Design Inkarnation | Julie Prescesky

Music Themed Surface Pattern Design

2016-03-15T19:50:00.000-04:00

I've been dancing into the world of surface pattern design whilst also brushing up on my watercolour skills. I've been watching Shari Blaukopf's Craftsy video, Sketching the City in Pen, Ink & Watercolor. I really do love her style, and I love urban sketching, but I'd thought I'd play with other subject matter too.

I've had a few suggestions from friends on themes to try and this one was from a talented musician who, among her many other contributions to the world, teaches children piano and violin - a woman with much patience. Funny though, she was sure to mention to put a bottle of wine in there. I'm sure there must be a correlation there somewhere.
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Sketching Montreal at Winter's End

2016-03-10T23:33:00.002-05:00

I've been out and about sketching a bit. Winter is dripping away and soon the warmer weather will rule the days. Then I will be able to sketch outdoors, not just from the warmth of my car.

Fairmount Avenue

From the 11th floor of the Concordia EV Building - I used a water soluble Pilot pen and layered colour over top. I fussed with it too much and it got mucky.

Querbes Ave in Outremont

I'm trying to to be less precious about the sketches and focus on the energy of doing them. I'm working on keeping colour choices in mind, occasionally watching and re-watching this great video. If you wrestle with colour, watch it. Really, really.

Patterns Inspired by a Canadian Winter

2016-03-03T11:44:00.000-05:00

I know in some places, the beginning of March is warm and holds all the promises of glorious spring, but here in Montreal it is still white and frigid and though the sun shines, it seems content to delay the the burst of life that comes with a warmer season. I think mostly, we're okay with that here. The city seems alive regardless of weather, most days, and winter is to be celebrated as much as any other time of year. Yes, I'm wearing layers. Yes, the heat is on in my house, and yes, it is still cold in here. But we are so lucky to have four distinct seasons! The fun that comes with winter is all the more fun because we know that it will soon be gone (okay, I don't want to get carried away here - often nearing the end of March many of us are crying out to the heavens for the temperature to warm up already)!

In celebration of winter, I've created a couple patterns (one by request from a friend, freshly transplanted here from France and totally in awe of our winter).

Behold, the decidedly Canadian winter pastime, skating.

I grew up on the west coast (near Vancouver), and I can remember maybe two times that it was ever cold enough to skate outdoors, say, on a pond. But here!
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Self Sabotage and Finding Focus

2016-02-21T12:01:00.000-05:00

Growing up as a creative kid with very hands-on, project oriented, DIY parents, I've had many moments of looking at things in shops, or in magazines, or catalogues, or noticing an accessory or fetching outfit on someone passing me by, and thought:
I could make that.
And sure, a lot of the time I didn't make it, but then sometimes I did, or at least my own variation. Over time, it became tied in with my own sense of frugality. Why would I buy something if I could make it? And that, incidentally, worked for me for a long while because my path through art school and into adulthood welcomed frugality. I nurtured this Make Everything quality and it's been pretty fun. Of course, it's not just fired by my, ahem, tight purse strings, but also by joy in creative exploration. It's addictive. And it's a bit of a problem for someone like me,
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Patterns

2016-02-16T17:07:00.000-05:00

I think I'm falling in love with pattern design.

I've tried a few with only digital techniques, and that's a lot of fun. Like these two (inspired by my west coast roots, and a design project I recently did for a Vancouver Island blogger):

Arbutus trees with wintery ocean colours ...
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Mile End and St Ambroise

2016-02-04T20:29:00.000-05:00

This past week I worked at a few different locations - ones I visit often due to errands and running children about.

This is one of my all time favorite buildings in Montreal. Abandoned in 1989, it's the old Canadian Malting Factory, built in 1904. I worried that it was on the verge of being torn down for condos as it sits on prime property on the banks of the Lachine Canal, but it seems that it's protected as part of the Lachine Canal National Historic Site. I will no doubt be sketching it on other occasions.

