April

 I’m just going to get this blog entry for April in at the very last moment. But that’s fine; I’ve written a blog post every month for three months straight and that’s something.

I saw something recently—a comic? An Instagram reel? I can’t remember—saying that the best part of being an artist is having an existential crisis every single day. I feel that. Wake up. Create some art. Question everything. Repeat.

Okay, creative update. What have I been making? I finished the two Zenheads hoops I talked about in my last blog, and I sold one of them. I also, on a whim, made a 4 inch botanical hoop that matches a couple of others already in my shop in different colors.

In adding these three hoops to my shop, I’ve created a few more “sets.” Some of them are the same design but in different colors (the botanical leaf design hoops and my roller skate Let’s Roll hoops) and some of them are different designs, but a similar theme (I have these three—now two—Zenheads hoops and I also have three Alice In Wonderland themed hoops.) I like the idea of themes and sets and I have always liked the idea of revisiting older designs and remaking them, either the same way, or with a variation. 

I started working on two new hoops this month: one is a revisiting of an older hoop (see?)—a sunflower stitched with woven picot petals to make it 3 dimensional—and the other is an abstract hoop stitched in pinks and yellows.

I am very much enjoying the pink and yellow one. I had prepped it a while back, but I couldn’t decide what to do with it. The colors reminded me of pink lemonade and so at one point I had the idea to attempt a thread painted glass of pink lemonade. That was a pretty daunting idea, so I thought I had settled on just making it a bunch of flowers, all in pinks and yellows, but that isn’t what I found myself doing. Instead I picked up some pink tapestry wool and couched it with yellow embroidery floss in a pleasing, swooshy, wavy line and I was off! I found that I had some variegated cotton perle thread in the perfect colors and I added that and so far this whole hoop has just felt like play and fun and messing around. And that’s, like, the perfect feeling to have when creating art. 

It’s not always achievable though. The sunflower is feeling a bit more tedious. Each petal is very repetitive and a little boring, especially after having done more than a few. Still, I like the piece a lot and I’ve already made one very like it, so I know where it’s going and familiarity is a good thing too.

As for non-embroidery art, I started a Draw This in Your Style challenge (original artist: rachel_winkle) on a Sunday and finished it up yesterday (Thursday). I really like how it turned out and I think I need to incorporate more dtiys challenges into my art routine. I’ve done them before, but even though I tend to save a lot of them to do later, I never seem to get around to it.

So, I can look at this and see many different areas where my skill does not quite meet the place where I want to be. But, at the same time, I also feel very pleased with it. I think what a dtiys challenge offers that’s most valuable is a place to start. So often I open up the iPad and create a blank page and then I’m just sitting there looking at it without any idea of what to do. And sometimes I’ll just start drawing for the sake of drawing, but inevitably, the same old things start flowing out of my head. But to begin from something that someone else has created means starting from an unfamiliar place, which can really jumpstart things and create new patterns in the brain. My version has the essence of the original, but in the end, it doesn’t really look the same at all. I’ll post this along with the original to Instagram sometime in the next week if you want to see a side-by-side, but you can search up the original artist and scroll back a bit in her feed to see hers if you want. 

And speaking of Instagram, I have realized that I very much need to change my relationship with it. I posted every day for 30 days straight and almost every one of those posts was a reel, but I hit a wall and got to a point where I just couldn’t do it anymore. It’s not the first time I’ve had a long streak like that and it’s also not the first time I’ve hit a wall after a certain point and just been unable to continue. So, I really need to pull it back a little and come up with a schedule that feels good, as well as to really ask myself what kind of posts I want to share. Because if I can’t do well with the kind of content I actually want to create, then there is really no point to Instagram at all and I’d do better to put my time and energy into some other way of sharing my art.

Anyway, that’s about it for this month, I think. I have a hoop to wrap up and package and send off to its new home (the rainbow cloudburst pictured in my last entry) and stitches to stitch and art that wants to be made. If you made it this far, thank you! The new coupon code (which is good from the publication of this blog entry until I put up the next one) is: STRAWBERRYLEMONADE