Creativity waters creativity

Hello everyone,

I got Covid again around February 1 and was sick for that first week. That’s why I didn’t post recently. I spent last week working from home, waiting for my negative test and resting extra. This Omicron variant made me quite tired; and I still have some cough and mucus. But it was not half as bad as the original Covid variant, which I experienced in 2020.

It was wonderful to have time to step outside and walk outside last week, soaking in the spring sun. Here in Florida it’s not often sunny and pleasant, usually humid and sweaty, so I really try to take advantage when the weather is nice.

This week I’m back in the office again, stuck inside on beautiful days! Agh, it really sucks my soul out. I can’t wait to be somewhere else, doing something else, honestly. But for now, this pays the bills, and I have dental surgery later this spring, and other things to take care of.

Recently I took up a new thing called Hobonichi Techo, a type of planner made in Japan. It has quite a following, and fans are really into decorating their planners with washi tape and stickers. Since I like this sort of thing already and put loads of stickers in letters to my penpals, I decided to try the hobonichi techo, even though I haven’t successfully had a planner in my life.

Look at the results! I’m so pleased with how it came out, so far. I’m enjoying having a planner. It’s more fun than just putting stuff into my phone calendar, and it’s small enough for me to carry around (I got the A6 size).

Pic of my hobonichi planner so far

Any new projects you have picked up that excite you? Or do you do any planning or journaling? I’d love to hear about it!

Creativity helps creativity

Sometimes, working on creative projects besides writing can help us in our writing. It gets the creative juices flowing in our brains. I find that this cute planner system helps me, because I have to plan out my layout, pick appropriate stickers for certain days, and get freedom to decorate, too.

Another project I’ve been working on is painting. First, I started with oil paint back in 2020, 10 years after college graduation (college is where I first took a painting class). Then, my mother kindly sent me loads of art supplies she had sitting in the garage, so recently I started trying my hand at watercolor, too.

I always found watercolor intimidating as a kid and teen, so I never thought I’d try it again. But I found that with just a tiny bit of water and paint, I can cover a lot of the canvas, and the water sometimes creates interesting ripples and textures that it would be difficult to create otherwise.

I don’t have an example of a good watercolor yet really, since I’ve only finished 1 and am working on another. But here’s an example of a fun, simple one I did after work one day, which helped relieve my stress:

My rainbow painting