Around Montreal

2016-01-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

In my effort to sketch daily and build watercolour skills, I'm filling my wee watercolour sketch book quite nicely. I don't always get a completed painting done each day, but perhaps a sketch one day and the painting the next. Sometimes I'll do multiple in one day - whatever the day allows.

Here are a few from the last couple of weeks.

This is the view from the corner front window at the famous La Croissanterie Figaro at Fairmount St., looking down Hutchison St in Mile End. I loathe drawing vehicles, so I'm forcing myself to include them when I see them. Maybe they will grow on me. I sketched with pencil and brown ink and watercoloured over top.

In Mile End, again, St. Viateur St. I sketched this one on location but had to photograph it and leave to fetch my kids from their music classes before I got to painting, which I later did in my studio.

Before I added paint, though, I felt maybe I overdid it with the ink. But I think it feels okay ...

I live in Verdun, so I'm around to find a lot of fun scenes here. This is actually from a photo I took in December, pre-snow, of this incredibly fluffy dog waiting outside the IGA. I loved the pop of red in his bandanna. I wanted to try working in pencil and paint only and skip the ink. It's softer than my other attempts, but also feels kind of inviting.

I've been watching Shari Blaukopf's Craftsy* video, Sketching the City in Pen, Ink & Watercolor. I just love her style. She breaks down the steps into bite sized chunks and I think you'll be happily surprised at how satisfying watercolour can be. I resisted learning for a long time, but now I very much wish I hadn't. It's so portable and immediate - great for location sketching. Give it a whirl.

*I am a Craftsy affiliate. Thank you for your support and for supporting creative people everywhere.

Designing a Vehicle Wrap Part 2

2016-01-24T10:21:00.002-05:00

This is the finishing steps from a looong time ago (see Part 1) to fine tuning and file preparation before sending the file to the printers. I apologize for the delay.

We adjusted the design to minimize vinyl which meant removing the white from the back end.
After receiving thumbs up on the mock up prepared in Photoshop I transferred the design over to Illustrator. I couldn't find a tutorial on how to properly set up the file in Illustrator, but I did find one for Corel Draw, and it served fine as a general guide.
Basically, you need to create a masking layer to sit on top of all of your other working layers.

This is what I did, step by step...

After some back and forth with the printer, I was instructed that in order to make the file print ready, I needed to create a cut line layer and a bleed layer for my design in Illustrator.

The cut line needed to work out to be 2" at full size - that worked out to a 3 pt stroke on the scale I was working at.
I made the bleed colour black to match the colour of the truck. It seemed to make the most sense to me - and the simplest way to create a bleed without having to make a complicated outline that changes colour as it travels around the design. If you have better way to do this, let me know in the comments.

I ran into trouble when trying to create a compound shape to outline because I hadn't realized I had to "expand appearance" in order for the selection to include the stroke and drop shadows. Before expanding appearance (or in some places, simply the "expand" command sufficed - not sure why), the cut line ended up on the inside of the stroke, meaning it would cut it off altogether. Not ideal. If you run into this problem - expand, expand, expand!
For text, "outline type" first, then expand to be able to select everything, including stroke and fx.
You have to really get up close and personal with your design - make sure things are smooth and delete any run away points with the "-" pen tool.

I communicated a lot with the printer and confirmed pantone colours with him. Make sure you have open communication with whoever your client is using to print the vinyl, and be prepared to make adjustments as necessary.

All in all, a new experience for me, but lots of fun. This client ran into some unforeseen business expenses(read, a really expensive machine required really expensive repairs) and had to put vinyl signage on hold so this never made it to print, sadly.

Happy vehicle wrapping!

The Frozen Lachine Canal

2016-01-23T14:45:00.000-05:00

I went cross country skiing along the Lachine Canal last week. I didn't stop to sketch (it was too cold) but I managed to snap a few photos. This sketch was done at home in my tiny homemade watercolour book.

Vancouver Island View

2016-01-18T14:00:00.001-05:00

I recently worked with Kim, a longtime friend, to rebrand her blog from a mom blog (mumamusings.com) to a travel and lifestyle blog, Vancouver Island View.

