A week in black and white.

Making time to make day 49

Progress notes on my Making Time to Make project at the bottom of this post!

It’s Thursday evening as I’m writing this, and I realized that everything I’ve made this week has been shades of black and white. What started out as simply an effort to put pen to paper (despite all of… this) turned into me just leaning into it - a mood, if you will.

I started out with one of my favorite swirly circle things. That’s the official name of this technique, by the way - Swirly Circle Things. It’s a thing I do to reduce stress. I gave it a solid black background, and it felt like I made something.

Then I decided to draw a bare tree in snow - because I guess I’m not ready to part ways with winter? Next to which I practiced some raindrops while I waited for paint to dry on the left. I don’t know about where you live, but raindrops around here are egg-shaped. Yes they are.

Another thing I did was try a little doodly morning sketch. Drawing is not at all a strength of mine (see: egg-shaped raindrops), and I purposely set a 5 minute time limit so that I didn’t put a ton of pressure on myself for this part of the day. I used a small sketchbook and a ball point pen. It was fun - I think I’ll keep doing it.

We’ll see what Friday and Saturday bring - cliffhanger!

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Update: It’s Saturday morning and I’m still on the (now intentional) black and white train. I made this spread of random items yesterday, as well as my doodly sketches (the bird above is from this morning).

Also made this cute little star-themed spread with Cold Play lyrics from one of my favorite songs of all time, Yellow. The Artemis II crew had me in (actually happy) tears all week. A balm for all of… this.

My plan is to paint today. I don’t know if I’m ready for much color yet - I’m a completionist, as I mentioned in this post - so if I know myself, I’m probably going to finish the week out with more shades of black and white.

Update to the update:

So I went with a project from Creative Abstract Watercolor

And this fella.

Next week I will be more colorful in my art - I have plans, even!

What did you make this week?

I want to know about your baked goods, your knitted or felted or crocheted beauties, your poetry and novels, your garden, your music, your collage, your paintings, your print making - tell me all of it! Substack floods me with this goodness every time I visit, and it only makes me want more.

“Making Time to Make” progress stats for this week:

• I posted 9 notes.

• I engaged with other Substackers’ great content.

• I painted and drew.

• I implemented a new morning quick sketch routine.

• I wrote and published my weekly email (thank you for being here).

• I started this week with 380 followers and 37 subscribers.

• As of this morning, I have 398 followers, and 39 subscribers!

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