Bit More of a Break

Well, my "bit" of a break has turned into a longer one.  Though I have made a lot of progress on the house.  The downstairs (living room and kitchen) is almost completely squared away and I've been chipping away at the upstairs rooms.  My goal is to have everything dealt with by the time Jeff comes home at the end of this month/beginning of next.  Part of the problem is that we never... uh... finished moving in here.  We still have things in boxes here and there, along with piles of stuff we just hadn't put away.  I'm working on getting all of that sorted out.

Aside from "adulting" - mostly cleaning and attending/studying for my Japanese class - I've been enjoying myself by gaming and coloring.  The adult coloring thing seems to really be taking off these days.  Though... I never stopped coloring.  I guess I can say I was coloring before it was cool.  ;)  One of our friends gave me a beautiful coloring book full of Japan-inspired designs for Christmas and I've been working on a couple of pictures in it, along with some free printable pages I'd found.

This was my first "official" adult coloring project.  I like how it turned out and I certainly think the message is important:

I'm finding that coloring is a good way to be creative without any pressure.  While I do love creating pretty much anything, I tend to put a lot pressure on myself when doing studio things - perfectionism and all of that.  I think a lot of it stems from the fact that most of the things I make "in the studio" are things I plan to sell or donate/gift - basically give to others in some way.  So I want them to be as close to perfect as I can manage.  All of that on top of just wanting to make good/pretty things.  Coloring is nice though, it's just for me.  I still try and do my best, but I don't feel the pressure there.

With coloring I also don't feel the need to try and keep up with anyone else's work.  Some people have a ton of fancy pens, pencils, markers, etc. to color with - and talent to match! - but I'm using the same set of cheap colored pencils that I color in stamped images with (plus a few Sharpies), and I'm quite content.  ;)  I'm on a group on Facebook where people talk about coloring and share their work.  I find that I can be absolutely amazing by other's work, but not feel dismay that I may never reach that level.  It's a complicated thing to explain I suppose.

The only downside I'm finding to coloring is how long it takes.  The one above took me an entire day!  (and it's not even near as intricate as a lot of designs that I've seen)  I'm not sure how much of it I'll be doing in the future, once I get back to "work", but I am recognizing that it is a good way to take a break and still feed the creative bug.

I'm hoping to have the studio organized and back up and running soon.  The next vendor show here is actually only two weeks from today and I haven't even started getting ready for it!