So, I am doing The 100-Day Project Challenge again; my second attempt at this creativity "habit building" exercise. You can read more at the above link; or just choose "a creative thing" to pursue for 100 consecutive days... and then use #the100dayproject as one of your first three tags so others on Hive and other social media can find you!
This is a combination post for Day 15 & 16.
Completed this evening
So Distracted; So Distractable
Much of the time, the reason I end up with these "combination posts" has to do with the great number of distractions in my world.
Of course I would be remiss if I did not also mention that I am highly distractible!
Yesterday was sort of a half-day because I had to go pick up my wife at the Seattle ferry which is about a three hour round trip all things being told, and that happened in the middle of the day so there wasn't much time to do anything in the morning — once household chores were done — and there wasn't much day to do anything after I got back.
Then I got distracted by the fact that the first snow of this winter started to fall in late afternoon and I found myself taking pictures of snow rather than painting on rocks or doing anything related to that.
I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on myself, after all creativity is creativity, right?
Started yesterday, finished today
Today's Creative Endeavor:
Last night, I got started on this rather unusual hybrid design which started off as being my fairly typical dot pattern in the center, but then ended up with a bit of a spiral or pinwheel type design out towards the edges. It also turned into the first stone in a very long time that I haven't given a fully enclosed and "finished" edge... but it still looks quite good.
That particular design ended up taking some of yesterday's work time and then I was able to finish it this afternoon.
One of the "easiest" I have painted in a long time
Since I did miss publishing anything yesterday, I decided to paint a second smaller stone this evening, using the always popular black with warm colors design on a pale stone.
This particular one I actually managed to finish remarkably quickly!
Much of the time, I actually end up giving these to my wife, who in turn give some as a little memento to some of her long term counseling clients. I know I don't make any money from it but on the whole it feels like a win-win.
How the design begins, with a dot pattern
Minding the Store(s):
In retrospect, I'm not sure how wise and/or relevant it was of me to make working on my online shop part of this challenge.
At least not as a daily thing to do, anyway.
The thing is, I never actually work on any of my online stores a little bit every day. My typical operation is to save up what I'm going to do until I can spend an entire day working on the store... maybe once a month or once every two months.
I think I might have had some secret hope that I was going to change my work pattern but it's not "feeling right" to me so I'm still debating whether I'm even going to continue with this section of the challenge.
Which is how I will conclude this area for today by saying I didn't do anything on the Alchemy Stone online shops, but I did work on one of my other — not art related — shops for several hours.
I got to here... and then changed my plans
Social Media Musings:
The social media section ended up being a bit of a sticking point again today, in part because I had some trouble logging into my Twitter/X account. Call me boring, but I'm still having trouble thinking of Twitter as X.
As I contemplated my resistance to social media, one of the things I realize is that the vast majority of people who do all these social media engagements are constantly on their phone.
I'm almost never on my phone, least of all to browse the web. I am almost always on a desktop and or a laptop, and I pretty much just use my phone for phone calls, a little bit of texting, and to take an occasional photograph.
This will look a lot better when it gets a finish coat, and the dark "moisture ring" from my fingers dries out
Final Thoughts for Today:
On one hand, I am glad I decided to do the 100 -Day Project again this year. On the other hand, however, I'm reminded of why it is I don't like challenges and structured exercises and for that matter even working at a job where I have to do the same time/same thing every day.
We're only a little over two weeks in, so there's a long way to go. But I can already feel myself having moments where it feels more like an obligation than a fun exercise.
Still, I'm going to keep going and hope that some positive habits start to "take" before I finish... or grow to0 frustrated to finish.
I appreciate you coming to visit and please do leave a comment if you feel so inclined!
Thank You!
If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!
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2025.02.04 AS-TXT-319/289