Rebranding for Kim includes logo, blog header, social media covers, business card, and email signature.

Her focus shifted from kid, homeschool, and family based activities and musings to a more pointed focus on the wondrous experiences of living on, and travelling to, Vancouver Island.

Head over to her site to to discover Vancouver Island in a new and exciting way.

Sommerville Ave

2016-01-16T15:05:00.000-05:00

A tiny urban sketch. Row houses in NDG.

Verdun at Hickson - Urban Sketch

2016-01-11T17:19:00.001-05:00

A wee urban sketch of a burger joint in chilly Verdun, QC.

When Being Responsible Gets In The Way of Meeting Goals

2016-01-02T14:30:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year we all take stock on how we've triumphed or missed the mark again for another year. How did I let this one slip by so quickly and how did I let myself to spread so thinly in so many different directions? It's frustrating. It's anxiety feeding. It's driving me slowly insane.

I have plans for 2016 - big plans. And at the hub of them is creating better daily habits. To that end I've decided to both write and draw EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. All too often I find myself in the throws of a busy life with kids and responsibilities. Sometimes I hate that I'm so damn responsible. In fact, I use it as a procrastination crutch, so that I'm busying myself with mundane tasks and never quite getting the time I feel I need to see through my creative impulses. So, I've come to finally realize that they can't be creative impulses. They have to be intentional, scheduled daily habits with a goal (ahem, goalsssssss) in mind.

I want to polish and publish my book series. In November I took part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and actually wrote the second book in a month! It's a very rough first draft but I did it. A whole novel in a month. The first book took me the better part of 4 years with a lot of procrastination (aka, fear and hesitation). But November was a turning point for me, and I did it, mostly joyfully, by committing to sit my ass in a chair every morning at 630 or 7 am, make toast with PB and honey and some tea, and write somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1700 words. Sometimes it took an hour, sometimes two. And this was during one of the busiest months of the year for me, leading into THE craziest month of the year. I wasn't sure it would be possible .... but then it was. Like magic. It became a ritual.

I've always said "I wish there were more hours in a day." Turns out, there are. You just have to get up earlier and prioritize your goals.

Every time I finished my word count for the day a feeling of conquering the whole blessed world came over me. I kid you not, on more days than one, I'd type the final sentence and my arms would reflexively shoot up in the air like Rocky, victorious in the ring. That feeling can be euphoric and addictive, and can lead to thoughts like, Well shit. I've already written a whole chapter before most people are awake. Anything else I accomplish today is gravy. Potentially, a dangerous line of thought, yes, because I could find a whole lot of things to do to procrastinate the rest of my day away.

Be it writing a blog post, a poem, a short story, working on my book series or carving out time to submit my work to agents or publishers, I endeavor to make a specific time for writing every day. It's that important to me. Yes, I am saying this out loud to myself. Every day. It is that important to me.

My other great love is drawing. I want to improve my drawing and watercolor skills. So many days I've had it in my head that today I would draw, I would try new techniques. But it was so hard to actually make it happen - even if my day was free of outside appointments. So now I have to get serious about this. Do I want to work on my illustration skills? Heck yes. And drawing is a big foundation. I know I should be doing it every day. And I WANT to be doing it everyday.

I actually made a pocket sized book from 8x10 Fabriano watercolor paper, torn into quarters. It's done with a Coptic stitch and has no spine so that it lays flat when opened. It's not very difficult to make - you should try it. :) I plan to use this little book for my Urban Sketching endeavors - and again, my plan is to carve out a prioritized time every single day to do some sort of drawing based work, be it out in my community or in front of my television.

Do you have plans to cut through the craziness of life and make a commitment to your goals this year? Do you have techniques on time management you'd like to share? Let me know in the comments.

