carving

Clean Start

After the holidays made a mess of my little studio I took some time to clean and clear it out a bit and focus on work. I got rid of a few broken tools and some old drawing assignments from my freshman art school days and suddenly I can breath again. I'm ready to work. Everyday. When I finish carving the block that I am currently working on and print from it it will either go in a drawer or a stack. I stack the larger blocks and put the midsize to small ones in a drawer. Then I can print from them whenever I want for years to come. But I will need to restock my paper supply first. That is always fun!

iphone-20140116152044-0.jpg

Procrastination

What are you procrastinating right now? I am the master of procrastination. Sometimes I will clean my whole apartment just to avoid writing an email. Currently I am procrastinating carving. My latest carving got started well enough and I am committed to the design (good thing since there is no going back on it at this point) and had grand plans to carve out one design every evening and I would be done in a month. It's been a month and I am not even half done. I got distracted making Rainbow Loom bracelets with my daughters, making Perler Bead Christmas Ornaments, watching Twin Peaks on Netflix with my husband and generally just enjoying life outside of my studio. Oh and I let the mess beast creep in and take over my tiny studio and once that happens doing work there is pretty much impossible. Anybody else procrastinating anything and how do you like to procrastinate?

iphone-20131209105625-0.jpg

Carving in the Cold

Like just about everyone my days are very busy and it is often very hard to carve out art time during the day. Unfortunately I typically don't have much creative energy left in the evening after the kids go to bed. Which is a pity since that is sometimes the only time I have to make art. Thankfully carving is totally different and doesn't take much creativity or energy once I have a drawing already mapped out on the woodblock. Carving is a mentally minimalist and meditative process that gives me a chance to unwind at the end of a long day. Not too many things out there get me to slow down but carving a block of wood is one of those things that does force me to slow down and narrow my focus to the quiet and labor intensive careful task of carving a block of wood to print in the spring. As the days get shorter and colder there is something just right about spending the evenings in my little studio carving while drinking a cup of hot tea. As summer ended I found myself craving to have a large block of wood to slowly carve away so I got started on the planning and sketching. That is what I did during most of October. Now I am ready to carve.

iphone-20131117154245-0.jpg

Just Write

This morning was hard. This week is not off to a great start. I need a redo. After a fairly fabulous weekend the family is having a hard time adjusting to our ordinary week. The girls were fighting over everything this morning while I was trying to write and I was not handling the stress of it very well. Then it was time to take the big to school and drop the little off at a friend's house. Somewhere on my drive home while I was stuck in traffic I realized I was alone again and stopped stressing out so much. I am giving myself a redo and clearing my head and starting over.

Procrastinating art making is what I am currently beating myself up over. I don't have a clear project that I am working on and that is probably why it is so hard for me to use my time to create. I don't know what I am creating just yet. I know I need to do research and sketch and be ready to start carving a new block soon but so far the inspiration is not there. I need a schedule to pour over my books and do the research and the sketching to find the right design that I will love to print from for years to come.   Something like the starfish block that I caved last winter. My deadline for myself is to be carving by winter and printing by spring. Carving can take a very long time so this deadline is not as forgiving as it may seem. 

 This post is a part of Just Write, an Extraordinary Ordinary writing project. My first attempt to join a group writing challenge.

 

starfish

starfish