More Outgoing for June!

I'm excited to announce that I have a penpal! It's early days yet - this is only my first letter - but I hope it works out. May it arrive quickly!

I'm also still on a PostCrossing high, and I couldn't resist sending out another batch of postcards. One of the cards I sent last week arrived in Germany already, even with last Monday being a public holiday in Australia! That was exciting! I decided to turn on the 'allow sending to repeat countries' function, just to see what would happen. I drew addresses in Russia for all 3 cards. I don't mind sending cards to anywhere in the world, but I have to admit it is more fun sending cards to different countries in each batch. Perhaps I'll alternate having the function switched on and off in future.

The box at the back is a hard slip cover for putting my outgoing mail in to protect it while it's in my handbag. Things can get a bit rough when I'm on the tram, juggling my transport card, lunch bag, and sometimes even cup of coffee! The Petit Clover box came from Daiso and it originally held a letter set. I cut the end off to make slipping postcards/letters in and out easier. It'll get its first test tomorrow morning!

Say Hello to My Noodler's Pen!

Since I started journal-writing, I've suddenly become very interested in fountain pens again. A coincidence? I don't think so. I still had all my equipment from my last obsession with fountain pens a couple of years ago. I had my old Sheaffer fountain pen, which I was issued with when I was in Grade 6 at school. I also had the Pilot Petit Pen and the 4 Platinum Preppy Pens that I'd purchased at the time, along with all the various cartridges and converters that they require.

This time, however, I wanted more. I wanted to go deeper with my pen experience. So, as a reward for journalling daily for a whole fortnight, I ordered myself a Noodler's Konrad Flex Pen. The pen is quite popular and some of the colours were already sold out, and yet I still hard a hard time choosing! I finally settled on the Galapagos Tortoise barrel colour, which is a dark brown with tortoiseshell swirls.

The Konrad is based on a German design from the 1950s, and is fully customisable. The nib and ink feed section pull off completely and can be set to produce a thin line or a thick, wet line to the user's liking. It also has a flex nib, so when you press down harder, the two points of the nib separate slightly and produce a thicker line. Just like the nibs used in Victorian times!

Noodler's, being the fine writing instrument purveyors that they are, have also tried to use authentic materials in the construction of the pen. The feed is made of ebonite, the body of biodegradable celluloid. This plastic, in use since the 1940s, warms when held in the hand and gives the pen a more authentic touch. However, it smells funny. I'm OK with that though, because of the authentic touch thing.

The filling mechanism of the pen is the classic piston-fill. The nib end of the pen is dipped into a bottle of ink, and the screw-top on the other end is wound up, drawing the ink into the pen using suction. The great advantage of the piston-fill design is that you're not tied down to using cartridges. You can use any brand of ink that you like, and you don't ever have to worry that the cartridges will become unavailable. Again, there's a lot of room for playing around with this configuration. For example, if the pen has run dry, you can screw the piston down just a tiny bit to force the ink down into the feed (I recommend having some paper towels handy if you do that, as a big drop of ink came out when I did it!) Or, if the pen is half-full and you want to fill it again, you can turn it upside down and screw the mechanism up to eliminate the air pocket, and just turn it right way up again and suck up some more ink. (I haven't actually tried this yet, but it seems quite easy.) The only disadvantage of the piston-fill is that you have to dip the whole nib up to the body in the ink, so you need to have at least 2cm of ink left in your bottle. This YouTube video has a good review and demonstration of the pen, for the interested.

The Noodler's Konrad pen is certainly not a beginner's pen. The fully customisable nature of the design and the mucking around with open ink bottles can be pretty daunting. Once I started to get over my fear of spilling ink everywhere however, I really started to have fun with it. I'm still a bit scared of this pen, but I also freakin' love using it! The price was also insanely reasonable compared to some vintage-styled pens out there.

June Mailings

I've suddenly become interested in PostCrossing, after an absence of nearly 6 months. No, I should clarify: I was interested in it all this time, I just wasn't motivated to send any postcards. Today was different: I was so motivated that I even created some spiffy graphics for my blog!