What Canadians Look Like on Election Day

2015-10-19T17:59:00.000-04:00

I did not fathom just how nervous I would feel today. I am beside myself with anxiety. I went from generally rolling my eyes at the beginning of the campaign 78 days ago to chewing off my finger nails today. I'm worried. I'm worried for my Canada. Our current government is just awful and horrible and what nightmares are made of. And the Man has a chance at re-election - AGAIN. He's spent the last decade systematically circumventing democracy and pulling apart everything that makes this country beautiful. And people keep voting him in, though he wins largely due to our broken electoral system. The vast majority of Canada wants him OUT. I am beside myself.

But there is hope.

So, these little scribbles are an expression of sharing in our collective Canadian anxiety tonight.

Come on Canada, we can do this!

Are you glued to the screen tonight? How are you coping?

Pumpkin Spice Smoothie Recipe Illustration

2015-10-15T08:22:00.000-04:00

This is a very creamy smoothie, on account of the coconut cream, which is just what's at the top of canned coconut milk.

Give it a whirl.

See a full post with tips for this recipe at Love It Learn It Make It.
See other smoothie illustrations in my gallery (bottom).

On Pain

2015-10-04T17:34:00.000-04:00

I've had a long running fascination with the nature of pain, how we perceive it and how to overcome it. I often tell my kids, "don't give power to your pain", essentially helping them to not allow themselves to dwell on the pain, and it will feel less painful. This was just based on a hunch.

I've tested my theory a lot on myself. I'm fortunate to have given birth three times, so. like a lot of mothers, I think, I use childbirth as a pain threshold. Once, I was at the dentist having a tooth repaired and the freezing wasn't working. The dentist paused and asked if I was okay. And I was. It hurt, but nothing like childbirth, I consoled myself. I was able to minimize the pain in my mind and she was able to finish the job without extra medication. I'm not super tough. I just think we are set up this way. Maybe we can think the pain away.

My youngest is about to turn 11, so the memory of the intensity of giving birth is fading and I suspect won't be able to hang onto that comparison for much longer.

Recently, I had some deep tissue massage on my legs to help with a nagging case of Achilles tendinitis. It was intense. It burned and pinched and hurt like hell. I needed something to bite down on. But in the midst of it I thought about what my friend and Yoga instructor, Michel, had said one class:

Acknowledge your pain. Walk into it. Breathe and let your body support you.

So, I did. I visualized myself standing smack in the middle of that pain. And instead of wincing and grinding my teeth and persevering until it was over, I found myself in a feeling of power and strength as the pain met me as an image in my mind, not too unlike being in the midst of a dark storm as it blew past me. What was almost unbearable was no longer a problem. In fact, it was almost like a gift. How amazing that I could endure this with comparable ease, when only moments before I was ready to jump out of my skin. I was empowered. And more, I felt secure and in control, which is the opposite of what I normally feel when running from pain. Maybe it was because I felt I could see the pain - its beginning and end. Maybe it was just the distraction - focusing on the motion of facing pain, but not focusing on the pain itself.

My yoga friend meant her words in the the context of our yoga practice, which never seeks to induce pain, but sometimes in life pain is unavoidable. And how nice to find that in these areas of my life, where there is physical pain and discomfort, that my body is equipped to deal with it if I can just let it. Another reason to trust that my body knows what it needs.

Maybe in a world where we are so intent on medicating all forms of pain it serves us well to explore what pain can actually do for us and how we can embrace it and work with it and use it as a tool to know ourselves better.

Have you had similar experiences in thinking or visualizing away your pain? I'd love to hear about them.

Arts and Politics

2015-09-24T21:51:00.000-04:00

This is the second installment of a series of drawings based on my sentiments which can be pretty much summed up as: Politics, I can't even. The first? Here.

But I am a good citizen, mainly because I have children who watch my every move, so I am trying to arouse some sort of interest in the race for the Supreme Emperor of Canada, or whatever you call it. Mostly, I think shish kabobing my own arm would be more fun. Alas, I draw to pretend elections are the best time ever. The kids are watching. And at least we are allowed to vote. So I guess I should know the who and the what, and maybe you want to know, too. Let me help you ....

