Studio and Life

Snowy and misty morning to start the day!

Perhaps some more stamps for the "Cattaloguing" system.

I also loved how the light hit the Vestaboard today.

Hello! We had a bit of snow!

3d printed some small clips to help the seedlings keep upright as the deal with the swing between sub-zero temperatures and back. Seems to be working for them.

Got myself a nice big stamper, 13 alpha-numeric thingies, oh the things I can stamp with this.

But also I'm thinking about doing a new cataloging system for my work, or "Cattaloging" where I can use this to stamp the catalogue number.

Same again, spending time in the greenhouse, but in the light this time.

Did some hanging out in the greenhouse this morning, and a little bit of repotting. Started using a camera app called "Dazz Pro" which emulates various vintage cameras. I'm not a huge fan of doing that and baking in a look on a photo when you shoot it; I mean I can just take photos normally and then add filters afterwards.

But, having gone though all of them, I quite like this fake camera that sticks the date onto the photo. I'm thinking about doing a 365 photo project, where you post a photo a day, and having a timestamp on from using this camera does a couple of things. First it makes it easier to only use a photo from that day rather than "cheat" and go dig through the camera roll to fill in a dull day. Second is forces me to always use the same camera, rather than having different quality photos with different lens, I can have a consistent look through the whole year.

Just chilling in the studio.

Another morning sunrise.

Had a visitor to the garden this morning.

Two views of the sunrise from this morning, I liked the colours in the sky.

Looks like the Sweet Peas are sprouting!

I have no idea how they'll survive the winter, I'll be amazed if they do at all.

The Cornflowers seems to be doing okay, and the Larkspur has started to sprout too.

Plus I've not got my writing desk in the greenhouse where I'm hanging out in the morning, although it's now very dark out there at 6am!

Cornflowers are growing pretty well in the greenhouse. At some point I should make a "Greenhouse" or "Flower Ink Pen Plots" project, but for the moment we'll just stick with this.

Here's some leaves from walking in this morning. It's in no way interesting, but I'm actually testing the image uploading on my new server.

(Guess the image uploading works now)

Planted a whole bunch of bulbs, we'll see how they do.

I mean, I don't need 10 tiny hands. But I do want 10 tiny hands.

Now I just have to work out how to sneak them into a video.

Finally moved the autocue out of the middle of the room, and now I feel like I've gotten both my studio and the table that I had to sit at for filming back. Put some tape down so I can set it up again if I need to.

For various reasons I needed to raise the pen plotter up by 37mm - 3d printing to the rescue. If I had two books the right size I would have used them. If I had a woodshop I would have just cut wood to the right size.

But I had neither of those, so I solve it my own way :)

I've taken to starting the day by drinking a pint of water, with lime juice, eating some greens and writing for about 20 minutes. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.

It's reached the point in the year where the sun is just coming up as I settle in the write. I'm sure it'll be getting darker sooner.

I liked how it looked so here we are. I've just got a new reMarkable Paper Pro Move, so I'm trying it out, so far I'm really liking it.

A new copy of Syllabus by Lynda Barry arrived. I was going through a thought experiment of "What if I could only keep one book?" and this was it. Then I remembered I'd given my second copy away (after giving the first copy away), so I ordered a third copy along with the companion books.

Happy to have a set in the studio now, and highly recommended.

Each day I start my day job at 10am, but get into the studio around 7am, giving myself three hours each morning to do my own thing. Monday mornings are for planning, Friday's are for editing the #weeknotes, which leaves Tue-Thur, nine hours.

At the moment, and for the next few weeks/months I'm going to be recording the pen plotting tutorials, the big pile of index cards in the middle. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday has a blanket record/edit video task now, for like, ever!

I want to release the first module all in one go, so I need all of those done up front. Then I want to have 4-5 more in the "bag" so I can publish them once a week, while getting the next ones prepared.

This is basically my weekly plan now.

Over the past couple of days I 3d printed some more shelves, this time to hold A5 paper and cards. So now I have everything I need right at hand for giving to Kitty to write things out.

Hopefully now I've finished faffing around getting this part of the studio set up I'll now be even more inclined to send little notes and letters out!

This doesn't really fit under any of the other projects and I've been thinking about adding a "life" category anyway, so I guess it's here now.

I'm pretty pleased with these envelope and card holders. I've been keeping them in a plastic box, you can just about see it over on the left, which has added a little extra friction to the "just get Kitty to write/draw" something.

Basically I want things to be as easy and frictionless as possible, if I can't just reach for a card and an envelope the chances of it happening are greatly reduced, and the spontaneity is gone.

I'm busy printing one now to hold A5 paper and unfolded cards, and then I'll be all set with my own little "Post Office" area.