September has been a gold and grey kind of month. Lots of lovely memories and good times with family, but stormy and rough around the edges. For most of the month it still felt like summer here in Raleigh, with hot weather and the trademark humidity that goes with it. Slowly over the last week rainy weather has given way to slightly cooler temperatures and the leaves are starting to show their first hints of gold and blush red. A few nights ago I even had to break out the comforter, though I'm not needing it every night yet.
Meanwhile I've got so much from summer that I've been meaning to write about...and depression has been encroaching heavily. Some may have been caused by an imbalance in some of my medications, but a good chunk has been from financial, other health, and job related stresses too. I've been looking for a job off and on since January, with very mixed results. I can't even comment on all of it yet, but prayers and such are always welcome since despite the normalcy most of us show the world, there's some turbulence hiding below the surface. Though over the past few weeks I've had a very interesting painting commission fall into my lap, so I'm happy to be tackling that and sharing photos as I complete it. One of my birthday gifts is also rather exciting....I've got a subscription to Pigment + Palette, a monthly art supply box which gets delivered to me the first week of each month and contains fantastic products from a wide variety of media. Here's a shot of September's box contents:
Meanwhile I've got so much from summer that I've been meaning to write about...and depression has been encroaching heavily. Some may have been caused by an imbalance in some of my medications, but a good chunk has been from financial, other health, and job related stresses too. I've been looking for a job off and on since January, with very mixed results. I can't even comment on all of it yet, but prayers and such are always welcome since despite the normalcy most of us show the world, there's some turbulence hiding below the surface. Though over the past few weeks I've had a very interesting painting commission fall into my lap, so I'm happy to be tackling that and sharing photos as I complete it. One of my birthday gifts is also rather exciting....I've got a subscription to Pigment + Palette, a monthly art supply box which gets delivered to me the first week of each month and contains fantastic products from a wide variety of media. Here's a shot of September's box contents:
A set of Bruynzeel-Sakura pencils in 2H, HB, 2B, and 7B
Lumi Inkodye in Magenta (plus a month of free dye technique classes online)
A trusty Excel #1 light duty knife (oh, the memories of using these from CCAD!)
A lovely red Fabriano EcoQua journal with dotted (almost like graph paper) that's great for sketches on the go
Plus an artist postcard from the featured artist of the month
The dye is what has me most excited, it's sunlight activated and can be used on cloth or paper. So I could use a photographic transparency to print with or use with objects or cut paper designs similar to making a Photogram. The options are open enough that I'm having trouble deciding. And magenta is such a bold color that it demands just the right subject matter.
Other than all this I have another post written up on part one of a summer trip we took, which I need to add the photographs too, so October at least may get more than one solid post despite the lack of them September has had. And I've had more adventures since, which will make for even more posts in the future. Goodness I do have some work ahead of me!
Til next time -
Love,
Lydia
