I have not felt very creative or made much time for art recently. The last couple months have been hard. I will share a bit more about it at the end of this post, but I know most of you are here for art, so let's start with a recap of some things I have been making and doing recently:
What I made the last few months:
I made a few versions of a simple floral design I called Joyful Daisies. I decided to add little ghosts to it and use some fall colours to enter one version of it in Spoonflower's Halloween Cottagecore design challenge.
I painted a little rabbit with gouache. I will eventually scan this and make it into a fabric design on Spoonflower.
The very first design I ever posted on Spoonflower (more than a decade ago!!) was a rabbit, and I have posted so many other rabbit designs since then. Here's the rabbit from my first design:
I went to a fun little flower arranging class with my sister, Melissa. The flowers were gorgeous. (My favourite part was when Melissa could not remember the name of the 'ranunculus' flowers - that dark pink flower in my arrangement - and she called it a "ridonculous", and we had a little laugh about that.)
I just finished up with another floral design. (Sometimes, I wonder why I make floral designs for my Spoonflower shop since there are so many people doing them and I don't sell many of these designs. People tend to like my animal designs best. However, the answer is that I make them because I like to draw little flowers and a million leaves. It's relaxing and fun, and so I know it's worthwhile for me personally, even if I don't sell a lot of these designs.) Here is the original version I drew:
And here are a few of the other colour options I came up with for this Sweet Wildflowers design:
Something I like about Spoonflower is getting to see mock-up photos of my designs on wallpaper, fabric, and home goods. I think this design would be especially nice on wallpaper or bedding.
What I did the last few months:
My work as a school speech-language pathologist felt heavy this past school year, both in terms of the numbers of kids and the complexity of their needs, and I felt stretched thin. Provincial budget cuts to public education are no joke, and I know everyone who works in schools is feeling it. (If you don't think this concerns you, then may I suggest reaching out to me or others who work in public education to talk about it further. I strongly believe that prioritizing education should be a huge concern for everyone!)
That said, I loved the kids I got to support this year and was incredibly proud of the hard work they put in. The end of the year was busy as I wrapped up my work with the kids on my caseload, did some year-end assessments, met with parents, worked with teachers and schools, and wrote a million (not quite, but my school SLPs know it feels like that!) reports to document progress and ongoing needs for the kids I supported.
I also got to tag along with Ben to Copenhagen! He had to be there for about a week to do some coffee work, and I finished work about a week early so I could join him. It was our first trip without the kids, which felt like a big deal. Ben's mom came to stay with them while we were away, and they all had so much fun. Here are a few pictures from our trip, and you can see more on my personal IG if you want:
We biked so much, visited an art gallery, ate good food, saw coffee pals, drank coffee, slept in, walked on the beach, did a canal tour, and had a wonderful time together. Copenhagen is a beautiful city.
I also watched Ben and his band, Mayfield, play music at the Wildhorse Tent during the Calgary Stampede. They are the house-band there, and do a great job. We took the kids to Stampede a couple times too. It was hot and way too busy, but fun nonetheless. (We mostly looked at the animals and ate snacks.)
A little bit more of what's going on these days:
As I mentioned, it's been a tough couple months. Part of that was due to my more challenging year of work. Ben was also gone a lot this year, and even though my kids are pretty easy kids and I manage okay when he is away, we sure miss him. All of that felt like nothing compared to hard family news, though. I have a couple family members facing hard things right now (which I won't get into here). And then at the end of May, we found out my sister has inflammatory breast cancer. That's a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer because it is cancer of both the breast and the skin, so it's automatically at stage 3 or 4. It's scary. Our family has been thankful for all the support she has received, from pals who happen to be oncologists or doctors, to people who contributed to her fundraiser since she cannot work for the time being, to people who bring them meals. (If you want to hear more about her journey or contribute to the fundraiser for her, click here!) She just did her second round of chemo (out of 8 rounds), and after that will have a double mastectomy, and then radiation. Not exactly the summer she pictured! Through it all, she has been kind and brave and I am proud of her. I felt honoured that she asked me to be the one to shave her head, and we did that this past week. (Makes me kind of want a buzz cut because she looks pretty cool at the moment tbh.) Here we are just before the haircutting began!
I had my first mammogram this month because of all that's been going on. I am all good, but glad I did it and can have that peace of mind.
That's a summary of some of the things I have been up to lately. I still have a month-plus-a-couple-days before I am heading back to work again. My three big summer goals for my remaining time off are to spend lots of time with family, do some organizing of our home, and to make some art.
Do you have any summer goals?
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