I sent a batch of 3 postcards this month, to postcrossers in Germany, China and Russia. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy choosing cards based on the person's profile and writing a personal message to them. I'm out of souvenir-style postcards now, so I'll need to go on a little shopping trip soon!
There's also a long-overdue parcel at the bottom there, going locally.

And because I needed an excuse to use my 'Incoming' graphic as well, here are the last 4 postcards I received, even though it was a few months ago now. I really like all of these.

These come from:
[top left] Poland; travelled 41 days
[top right] Germany; travelled 19 days
[bottom left] Thailand; travelled 23 days
[bottom right] Russia; travelled 46 days

Pages

I'm afraid life's been pretty busy. I haven't had much of a chance to do art lately. There's been a little crafting around the edges, but I'll talk about that in my next post. One thing I've been doing regularly though, is ... writing! How did that come about?

I asked for and received The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron for my birthday last month. I first heard of it years ago, and knew that literally thousands of people swore by it. I suppose something finally fired up in the back of my mind and made me want to delve deeper and start making more meaningful art. (...Muchly influenced by my Creative Warriors journey I think!...) I've started having thoughts like, "I deserve to explore the creative part of myself! Using all the resources available to me!" I started reading the book straight away after receiving it. It consists of a twelve-week course of assignments and activities designed to work through blockages and open up your creativity.

"Twelve weeks!" I thought, "there are 10 tasks in the first week alone! I should allocate about a month for each 'week', just to be safe."

Before the course even starts though, the Introduction specifies that there are two compulsory activities: firstly The Morning Pages, and secondly the Artist Date.

Firstly, the Morning Pages. I had reservations about whether I could commit to writing three whole A4 pages, every day! I decided to try doing it for one month. To be honest, some of the tasks in Week 1 were a bit confronting for me, so I thought starting with just the Pages would ease my way into it. Then I planned to start the course proper after the month had passed and the Pages habit was (theoretically) ingrained.

Catch: the thing about getting up half-an-hour early every morning just doesn't work for me! I googled to find out other people's experiences, and was reassured to find out that there seem to be as many approaches to Morning Pages as there are creatives out there. I spent the first week experimenting with different times of day and quickly landed on 7pm. It's not first thing in the morning, and it's not last thing at night, the times that most other people seemed to choose. One of the habits I'm trying to kick is not comparing myself to other people though! 7pm fits into one of the few available free timeslots in my day, and it works for me.

And guess what? I'm proud to say I've been doing my Pages for just over a full calendar month! Perhaps it's because I enjoy using the beautiful pens and paper. Perhaps it's because the book told me to, and my Inner Child is obeying! Perhaps it's because on some deep level, I'm finding the combination of having some time alone and writing out my thoughts to be relaxing and therapeutic. I can't say I've come to any earth-shattering epiphanies (so far!), but I've noticed a few subtle changes in myself. I have fewer doubts when thinking of starting a project or practice. I'm more open to starting the Artist's Way course proper. I've start reading The Fluent Self blog again after a long hiatus, and am actually following some of the principles this time. Yup, I've been calling on Metaphor Mouse, having imaginary conversations with different parts of myself, and I'm thinking of starting a Book of Me. Self-improvement can be fun!

All photos taken by me on walks around the city last Summer.

[Creative Warriors] March Project

I've only just had the inspiration to start on the Creative Warriors March project last week. What can I say? Inspiration comes when it comes. I've done just the first half of the project so far, which is to do a self-portrait on a loose piece of paper, incorporating something from the month of March that's personal to you. I ended up drawing myself with a crochet hook. Even though I didn't actually do much, I was thinking about craft quite a bit, since the weather had finally started to get cooler and I was in the mood to start handling fibre again.

