A year of miniature art

As you are well aware if you have spent any time here, I decorated a playing card every day in 2015. I started this project on something of a lark - but it ended up being one of the things that most shaped my year. Which says to me that, as with a lot of things, it's not so much the decision to start but the decision to keep going that matters. I kept it up through quiet winter nights, through adventures in Mauritania and Central America, and through the last busy months of the year.

Over the course of the year, I celebrated my favorite board games.

I enjoyed (more than) a few strong drinks.

And some nights, I got lazy. (See above - there is a pretty robust correlation between "strong drinks" and "phoning it in" in the card department.)

But I also found my way to new mantras and ideas - ones that will stick with me long after this year of creative habits is over.

And while I am a writer at heart, some days didn't need words.

So what did I learn? I won't rehash too many thoughts on daily creativity (since I have shared plenty over the year) but wanted to share some overall reflections.

Basically, I am so glad I did this. While I didn't do much scrapbooking this year, I love that I have a full year captured through this unique documentation method. (On some cards, I wrote a bit on the back about whatever had inspired the front - I need to go back and do that for more of them before I forget.) I have only pulled out my binder a couple times since December 31, but it's already so cool to flip through and see a year of thoughts and feeeeeelings at a glance.

Most of all, this project has shown me the value of working at something every day or nearly every day- a lesson I am trying to apply to my other pursuits, like writing and running. It has proven to me Gretchen Rubin's axiom that things you do every day matter more than things you do once in a while. For all the goals I set for 2015, this daily habit felt the most significant.

Two weeks into the new year, I wish I could say that this project inculcated in me a creative urge so strong that I am still going nonstop. But truth be told, I haven't really done much creating so far in 2016. I could say that's because I've been busy, and that would be true. But I was also busy for much of 2015, with plenty of late nights, long task lists, and jam-packed travel days. That commitment to carving out the time and making it happen is key - and, as Gretchen Rubin also says, finish lines can be dangerous.

I have to say though, I have enjoyed being able to shut down my laptop and go to sleep in 2016 instead of first making a card. And I am excited to wrap this up to have more time for larger-scale art journaling projects.

But the plus side is, this project has made me into - or shown me that I already was - a creative person, if I can only give myself the time and space for it. I'm looking forward to exploring that creativity, giving it some room to breathe, and seeing where it takes me in 2016.

And that's it for the daily card project! Thanks so much for following along and, as always, you can see all past card posts here.

The daily card, weeks 50-52: Twelve days of Christmas

Inspired by Crystal Moody, who drew twelve days of Christmas at the end of 2014, I decided to end this project with twelve days of Christmas in December. I got a great start with a partridge in a pear tree... and then realized that four out of the twelve gifts are birds, birds are hard to draw, and that I particularly don't have the drawing skills to make a turtle dove look different from a calling bird. 

So that idea quickly got shelved and I decided instead to make my own twelve days of Christmas based on what was going on that day. I took a break for a few days around Christmas but then finished out the end of the year. My twelve days of Christmas look like: twelve months of creativity, eleven hours of writing, nine train tickets (from playing Ticket to Ride), eight family members, seven layers of tiramisu, six high school friends, five pairs of grippy socks, four hours of crafting, three sheep boats (from playing Settlers of Catan), two cold old-fashioneds, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Here are the full twelve days:

...and that's it for my year of creative habits! I am so glad to have stuck with it to the end and to have finished strong. More thoughts on the project as a whole coming next week.

As a creative challenge, I am decorating a playing card every day in 2015. More context on this project is here and you can see all past card posts here.

The daily card, week 49: Mauritania

Happy New Year! In real life, I am so excited to have wrapped up this project. In blog life, I am a bit behind in posting the cards so I'm going to power through sharing the final ones this week, and then pop in next week with some thoughts on the project as a whole.

In December, I traveled to Mauritania for work for ten days. (More on that here and here.) Similar to what I did on my last trip to Mauritania in May, I assembled a little travel kit and got to work.

These traveling cards end up being some of my favorites - the map backgrounds can feel a little repetitive, but I love the creative challenge that comes with working within additional restraints. December 12 and 13 are based on patterns from cloth I bought at the market and the pattern on the couches in the guest apartment where I stay. Hilariously, the "desert magic" card on December 9 is supposed to be bougainvillea... but every time I start to get cocky, this project reminds me that I still have a ways to go on my fine art skills. I think it makes for a cool pattern nonetheless.

And since the trip covered a few calendar weeks, here are the Mauritania cards together:

As a creative challenge, I am decorating a playing card every day in 2015. More context on this project is here and you can see all past card posts here.