Workshop Diary #007 October

October has been a bit of a roller coaster of a month. There have been really amazing things and then there have been less than desirable occurrences. 

A Weekend of Astronomy Leads to Better Focus in Art

One of the things that I would really like to talk about is getting a ticket to an online convention for one of my communities. If you only know my work from here you might only know me for miniatures and fairy gardens and art, but I'm an astronomy  and math nerd. 

I got to spend a weekend with a bunch of other nerds, many of whom I knew and some I hadn't met yet. It was so good for me. I had been focusing so much on work that I'd been letting my other interests fall to the wayside  and I hadn't realized that this was eating away some of my creativity. I was reminded of projects I had wanted to research and pursue. It was reminded about how excited I get about certain topics. I came away from the convention brimming with creativity and a better understanding of what I want to focus on in my art.

I have a terribly bad habit of focusing too much on projects I'm not as excited about or focusing on a project long past being excited about it. Some sense of obligation or need to complete. And unfortunately this leads to projects that I'm far more excited about to languish on the shelf, waiting and sometimes forgotten. 

There are three particular topics I came away from the convention knowing that I really wanted to focus on as subject matters of my art.

Science, lolita fashion, and witches. 

Photo by Hu Chen on Unsplash

Time to Shift

A conversation and a silly comment led to a project that I wanted to do. Something I was excited about and have gained great experience in pursuing. But I failed to assess the amount of time that I would be able to commit to it in the way I wanted to. And as such other projects that I had wanted to also work on did not get the time they needed. 

Going forward I need to assess how much time I have access to the proper tools and conditions to do certain tasks. This will lead me to having realistic expectations of what I can do. 

I've had a great deal of fun doing vector art with Inkscape. And filming the process and then editing it into time-lapses has helped me learn how to better use some of those programs. However, I'm not sure there's much more I can learn at this point by continuing down that path. Instead I think it would serve me better to start working in other areas that would push other skills. 

I'd like to focus more on miniatures and polymer clay. This will force me to learn how to better film those processes. I've already dabbled in the matter, creating a pair of light boxes out of old cardboard boxes. There is much more for me to learn and many areas in which I can improve.