Annnnd, that's about all I can handle for now. Until next time ....

Bar Harbor

2015-09-17T12:35:00.000-04:00

Bah Ha Bah, as the locals say. Last week I visited this enchanting little town on Mount Desert Island, Maine, with my family.

My Life Textures

2015-09-15T10:03:00.003-04:00

I've put out a call to my instagram buddies to share the textures they encounter in their day to day lives. The hashtag is #mylifetextures. I started this to encourage us all to take a closer look at the depth and beauty that surrounds us and also to inspire myself in my composite art pieces. If I use a texture submitted by someone other than myself, I tag the contributor.

Here are a few I've put together so far. Textures in this collection originate in places like British Columbia, Quebec, Maine, and even China. Some also include original drawings I've done in the past or present.

If you want to join in the fun, connect with me on instagram, @julieprescesky, and use the hashtag #mylifetextures when uploading the textures of your life.

Pet Care Manual

2015-09-06T14:44:00.002-04:00

I made up this guide for our incoming home/pet sitters. Life is just easier with instructions. Instructions with pictures.

Does this seem like overkill? Or maybe not enough information?

Sketching Canadian Politics

2015-08-26T14:13:00.000-04:00

The whole race to election thing is super annoying. Like highschool drama, it's full of pointing fingers, manipulation, and roomer spreading. I can't even.

So, I decided I needed to encourage myself to tune into the campaign trail, and I'm doing that by making all of the candidates pose for me and my sketchbook.

I will spend time scrutinizing these four with my pen, and occasionally share with you the results. Plus, I chuckle when I get to put them all together like this. It makes me not totally hate politics.

(click to enlarge the images).

Sign up for my newsletter to receive my illustrated political commentaries. They won't be brilliant, but I'll be having brilliant fun.

Start With Food, Go From There

2015-08-24T12:57:00.000-04:00

Some time has passed, almost a year, in fact, since my last post about my adventure with food, or rather, my relationship with food.

Read Part One and Part Two to get a better idea of the whole picture.

It was a tiny bit terrifying to let go in the beginning, and though many of the days between then and now were just fine, some of them had me sighing in misery as I looked at my larger form pouting sadly back at me in the mirror.

It's been an interesting journey. And the fear of it never coming off was real. And I knew I shouldn't push it, if I wanted to be my healthiest me - I needed to be patient with my body; give it time to figure itself out now that I was actually fueling it sufficiently. Hardcore fitness training would have been counter productive, working against my body trying to repair itself, particularly my metabolism.

In earlier posts, I mentioned how my problem wasn't overeating, but consistently, unintentionally, under-eating. I just wasn't giving my body enough calories to function well.

Knowing that, though I was heavier, I was healthier, took the big girl blues away a bit. I wanted to be happy with me at any size - I still strive for that. But it's a process. It takes a while for self acceptance to filter through the horror of gaining 30lbs, up two pant sizes, in a relatively short amount of time, however well distributed it is (yes, tummy, but chest and butt, mostly), and landing firmly on the heaviest reading on the scale I've ever been. And when that weight stuck firmly there for a year or more, I started to wonder if I was one of the people who just has to be happy with the weight gain. Maybe I'm not like those cases who say the weight just started to drop on it's own after awhile. Maybe my body has found a new weight set point and I have to make peace with it.

Guess what?
I think I did. Having clothes that fit properly helps tremendously in this regard. Then you can spend much less time fretting about the tummy spilling out over the too-tight waistline, and more energy on being your awesome self.

And as soon as I felt I could accept me as me, bigger britches and bustier than ever, but still kicking ass, life just felt simpler.

Initially, after the first few weeks of intentionally eating a bit beyond my full point, I backed off and ate only to satisfaction. But the weight packed on. The weight gain stopped, and I kept eating. And my weight/size stayed unwaveringly consistent for a long time. Even through the holidays when I ate much more than I do on a daily basis. My concern these days still isn't eating too much, it's not eating enough. Seems like I should be eating less to lose the weight, right? It seems counter intuitive, but that's just not true.

