Working in Balance

Today’s drawing of Mary Magdalene

I spent the day reorganizing my studio to teach a workshop for the first time here in a few weeks. I had to start early since I have to carefully place each item in the right place so I can find it fast and easily. I made good progress but couldn’t finish.

There is a sense of wellbeing in organizing the workspace. It’s like completing a jigsaw puzzle. By finding a place for every little jar, paper and tool, the puzzle is completed. I wish I could have completed it today! But still, I’m happy with today’s drawing and it was worth stopping the organizing frenzy for taking time to draw for as long as it took.

It’s all about balance, which is very hard for me in all aspects of life. I want to keep going, always, but sometimes it’s necessary and even best to divide the task into smaller chores. It prevents overwhelm and provides time to think and develop an idea.

Balance is a goal and an ideal. One day at a time, one task at a time.

Materials for the workshop. Each participant will go home to continue working on their painting.

Painting Mary Magadalene is on its way to Florida. I added the flowers for padding and I hope they are a nice surprise for the customer! I got these beautiful red boxes to make a better impression.

My Etsy customer asked me if I do journals. I had designed one with Printable and connected it to the website store, but a customer let me know that they were charging her shipping, and super expensive too. I removed all the Printable items for now. And I’m going back to my love of bookmaking and designing a journal with 7 signatures and some red pages. This is just the beginning of the inside of the journal.

As part of the journal experiment, I ordered some sample designs of blank books in perfect bound and wire bound. I am looking forward to seeing them! This is the design with the image that my customer requested. (Blurry but that’s not how it will look in the final version.