Why I’ve disappeared…

Long time no post, I know. I’ve still been struggling with the seasonal depression, though with May approaching I am (knock on wood) over the worst of it. And in the past couple of weeks what’s kept me super busy has been finally opening the long-awaited – to me, anyhow – Eccentricity Supply Company! I’ve been brewing this up for months; nearly a year, in fact. I distinctly recall pondering it while on vacation in NH for my birthday – way back in July. That was when I cam up with the name, and registered domains for it. I’m still not using them, though I hope to soon. For now, ESC exists only in Etsy format, but it’s doing pretty well for a baby biz. More of a hobby, for now. But someday…

Finding flow

I tend to get caught in mental loops, chasing myself around in circles. Often I find the solution is to get these thoughts out of my head and “onto paper” – I say this in quotes because I almost always turn to Microsoft Word to work through times like this. At the moment, I’m working on a document to address my problems with flow. Here’s what I have to say to myself…

I’m having a lot of trouble with feeling blocked by problems that seem like they don’t relate to the Life Planning I’m trying to do. While the big picture stuff is important, the smaller details are what will make that possible. Flow isn’t just about being in a nirvana-like state of massive productivity. It’s a spectrum, like everything else in life. Right now, my flow is pretty much Jell-O. It wiggles, it jiggles, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. So I need to start with baby steps. Getting to molasses-like flow will be an improvement.

The two main issues that are blocking my flow are my body health and my environment. Because they are both of high concern to me and reminders are constant, I’m finding my focus constantly pulled away from Big Picture thinking. Allowing structured time each day to make progress on both these areas will allow me to put aside those worries.

In the midst of working through how to address those two issues, I decided to make a quick blog post because I’m really liking the excuse-busting approach I’m taking so far. I started by listing the main things I want to work on, and WHY. The why is really important, otherwise it’s easy to mentally downgrade their importance. Next, I listed all the excuses I make to myself, followed by a response to counter excuse. I know the logical answer to all of these, but sometimes it’s hard to remember. I’m thinking of making some flashcards for myself to keep on hand when I’m feeling excuse-y. In the meantime, I’m going to print out the Word document and use it in my visual journal.

Alcohol ink explosion!

Slowly but surely, I’m remembering play. I’m coaching myself to take a deep breath and just dive in. Today I “dove into” alcohol inks. I’ve rarely used alcohol inks before, just the couple of times been when friends from the NEATC group let me borrow theirs. My aunt gave me two sets of Ranger alcohol inks for Christmas, in Nature Walk and Farmer’s Market. To complete my “starter set” I ordered an applicator from eBay, and bought a bottle of 91% isopropyl alcohol from the grocery store (rather than using Ranger’s pricey mixative).

I had lots of fun just experimenting with different amounts of ink and rubbing alcohol, and on different surfaces. I found that glossy photo paper is a great place to start when learning to work with alcohol inks, as it’s a nice slick surface that’s fairly cheap and can be cut into backgrounds or elements as you please. I tried my hand at inking brass charms, but I’m not sure how pleased I am with the result so far. The nice thing about alcohol inks is that you can often come back and rework a piece with more inks or mixative. But the real triumph of today’s playtime was definitely the wooden star pictured here. Originally a plain silver star from a value pack of gold and silver stars and moons, I added dots of ink (Eggplant, Wild Plum, and Stream) directly to the glossy painted surface and “smooshed” them around with the applicator. Having really enjoyed the look of the rub-on letters used often in the pages of Visual Chronicles, I decided to dig out the sheet that worked it’s way into my collection at some point. I didn’t have a fancy stylus, so I just used a mechanical pencil with the lead pushed all the way in. I’m not sure yet what to do with this delightful little treasure, but it makes me smile every time I look at it. I’m on my way.

(And yes, “smoosh” is the technical term! Ok, Ranger says to “randomly stamp and twist” but I find “smoosh” to be far more succinct.)