A mossy pattern and a fairy maid. The above-average-temperatures have me prematurely thinking spring. And while that’s a ways off yet, the longer days and the brighter mornings are very much welcome.
Assorted Things:
I just finished watching the first season of Astrid et Raphaëlle and it’s absolutely charming (streaming stateside on Amazon and airing on PBS affiliates).
If you’re local to seacoast New Hampshire, Two Bees Café is splendid. I popped in for a carrot cake and a coffee this week. Days later, I’m still obsessing over the wallpaper.
Wildcat, a new Flannery O’Connor biopic is in the works.
This London-loving sweater pattern went straight into my Ravelry queue.
Free Valentine Printable
Happy (almost) Valentine’s Day — here’s a free coloring card printable, to celebrate. Download PDF, print at high quality and break out the pencils and/or crayons. Enjoy!
:: Download Here ::
And previous year’s free Valentine printables:
Hourly Comic Day
Because I needed a creative kick in the pants, I decided to give Hourly Comic Day a whirl. I had a free day Wednesday and thought it would be a good challenge to work in a format I don’t typically use. All in all, it’s pretty mundane, but Miley Cyrus and homemade turkey soup do make an appearance (just not together), so there’s that.
Snow Maidens and Mishaps
A linocut I did of the Snow Maiden in December, back when snow made me think of Narnia and Turkish delight and not 24+ hour power outages. And shoveling. So much shoveling. I’m writing this, though, while listening to a chorus of chainsaws dealing with downed tree limbs. Let me tell you, it’s a sweet, sweet sound.
A year’s worth of Bargue plates. I have a long way to go in improving accuracy, rendering technique etc., but it’s been hugely helpful working through these. A couple of these are second attempts (and even third attempts in the case of the drawing of L'Inconnue). But more of these in 2023, for sure.
Other things:
I love Hattie Kerr’s Instagram feed (and especially her fingerless glove knitting patterns).
The true story of one woman’s circuitous return to the Aran Islands, Miss Folan’s Last Wish is a splendid listen. Stranger than fiction and decidedly heart-felt, I hope it gets optioned for a film. Quickly.
I picked up Magpie Murders to read after having seen the television adaptation last month. It’s a fun, cozy mystery, making it the perfect antidote to the winter blahs. I read nights until my eyes were literally crossing from fatigue, I was that determined to plow through to the reveal.
The cover for Anne Dares just popped up online, part of the Anne of Green Gables inspired series I’ve been illustrating.
Twelfth Night
New year, new things. I haven’t worked with colored pencils in eons, so giving those another go. I love the line quality and texture in Eric Ravilious’s lithographs, so that was a bit of inspiration.
One last Christmas picture, because it’s the 12th day. I bought plain white gift wrap at the dollar store and painted it with leftover acrylic that I had on hand. Everything was tied up with yarn and a tag tucked in for good measure.
And now off to the weekend. Vegetable soup is boiling away and it’s a proper snowy January night outside, so I have plans to curl up with this book and a quilt. Or two. Or three.
For Auld Lang Syne
In no particular order, here is a non-comprehensive and surely forgetful list of things I liked in 2022:
Television:
Magpie Murders was an absolute delight, a meta-murder mystery with colliding plotlines and timelines. One of the most refreshingly different mysteries I’ve seen in a month of Sundays.
Professor T (Belgian, with subtitles). This ended up being one of my favorite television series of all time. Ever. The series explores human suffering, pain and ultimately redemption in ways that I’ve never seen a whodunnit manage. And there’s plenty of humor to lighten the mood when needed (Goele Derick is a genius in her role as a passive aggressive university secretary). Caveat: two episodes deal with assault, so be aware if you’d prefer to avoid.
Books:
Beowulf (Seamus Heaney translation).
Farenheit 451 is absolutely chilling and you may as well give up on sticking to your bedtime, should you attempt to read before sleep. That hound — shudder…
Beauty for Truth’s Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education, by Stratford Caldecott. Math has always left me cold, but reading this challenged my understanding of beauty, order and the structure of the universe. While written from a religious perspective, there’s plenty of science-y bits that would appeal to anyone, regardless of creed.
Podcasts
In Our Time covers a multitude of subjects ranging from literature to philosophy to history. I love to queue this up before long car drives.
I’ve burnt out on true crime podcasts, but did enjoy Atlantic.
Other things I loved? A visit to the Museum of Russian Icons this past March and a side trip to Nashoba Valley Winery made for a fun excursion. Keeping a garden provided plenty of joy and occasional madness (read: cabbage moth caterpillars). I did some part-time work and balanced that with studying, as well as finishing art for a new installment of the Anne of Green Gables series. I also wrote two truly terrible first drafts for books and barely resisted the urge to light them on fire. So while 2022 felt at times like a massive real-time version of Whack-a-Mole, it had its good points all the same.
So upwards and onwards, into the new year. But first I plan to polish off the remainder of the cookies…
