The 100 Day Project, Day 8/9 Combined — When TIME Becomes a Factor
Today was Day 9 of the 100-Day project, and I am combining this with yesterday's Day 8 efforts into a single post.
A group of related stones for a past commission. Sharing them here to give an idea of SCALE between the stones I have painted so far for the challenge, and the much larger piece I am currently working on.
I knew this was likely to happen, because undertaking this whole gig was essentially always going to be more of a challenge of time availability than just a creative challenge.
"Making time" for something you want to do is often contingent on taking time from somewhere else... and that can become an unsolvable puzzle if most of your life revolves around already being "balls to the wall," time wise.
Meaning that whereas I did engage in "things creative" yesterday, I simply did not have enough time (or energy) on my hands — before collapsing into bed at 1:00am — to sit down and create a Hive post.
The very large stone I started working on, shown in comparison to the much smaller ones I've been painting over the last few days.
Day 8/9 Stone Painting
Part of the "issue" here is that I need to get some larger stones painted for my Etsy shop, and just to have available during the upcoming summer show season.
The "problem" with the large 4-6 inch sized designs is that they take a really long time to complete, so I can only find time to do part of one, on any given day.
Yesterday, I felt compelled to start on a large stone... and only got "so far," before I realized that I needed to get up and do other things.
The initial design placement is very important on large pieces, and ESPECIALLY on a stone like this, which is not symmetrical.
Large stones are easy to mess up. There are several challenges, including the fact that a large stone (weighing 3 lbs or more) is difficult to move around in such a way that you can put a very accurate tiny speck of color on it.
I also don't have a clear design idea when I start on these. The "right" color combinations and individual bits tend reveal themselves as I go along. At the moment, I am getting a "spring-ish vibe" from this one.
Thinking along the lines of green going into shades of blue and violet.
I really haven't painted much on this, yet... but I did add a little bit on both days, and will continue tomorrow. This challenge is proving to be more demanding than I had planned for... but ONWARDS!
Day 8 Summary:
Started work on larger stone; maybe got about 1O minutes in before I ran out of time... but at least it is something!
Daily Twitter/X post: Fail. Could not find the time to deal with it.
Daily Facebook Page post: Fail. Same as above.
Daily Instagram post: Fail. Same as above.
Day 9 Summary:
Continued working on the larger stone; These things do take a long time to complete. From a time/economics perspective, I'm not sure whether they are worthwhile, but they always draw a lot of interest, so I'm going to say yes.
Daily Twitter/X post: Check. Couple of new tweets out there... one with photo.
Daily Facebook Page post: Check. Posting a picture is better than nothing!
Daily Instagram post: Check. Picture post with a larger stone from the archives. Using a few older photos is OK, I think.
Other Stuff: This Hive post; also got another post put on the Pinterest board. Daily shoutout to @gillianpearce!
Days 8 & 9 completed, but it felt like a hassle. My middle of the day doctor's appointment yesterday didn't help, because that ate another three hours off my available time.
Beginning to wonder whether I'll actually make it to Day 100... but I'll keep plugging on!
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2024.02.28 AS-TXT-207/175
It's definitely not easy. I came close to not posting a couple of days ago. It felt such a chore. The creating side is not so bad but posting about it can be very challenging.
The next few days will be the hardest yet as we are going to visit relatives which wasn't planned. They live more than an 8 hour drive away, as long as there are no unforeseen hold ups which probably is unlikely given we're going on a Friday and coming back on a Sunday.
I hope things continue to settle down a bit and it gets more fun for you. Overall I'm still enjoying it.
I'm definitely still enjoying the creating part; less so the *'social promotion" part, which was a basic part of my own reason for undertaking this. The posting part? I do enjoy blogging, but not when there's a time pressure. I'm going to give myself permission to occasionally combine two days in a post,, like this one.
I hope your visit goes well! Allow yourself some grace... because "life happens!"