Daily journaling

This is a flip through of the first half of this year in my daily journal.

Six months of daily drawings

I have started this year to draw daily in this A6 notebook. It is a 5 years journal and I have a small space for each year, perfect for a few moments of drawing. When I have the time, I use the right page too, but I have 5 years to fill out all the pages. I draw more than this most of the days, but it is very relaxing to have such a small task to do every day. I hope to keep up with it for the next five years.

January 2021

I’m back here, after a long time. But I have missed this place and I like looking back at my posts sometimes. So, I’ll try to post here again this year, mainly because I like having these random fragments of my life logged here. I’ll start with this video of some of my daily journaling in January.

2019 drawings

I come back to this space again, after a very long time. In the global dystopian atmosphere of this last year, seems strange to me to post here about happy and serene things. But anyway, here we go, these are the drawings I did in 2019 to document the streets of my city, the places I walk by everyday. These drawings are a diary, a compulsion, a daily habit, a way to alleviate anxiety and to keep my hands busy, a place to hide in, a safe space.

2018 drawings

I didn’t use this space for such a long time, but in empty days like today it feels good to speak into the void of the internet.

2018 was a very mixed year for me, with an important professional achievement, with new and deepened friendships, but also, on a different level, with new nuances of worry and self-doubt.

But anyway, drawing almost every day in 2018, even if only a few lines, was one of the best things I have done for myself. Drawing without any plan, without any purpose, just putting onto page the images of the streets I walk by. I’ll definitely continue this in 2019.

Goals for this autumn

After a very busy, stressful and complicated summer (but a summer that turned out to be an important one, with a very good outcome), I plan to really enjoy this autumn. It’s my favorite season, when everything seems to start anew.

So, in order to get back to writing in this space that I neglected for so long, I thought to make a list of my plans for this fall.

-I started practicing calligraphy this summer. I’m not at all good at it, but I enjoy it a lot. It’s so interesting to observ what a different quality time has when you slow down motions that usually are fast and routine. It’s so meditative and calming to watch how your hand draws very slowly every letter.

-I plan on making a junk journal and also print out some everyday photos from my phone to put in it. I’m still collecting different papers for it.

-I want to take more walks in my neighborhood and in the city this fall and finish at least one roll of film, and also take some instax photos, too.

-I also want to practise sewing some more (maybe make a shirt or a dress).

-And, I also plan to post here again more regularly and to record snippets of my days and things I make.

Drawings lately

These are some of the drawings I did these days. I managed to doodle something almost daily this year so far, and I hope to keep this habbit for a long time.

It’s 8th of March today!

Some drawings lately

…In different notebooks. 

My birthday gifts

My birthday was almost three weeks ago, but these days seems very difficult to do things just for fun, so I kept postponing taking photos of all my gifts this year. But I really wanted to have a post about my birthday haul, because I enjoy looking back at these sort of things and I always like reading about other people’s gifts, too. So, finally I post about my gifts, even if most of the photos are blurry phone pictures.

For one year already, I have a closet for my art and embroidery supplies and other such things where I had only one shelf. The rest of the closet was one huge pile of stuff, of boxes built on top of each other. I was ok with it for a while, but lately it was driving me crazy. When I needed something in a box below, I had to take out the whole pile of things and then put everything back. So, one of my birthday gifts this year was shelves for my closet. I don’t have a before photo, but this is how my closet looks like now (even with the shelves it looks kind of cluttered, but now I know where everything is and I have easy access to all my things.)

And here it is my friend Maria installing the shelves for me.

She also gave me a nice, vegan and organic hand cream (that I didn’t take a photo of) and this great black Dala horse for my collection!

And tiny succulents. 🙂

The fluorescent nail polish is from Oana, who also gave me this bunny watch that I am wearing these days.

Rodica made me this beautiful pencil wrap, were I keep my Policromos pencils. Souris likes it, too.

I also got a lot of clothes this year (from Rodica and Alina).

Oti gave me this nice notebook, with drawings of flowers inside.

I kept watching online this Edwardian bangle for a few year now. It is hallmarked for 1911 and it’s really beautiful. I bought it with birthday money from my mother. I think it belonged to the same person as my other bangle from the same period (I bought it from the same seller).

And finally, my uncle bought me these very expensive watercolors. I already started using them a bit, but I hope to find time in the second half if November to really paint with them. The colors are so beautiful and vibrant. The pocket brush was included and I was relieved to see the hairs are synthetic.

I was got chocolates from my friend at work, but those are long gone before taking a photo of them :).

 

Chestnuts

I pick these up every fall.