And at about the 18 month mark, I thought, but didn't dare to hope, that my pants felt a tiny bit more comfortable. And at 19 months I knew they we loose. At 20 months I am squeezing in, not uncomfortably, to a size smaller. I hopped on the scale to see what was happening there - and I know better by now that the number on the scale has been given way to much importance and it's mostly all BS. But, low and behold, that needle was finally moving downward. Only five pounds. But after a year of resting at my heaviest weight, I'll take the slow and steady burn off. I actually prefer it because it means it'll likely be sustainable.

I still find it challenging to eat enough. And I can tell my metabolism is fired up because even when I'm eating more than I was when I started this journey about 20 months ago, I'm feeling hungry more often. When I wasn't eating enough, I wasn't hungry. I also had no energy. I was also slowly gaining weight. Now, I eat what I want (or, let's be honest, a cross between what I want, what's in my house, and what I feel like making) and as much as I want. Still, I struggle to get enough. Food is very secondary to me. I'd rather do other things than prepare food, most days. I don't mind cooking, but it takes up so much of my time. Precious illustrating, writing and designing time, which I would much rather be doing.

What a precious gift I gave myself. Throwing out conventional dieting "wisdom", braving the terrifying waters of trusting my body and eating any and everything it desired (truth: I still don't crave much for junk food. But I do eat chocolate and ice cream) and EATING CARBS has helped me in more ways than solving some medical woes and beauty items (like restoring my hair from straw to silk), I've also learned to see how caught up in crazy body size standards I was, like so many others, and how I let it control my self esteem. I am SO MUCH MORE than the shape of my body. Aren't you? Besides, foxy is an attitude.

I had a few issues this spring - aching legs, feeling very tired, and having difficulty sleeping. I was overrun with candida symptoms (which I've dealt with much of my life) and I had a very painful, what was diagnosed as, acute acid attack, in which I was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Sounds silly to take an ambulance for basically glorified indigestion doesn't it? I thought so. But I had no idea what was happening, and the pain was unrelenting and so intense that I could not talk through it. I had to pant like a woman in labor.

Long story short, I am always trying to listen to my body - to make sense of the signals it sends me. I try different things and treat myself as my own guinea pig. There is enough info out there these days that it's easy to take a hunch and research it. It occurred to me that my acid issue could be related to candida. Turns out, it very well could be. It could also be a bacteria - H.Pylori.

I found this post on how to deal with that without the crazy limiting candida diets - http://thehealthyhoneys.com/i-killed-candida/ (while there is certainly no one-size-fits-all cure, this is certainly helping me). The last thing I wanted to do was start down a road with dietary restrictions again. That's how I got here to begin with!

And my achy legs could be a number of things, but a blood test proved my iron levels to be low. I also knew that low magnesium is a likely culprit (low magnesium is apparently common in candida sufferers). Low magnesium also fed into my low energy levels, difficulty sleeping and general orneriness. And, because I'm thorough, I visited my super awesome chiropractor to see if adjustments to my sacroiliac were in order.

So, chiro - check.
Supplements - iron and magnesium citrate - check.
Antifungals - right now, I'm taking oil of oregano and grapefruit seed extract, alternating three times daily. - check.
ProBiotics - I'm using dairy kefir and occasionally kombucha (but pulling back a bit on that due to the caffeine content until my acidity gets in check again).

It's all working! I have energy again. A lot. Within about a month of taking these, I noticed a tremendous difference. Keep in mind, these are working in tandem with me eating sufficient calories (or at least I try). Without that, the supplements are not likely to work as well, as I'm finally figuring out.

I ran out of the antifungals and it was a few weeks before I bought more. The stomach acidity came back. Not nearly as intense, but I felt it. I've been alternating with oil of oregano and the grapefruit seed extract for a week, again, and things are subsiding. This makes me wonder if the acidity may be more related to the bacteria (H. Pylori), and I just didn't take the antifungals long enough. It could just as easily be the candida. Of course, I'm taking measure to eat less acidic foods for now, chocolate and mint being the hardest for me to minimize (I say minimize because what sane person could cut those out completely). I have so much fresh spearmint in my garden right now just waiting for me to blend it into a chocolate smoothie! Le sigh.

