The Artist's Way

Happy late Easter and Passover week!

This week I started a new book called “The Artist’s Way,” by Julia Cameron. You may have heard of it. It’s celebrating its 25th year in print. The book is for anyone who feels stuck creatively, not just for “artists”. I have been feeling a little stuck in places myself, so I thought I’d give it a go. Basically the premise is to follow the weekly “tasks”, starting with writing 3 full “morning pages” every day. This, says Cameron, is a brain drain. You scribble out anything, even if you have nothing to say. It’s a way of unblocking a metaphorical pipe to help you reconnect with the Creative Force within you.

So I did my morning pages all week. I got up at 4:30am, wrote for 30 minutes filling up 3 pages of gobbledygook, worked out, then got on a plane.  After about 3 days, whatever was blocking me creatively started to dissolve. I won’t go into details, since it’s rather private, but man it is really helping. If you’re stuck creatively, or simply need help answering yourself and figuring out what you want, I recommend following the advice in this *book.

There are still about 11 weeks of “tasks” to go. I’m excited to see what transpires and I’ll keep you updated!

Besides the book, I got a lot done this past week, including flying 4 turns in a row (two with my husband!) and making lots of headway on new Jetlagged toons.

My goal is to get ahead about a month and have those cartoons ready to post automatically. This makes my life so much easier. Juggling flying and writing/drawing Jetlagged can be, er, hard to manage. Especially when the weather is nice and all I want to do is be outside! Do you remember that scene from Monty Python and The Holy Grail where the king wants his son to marry but all he wants to do is “siiiinnnggg!” Well, that’s me on a sunny day. “But father, I don’t want to be locked in my tower on my computer, I want to be outttssiiiidde!”

I’m happy to report I got 4 new cartoons sketched and 2 colored AND I got to be outside ;-). That means another 4 will need to be sketched this week and colored, then set up to be posted.  

The new website (which is currently the shop) is coming along nicely. My goal was to upload 10 cartoons a day, but then I realize I really don’t want to be spending my weekends doing that, so instead I’m uploading 10 on weekdays. This week, however, I got 72 uploaded! So far the new site has over 300 cartoons. That’s all of my cartoons from 2014-present. I’m currently tackling 2013, and that was a BIG year for me. I must have another 150+ just in that year. Unfortunately I wasn’t good about numbering and filing, so while I’m uploaded I’m also renumbering and filing the originals to correspond with the digital downloads. Joy!

Over the weekend I had a great time celebrating Easter with my family. My mother puts on a huge dinner every year. Everyone brings a little something--my cousin buys flowers from Pike’s Place for the tables, my mom makes amazing food, the iconic éclair cake makes an appearance and anyone displaced for the holiday is invited. My amazing husband pulls his weight plus more helping my mom move furniture, mowing lawns, vacuuming and staying late to help clean up. It’s always a lot of fun and one of those traditions she hasn’t skipped in over 15 years.

One of the beautiful bouquets my cousin arranged for the dinner tables.

I hope you all had a great holiday and have a fantastic week ahead!

Happy Jetlagging,

Kelly

 

*This is an affiliate link. If you purchase the book through this link, I do receive a small commission from the sale of your purchase.

Leave a comment

Name .
.
Message .