elainegrey

I have been playing with colored pencils  for a few years, having given up on the iPad and given in to letting myself buy papers and various media. I remember making the decision... when i turned 45 maybe?... to focus one skill instead of so many, and maybe i'd develop some proficiency. Going through my flickr albums recently (to rescue private images from the purge as i no longer pay for the account) reminded me of those choices: such a variety of efforts and creations, then a rapid switch to photography of California landscapes then more and more botany focus.

And then we moved here and the yard became my canvas.

Learning about ADHD put some of my desires in context as color tickles my sense of delight. Trying to find the line between preventing more accumulation of supplies and unfinished objects while actually feeding my creative impulse remains a challenge.  I can observe how i want to start a new notebook for shiny new thing -- new year, new season, new project -- and i don't come close to finishing the pages but i am Done with the thing and the notebook becomes a burden. I'm working on the framing to not say it's a Past Failure, but the notebook no longer embodies hope or aspiration. So that impulse i've addressed by buying thinner, smaller notebooks. This has definitely been a win.  I bought some prismacolor colored pencils in warm and cool primaries and secondaries plus magenta for the CMY primaries, and then some used water color pencils (and sorted out those warm and cool primaries).  For a long time, i've just been sketching to experiment with those colors or doing zentangle inspired sketches. I've had a brush that has its own water reservoir for ages: i've bought more after demonstrating to myself that yes, i'll use them.

This week i actually had something i wanted to illustrate, and i've done a fine job for my skills and the time i took. I know from Christine's viewing that the red glow on the horizon doesn't necessarily read as a fire line, and the scale of the house doesn't give it the distance away i wanted to communicate.

Things continue to weigh heavily. Plus using so much focus at work and having little left over. When i took the quarterly Alzheimer screening test today it seemed harder. Of course, every time it seems hard (they test short term memory by showing cards and you indicate whether you have seen them before), so i will probably continue to have no change. [Note on Sunday when i am actually posting: forgot my med in the morning that helps with depression/ADHD. Hopefully today will go much better with it!]

The prep we did for the first arrival of the fiber technician was valued -- figuring out installation patterns and mapping the property to identify barriers to the trenching --  hopefully we'll continue to manage the project well enough. The trenching isn't scheduled which is maddening, but fortunately we work at home and can keep an eye out for when they just show up. The technician found other things that were supposed to have been done hadn't -- the fiber connection is multiple poles down the road and hasn't been strung all the way to our nearest post.