Just popping in to recommend the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. It’s not like any other time management book I’ve read – there are no ‘tips’ or ‘tricks’ to exercise while cooking dinner or write a book while running a marathon. It’s more about recognizing that we have limited time and tough decisions need to be made about what is going to get done and what isn’t. It’s helped me focus on what’s important in my creative pursuits but also life in general.
This book is a part of the reason I’ve been pretty quiet here on my website – it really changed how I look at my creative work and I’ve been (slowly) more productive in the things that are truly important to me. One of my biggest lessons from the book is not to try to do too many things at once. I have so many creative projects and I used to think that if I touched each one that I was somehow still making progress on all of them at once. But that wasn’t the case and this book helped me to see the truth of that. Now I am actually making measurable, exciting progress on the children’s book I’ve wanted to write for years.
Unfortunately, this means thatmy comics, which I was really using as drawing practice for the children’s book, have intentionally fallen by the wayside. As has my music creation. And my other writing projects. Sometimes the hardest decision is choosing between two things we REALLY want to do. One day, I’ll have time again for my other creative pursuits and I look forward to that day. But for now, I am enjoying getting closer and closer to my goal of publishing my picture book.
I’ve really been enjoying my new digital art software, Rebelle 4 (updated since Rebelle 3), and have been practicing on it quite a bit. As I learn the software more, I’m actually starting to enjoy working in Rebelle vs Traditional Pen and Paper MORE (which came as a shock to me) because of all the amazing digital tools that make it easier to make mistakes and fix them quickly. 😉
Here are a few of the things I created while I was practicing with my new tools:
Me trying to get the hang of drawing children for the children’s book I eventually want to do. This is a background character from the wonderful book, The Magical Yet.
My confused girl. Working on using watercolor in Rebelle and also learning how to do highlights from light.
Playing around with watercolor to create a happy little fish. 🙂
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