pixeldiva

I had all these big ideas about freelancing.

I thought that I'd have all this spare time on my hands, because I'd be super motivated and organised and everything would be perfect. I'd blog more often, redesign this blog, have my new company site up and running and do lots of knitting and other creative stuff (as well as working, of course).

Yeah.

Right.

It's not been a total wash though. Despite the coldy/fluey thing from hell that hung around like a bad smell for three weeks, I've been elbow deep in HTML and CSS and remembering why I love it and hate it in equal measure.

When I resigned, I talked a lot about "want[ing] to get my hands dirty again", and I've certainly been doing that. It's probably a good thing I work from home now, because there's been some distinctly Not Safe For Work language, as well as the odd spot of lunatic code dancing when things go right (after several hours of the aforementioned language).

I also talked a lot about wanting to do more creative stuff, in whatever form, as it was something that I really felt was missing from my life, to the detriment of both my own mental health and those around me (the more I wanted to create but can't, the crankier and more restless I get, often without realising that's what's going on), so although I've been busy with work (which is a very good thing), I've been making a conscious effort to allow my inner creative out of the dark corner she usually gets pushed into.

I started by playing with new designs in Fireworks, for both this blog and my new company blog, but although I've had lots of ideas (usually making an appearance just at that point where I'm about to drop off to sleep), the process of getting them out of my head and recorded in pixels has been frustrating. So rather than push the issue and get more frustrated, I took a step back and decided to let things simmer in my subconscious for a while, and I think it's working. New, better ideas are bubbling up, and I'm finding that when I do sit down to do some work, things are flowing more, rather than feeling forced or stuck.

I've also been finding inspiration in a lot of non-web stuff. Book design has always been an inspiration to me, and that was certainly given a big boost when I found the 700 Penguins book in the book box at RNIB. Although everyone knows that web design isn't print design, and they're totally different things, I do think that there are lessons that can be learned from print which has let to me being a bit more attuned to print design over the last couple of weeks.

I'm also a big fan of oriental design, and so when I read about the China Design Now exhibition, I was determined that I wasn't going to miss this like I missed the Japanese exhibition at the British Museum a couple of months ago, so I got myself organised, booked tickets and went along on Saturday afternoon. Since we got there a couple of hours early, it gave me time to also check out the Blood on Paper - the Art of the Book exhibition too. Not all of it was to my taste, but the various interpretations of what it means to create a book left me feeling very fired up and inspired, and as I ambled through the gift shop later, that inspiration was still fizzing through me, and so when I saw the lino and woodcut printing kit on sale something just pinged in my brain and I had to have it.

I've never done printmaking before (potatoes and poster paints in primary school doesn't count), and I totally can't draw, so I'm not entirely sure what made me think that linocut printing would be a good thing to try, but since I'd been making such an effort to open myself up to creativity, I decided to go with the urge, and so home it came.

At which point I promptly got the fear.

It's amazing though, what you find you can do when you're supposed to be doing something else, which is probably how I found myself with the tools spread out over my desk and a blank piece of lino in my hand, making my first tentative marks on its surface.

A wobbly line followed by another wobbly line and a little bit of inspiration and before I knew it, I had a design, I had ink, I had a print or three, and (somewhat predictably) I had dirty hands.

I think I could get to like this printmaking lark.

Getting my hands dirty

Cut, and print

del.icio.us links

Fruity Pancakes

Recently wrote

First Boot

pixeldiva is...

reading

archived

elsewhere