(semi-weekly, mostly) Happy Things, Volume 7

I missed last week’s post. Ooops. To be fair, it was a busier day at the shop, so it mostly slipped my mind. It’s busier today, too, but I’m feeling the itch to write, so here I am.

It’s my last 2 days of in-store sales at my brick-and-mortar yarn shop, and I’m finding myself carrying a mixed bag of emotions. It’s (mostly) fine – this is what I needed to do and, in some cases, even wanted. It’s still hard, though, acknowledging that your dream business just didn’t work out in the way you planned or hoped. In a lot of ways the business was successful, but in others – in the ways that matter in our capitalistic world – not so much. I never generated a real profit, never was able to employ and hire anyone, and certainly never paid myself any sort of paycheck for all the tireless hours I’ve put in over the last 4.5 years. The shop just… barely held its own for four years straight.

So, today, while I sit here and ponder in-between customers, I find myself on a bit of a roller coaster emotionally. Grieving what I’m giving up/walking away from, trying to remember that what I accomplished wasn’t a failure, and also celebrating all that comes ahead of me – the time I’ll have with my kiddo to spend how we wish instead of days spent indoors because I needed to open up shop, time to adventure and go hiking and camping and do the things that fill my soul and give me inspiration to be creative again, and so much more.

Onward to the recap…

Starting a new sketchbook

I don’t know that I’d call my old sketchbook (pictured underneath the new one) actually done – there are some pages that are barely used and could have more things added to them – but I decided to move on from the larger sketchbook and back into an A5 sized one when I got to the last page. On a gorgeous spring day last week I sat on the front porch and just played – I used gouache, acrylic ink, pen, neocolor IIs, and probably more I’m forgetting to create the first page of my latest sketchbook. It turns out the paper on this one doesn’t love wet media, which is kind of a bummer, but I’m going to persist and continue anyway because I kind of adore seeing used journals and sketchbooks with their wavy pages showing their use.

Trying to spin again

I haven’t used my spinning wheel since the fall, and even then it was for a textile class I taught and not to spin a fiber I genuinely wanted to. On a whim, after fighting some boredom, I decided to grab a small 2 ounce braid of this wool/flax blend to play with, and found myself spinning away for far longer than I originally planned. I had forgotten how zen spinning yarn can be, and how enjoyable it is to just sit and zone out.

Hello, house finch

It appears we have some newer residents in our neighborhood this year, and it has been absolutely delightful watching these little birbs flit in and out of the back yard.

Learning to draw trees

I started dedicating some time to trying to really work on my tree drawings. I’ve not done them a ton, but with the summer ahead and plans to do a lot of exploring, hiking, and urban sketching, I wanted to work a bit on them. I’m really itching to sign up for Dina Brodsky’s tree drawing class, but for now I’ve signed up for her (cheaper) sketchbook habit class to maybe learn some new techniques and decided I will practice some tree drawings independently. Perhaps later this fall I will sign up for it to give me something to work on when the kiddo is back in school.

Toledo Museum of Art

We took a trip north to Toledo to visit the art museum, and my heart nearly exploded when the kiddo asked for their sketchbook and pencil to try to draw from one of the paintings. I love how comfortable they are in the world just doing things because they want to without fear, and wish I had half of their confidence. As it is, I was told this week I should submit a piece to a local art display going up soon and I am now panicking about whether I’m even good enough to display my art outside of my own personal corners of the internet, and just what I would display, if I decide to.

Moth May sketches

Over on BlueSky there’s a drawing prompt this month called Moth May, and I’ve started a spread of moth drawings for the occasion. They’re not at all to scale – I’m just winging it and finding reference photos and then adding them to the page where I see fit. I lightly blocked out business card-sized blocks just to get me started, but will likely add in more in some of those larger gaps. Oh, and I even tried something new by drawing more with a ballpoint pen! The first 4 are nearly all pen with watercolor details added – the green one is more watercolor than ink, but still has ink details and shading. Overall it has been a good challenge and pushing me out of my comfort zone!