Looking back on the art I’ve been making for the past few months I’ve done quite a bit of digital work. I started really delving into Procreate when we went on Vacation earlier this year, and I haven’t stopped exploring the possibilities since. While planning for our vacation in late February and early March of his year I opted to take only my camera and iPad. No knitting, no sketch book, no art supplies. This was the first time I’d ever taken only my iPad, with the intent of creating art while on a vacation. I had a plan to limit my supplies and challenge myself to only using procreate. My plan worked, I learned a lot about procreate and I enjoyed to process. The biggest thing I learned was how very freeing being able to sit on the couch or the porch at night with just an iPad and a pencil was. There was no figuring out where to put supplies, or how to juggle a sketchbook on my lap, or being confined to the table. The other bonus ...
If you've been to the website you've probably noticed things look a bit different. With the rising cost of things, I had to make a few changes and shave some expenses from my small business budget. Rather than passing price increases onto my card customers, I made the hard decision to cut the website down to a shop only and move the blog and other pages back to a free service. While the aesthetic is a bit different, and I have a bit more limited design options I was able to cut costs by about $300.
In October of 2020, I left my job with an educational consortium after eight years of employment. In April of 2021, I took a temporary position with our local cooperative extension office, and my contract ended in December of 2021. Since then I've been home with my fur babies. I took a few months off from creating to focus on myself and spend some time working through my thoughts on what my next steps should be.
I've spent time working on my own art. I've spent time in my garden. I've spent time doing a bit of soul searching. I've spent time thinking about how I wanted to move forward. I've spent time praying about the thoughts on my heart. It's now August and Alaska is changing seasons, moving into Fall. Mother Nature changing season seems to be a serendipitous time for me to shift into a new season.
Moving forward, I'll be focusing on writing more posts, with info and affiliate links to the products I've used. I'll still be offering my cards for sale, both in the online shop and locally at Smiling Moose Gifts and Office Supply, but I need to build beyond that. Building my blog seems to be a natural path for that. I'll be focusing on writing more about my process, and in doing so I'll be sharing more products with affiliate links. I have a post about using affiliate links if you're curious how they work.
If you're interested in following this journey, I would encourage you to add my blog to your feed reader and subscribe to my newsletter.
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