This was a big step out of my Comfort Zone! In the last few years I've done barely any figurative drawing. I've stuck mainly to abstract doodles, swirlies and mandalas. The last time I drew a large, realistic face was over 3 years ago. This was hard! I can't tell you how many times I rubbed out various features and tried again. Showed it to Husband and said, "how does this look?" I couldn't picture how a nose would look straight-on, so I took a photo of myself on my ipod and propped it up next to my sketch book for reference. I did the nose, lips and chin that way. The hand I drew from looking at my own hand. Then I did the colouring with watercolour pencils.

Overall I'm happy with the drawing, as long as I keep reminding myself it's just a first attempt! I like the eyes and nose, but I think I need more practice doing lips, and my chin is longer in real life. I also have just a blank space under my chin instead of a proper neck and shoulders. (Not to mention clothes!) But I can fix that in stage 2 of the project. I think the hand is quite good, though. I haven't been very good at hands so far, but perhaps some more detailed studies like this one will help.

As for the colours, I really liked the shading of the face - just a very pale pink around the edges - and the eyes. The hair could have done with a few highlights: it just looks like a flat plane. I tried to draw purple mascara eyelashes with the watercolour pencil, but they turned out all blobby so I made them into eyeshadow instead. And the hand! I was trying to make it a slightly different colour to the skin of my neck to differentiate it. I didn't meant to make it bright orange! It's so unnatural! But remembering Journal Girl's lesson about playing with colour, I let go and realised I kinda like it.

Part 2 of the project involves incorporating the drawing into an art journal page. Hopefully I'll be able to work on that next weekend. I've already learned a lot from Part 1. I'm better at drawing than I thought I was! I feel more comfortable to study my own face and use it as a source than I might have been in the past. I've also realised that I really like using watercolour pencils. I think I even prefer them to watercolours in a pan for most things. I'd like to get some nicer ones in a larger range of colours.

Stay tuned for Part 2 and other arty/crafty goodness!

[Creative Warriors] Drawing and Zine Submission

Today's post is to update you on my arty activities lately, though I'm afraid progress has been slow at times. Members of Journal Girl's Creative Warriors Course are given monthly assignments, but I have to admit, after an initial look I've been putting them off. I guess I haven't been in the mood for anything out of my Comfort Zone. Or even anything inside it!

I did, however, wite a submission for the Creative Warriors May e-zine. This is a pretty big step for me. I've been blocked from writing zines for about 3 years now. Not only am I writing a personal story and doing an Out-of-the-Comfort Zone drawing, but it will be included in a forum which is bound to receive much more attention than my individual zines ever did! Eek!

I'm going to show you the drawing. I feel pretty embarrassed to show it - but it's meant to be a re-creation of a work I did as a 13-year-old, to go with the theme for my submission. It's not meant to be A-No.1-Standard. I wouldn't use that medium or style now.

Leaves. Coloured Pencil.
I was planning on doing a painting as well, and I had a picture of it in my head. But when it came down to it, I just couldn't squeeze out the inspiration in the time limit. It wasn't essential to the story anyway. Perhaps I'll do it one day still. It's still floating around in my head.

To find out the story behind this drawing, you'll need to get the Creative Warriors May zine when it comes out!
(I'll be announcing when it does!)

Right Now : Saturday 4th May, 12pm

Today I'm working under the theory that, not having done anything to post about shouldn't stop me from posting. Actually, I've been doing some things in the last week or so, and I'm currently working on writing and taking the photos to be able to share them. Today though, I'm going to do a little activity I saw on another blog called Right Now.

feeling: restless.
reading: The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy.
following: Journal Girl
in love with: Pens!
eating: a home-made ham & cheese croissant washed down with a strong coffee.
waking up: glad there were no nightmares last night.
dreaming about: paint. the brighter the better.
grateful for: all the support that's out there if I choose to reach out for it.
listening to: the breeze rustling the tree outside punctuated with a female voice yelling "come on!" from Husband's computer game!
fantasizing about: rolling around in paint with abandon, and not caring about spills or stains!
working on: changing the way I think.
undecided about: which option to try next on the path of my inner life.
dreading: cleaning the house!
feeding: my need to write.
excited about: all the sources of inspiration I'm drawing on right now!
looking forward to: Eurovision!

Autumn. From Pinterest.