An Earring Challenge, And A Week Into 2018 !

Already a week has flown by, and felt like we wished each other a Happy New Year, just moments ago!
I am not one to start a year by making resolutions, that I fail to remember by year end. Been there, done that.

My goal is just to have productive days , and just tune in to peace. I have been doing a whole lot of the latter, by weeding out people who just seem to thrive on negativity. Not always easy to avoid, but be as scarce as possible around that company.

I am also making an effort to connect with people who mean so much to me. I realise that there are quite a few than I had thought! It was great getting in touch with old classmates and teachers and just walking down memory lane, for our school's alumni meet, last month.

Recently, I had decided to just put my work out there, even the ones that I was not really happy with. Quite a lot of my experimenting stuff gets trashed or broken up and reworked. Even if I do ultimately rework the designs, I have decided to record those too, so as to chalk them up to lessons learnt, mainly on what not to do !

The toughest thing in my current situation, is that same problem anyone who works from home, faces! You may have a dedicated space to work in, but there are numerous callers at home, many who never get the fact that disrupting the creative mode is painful, and sometimes to get back into that state, is not easy at all. This is beside the time alotted to family, cooking, daily chores, adjusting my creative time to accomodate shedules of everyone in the house, welcoming guests and relatives, and looking after my daughter's needs. It is sometimes a miracle that I have anything left to spark my creativity, but stubbornly clinging to spending time in my space, atleast 5 days a week, is what I have been trying to stick to, even if that means just rearranging my supplies, or going through my notes and such.

To mark the New Year, I have taken up a challenge on Instagram, to make a pair of earring each week, so by the end of 2018, hopefully, I will have 52 new earrings to show. ! A pair of earrings per week does not sound too daunting, but just this past week, is enough to indicate how days just meld into each other!

I am happy the first pair of earrings, made from handmade Cold porcelain elements. I just hope all of the successive earrings are on par with these, if not better. I will certailnly strive to make them so.

It was certainly a great start with my little sis and brother in law, here. Nothing like loved ones to make the days brighter. I also hope to get back to painting. Instead of always going for big pieces which take a long time planning, and somehow I do not end up doing anything but the preliminary sketches, concept and colours. I plan to do a few watercolour and acrylics on paper too.. I just love the soft watercolours done with one strokes and such. It has been ages since I did any !

Speaking of big paintings, I have currently started one, that will take a considerable amount of time to complete ! It is going to be a mixed media piece, with acrylic paints, and I had to decide on pointillism technique, of all !! Anyway, once I started on it, it seems like that is the correct fit, and so far, I do like how it is taking shape !

Sometimes, I do feel like I cannot do things the easy way ! But it is fun, and a bit therapeutic too ! So I cannot wait to see how it will look finally .

There are a few more goals I have set for myself, but mainly, I just want to make each day count. Hopefully, the rest will fall in place.