finds the dress in the store window, buys the dress, puts on the dress and goes to visit her fiance's grave. It is the first birthday he's had since his death and it's her way of celebrating and remembering him. Morbid, I know, but I'm making it work.

Project six doesn't seem too scary. Pretty easy actually. It's just going to be a matter of finding time to actually do the work and also, you know, sleep and eat. I may be forced to regress to my undergrad tactics of putting on a pot of coffee at midnight and plowing through my work until 5 am. I'm not sure I could handle that anymore. I guess I should probably just focus on my time management skills.

Today's creativity

So, here's a sketch I did really fast (actually did it last night, but I'm counting it for today). I might actually end up using this in my flash project. Please excuse the crappy quality. I ordered a scanner, but didn't get it yet. This is a snapshot.

Something creative every day

I'm taking a self-imposed creativity challenge. The goal is to do something, anything artistic/creative at least once a day that does not have anything to do with work or school. I might let the school projects slip in there once in a while, but work, even though it's creative, definitely does not count. Whether it's sketching, painting, making a new necklace, singing, dancing or playing the piano, it's time to get back into the creativity habit. If I produce something tangible (a drawing, jewelry, etc) from these daily challenges, I'll try to post them on the blog (although, that might be a different kind of challenge in itself). While I'm taking this challenge, I'll also be attempting to invent the 36-hour day because I'm not quite sure how this will fit into my schedule. We shall see.