All this to say that understanding that I was underfeeding myself was an important step in realizing better health. It's the foundation stone. All other attempts at health are undermined if I'm not even providing my body with it's basic need. Food. Eat the food! It helps with the other basic need. Sleep.

Listen to your body, do your research and talk to your healthcare provider(s) about what action you'd like to take. Only you know your body well. Listen to it. Take baby steps. It's easier to decode the signals and understand than when looking for an instant fix, I find.

________________________________________

In my journey, I have read and been encouraged by author/researchers such as Matt Stone, Ari Whitten, Chris Sandel, and the sassy Caroline Dooner. Many of them offer inexpensive e-books based on their research and theories. Here are a few I've read:

Matt Stone's Diet Recovery 2
Ari Whitten's Forever Fat loss, and Low Carb Myth
Chris Sandel's The Health Trap

Subscribe to my newsletter to stay up to date on my journey.

Posts may contain affiliate links. If you purchase a product through an affiliate link your cost will be the same but I will receive a small commission. Yay! Your support is appreciated.

Anna Karenina Book Covers

2015-08-08T21:09:00.000-04:00

I'm currently reading Anna Karenina, said to be the greatest love story of all time. It is certainly great in length ... and, once I got all the characters' names sorted out, I'm rather enjoying it.

I'm just over half way through, so don't tell me how it ends.
I'm rooting for Levin and Kitty, and Anna is kind of a side story for me at this point.

That being said, I made some variations of book covers for fun.

Mystery Woman on Mars

2015-08-06T14:05:00.000-04:00

According to Mashable, this photo is from NASA's Curiosity.

Immediately, my mind went to Liberty Leading the People (Delacroix)...

Writing Prompts From Everyday life

2015-08-01T12:17:00.001-04:00

Sometimes, in the very mundane chores of my life, something will strike me as worthy of putting pen to paper. Usually, this will take form as a journal entry or a quick jot in my "ideas" notebook.

Today, I thought it would best serve me as a writing prompt, something I could tell my own experience of, but as a narrator.

I've been reading Anna Karenina, so there is, perhaps, a hint of Tolstoy's flavoring influence in this ...

In the morning, she came upon a pot in which she had planted spinach, she thought, and promptly forgot about it until this day, more than a month later. Spinach was not to be seen anywhere. Instead, a mess of tall grasses, sturdy leafy greens which she could not identify, and a young — was it really? - nettle, of all things.

Having been settled into city life for several years, she could not recall the last time she had seen the delicate but fierce nettle, nor where this one may have come from, having found its home nestled in a pot on her urban balcony.

Her childhood was full of nettle experiences. And when the young nettle leaf brushed her arm and kissed her with its sting, a familiar memory of that very feeling warmed over her and a smile crinkled at her lips.

How many times had she felt that crackling, almost electrical, sensation on her skin as a child? Countless, to be sure. She longed for her childhood at that moment, for the time spent free in the wilderness, not yet saddled with such struggles between spinach and weeds, only the wide eyed wonder at such a plant as the nettle - a small danger lurking in the midst of those roaming summer days.

Two small, perfectly round and whitened bumps began mounding on her skin as though they were lily pads in a blushing red swamp, as if to confirm her identification of this species. There could be no doubting now. The sting subsided and she proceeded to pull at the tall grasses and unidentifiable leafy greens and, finally, the nettle, taking care to glove her hands. She had special plans for this nettle, indeed.

As the pot was emptied, two small spinach plants became apparent, still so tiny, dwarfed by bullying weeds and her own neglect. She watered them carefully and walked into her apartment carrying her prize, her childhood, in her hand.

She started a kettle for tea.

I also thought about combing through Istagram to see if I can find a prompt there. Do you write? How do you exercise your writing muscles?