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.

The daily card, weeks 47-48

November 24 was inspired by watching a lot of Trump rallies (don't ask), by applying Trump's winning attitude to challenges at work, and most specifically by Vox's illustration of Trump in their Thanksgiving primer. November 29 inspired by Elise - I love how this one turned out.

November 30 is a favorite quote from the inimitable Lindy West and December 3 refers to this great quote from Ira Glass about closing the gap between art you recognize as great and art you can create yourself.

As I write this, there are just five days left in 2015. Pretty wild to be so close to the end of the year and of this creative challenge. Since I got a bit beyond in posting throughout the year, I'm going to double up for the last few weeks' worth of cards. 

If there's one thing I will take away from this challenge, it is that creativity breeds creativity and action begets action. I've gotten some of my best card ideas when life is hectic. And this holds true well beyond the cards. The days that I have to do a bunch of writing at work are the days that I am raring to start writing new blog posts. 

The best part is, high-volume writing days in a professional context help take the fear and emotion out of my personal writing here and elsewhere. They remind me that writing is just words and ideas - not a reflection of my deepest worth as a human being. They teach me to be comfortable with criticism and to not take it personally when someone has thoughts on how to strengthen something. They remind me to just start getting stuff down on the page and to go from there.

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 46

On tap this week: stamping with wine, finding pattern in Arabic script, obsessed with Hamilton, finished reading Essentialism, wondering when you can appropriately wear bras that show through your clothing, trying not to freak out, and the phrase that captures this year better than any other.

That phrase is from Life of Pi, in which Pi is stranded on a lifeboat with a lot of tiger and very few supplies. He finds a water can but, sans can opener, has to use a tarpaulin hook to open it: "Holding the can with both my hands, I sharply brought it up against the hook. A good dint. I did it again. Another dint next to the first. By dint of dinting, I managed the trick."

I read the book over a decade ago, but I still think of that phrase. For a long time it was just for the clever wordplay - and now also because it so perfectly captures a year of daily creativity and small, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other steps forward.

In high school, I was a bit of a procrastinator, prone to putting things off to the last minute and then writing papers in a burst of inspiration over the course of a late night. (I once faked a semester's worth of prayer journal entries in an afternoon.) It was stressful, but I did well, so I never had incentive to change my ways to embrace the slow-and-steady.

But most everything worthwhile I have done in my adult life has been by dint of dinting. I am not a great athlete, but I have become a runner by dint of dinting. I have been dinting at strengthening my writing basically since I was literate. Until the day when I get tapped to jump ten salary bands and run my organization, I will keep dinting at building competence and expertise in my job. And this whole year-long endeavor - making daily small-scale art - has been a way of dinting at becoming a creative person.

That phrase is immensely encouraging to me - we often don't immediately see the impact of our efforts, we just need to dint, dint, dint.

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.

Week 45 and thoughts on art & identity

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the daily cards are not so much a part of my public identity as they are a personal practice. (Even if I am sharing them with the Internet.) There is a lot of emphasis in blog world on having a well-integrated personal brand. But the thing is, I don't know that I do -- or even that I want to. I love working in international development and democratic politics by day and I love dabbling in this stuff by night. But it is not really something you could consider a "side hustle." It is not going to make me money or give me skills I can use in my job or inspire an entirely new online career. It doesn't feel "essential" in the Essentialism sense -- it is probably not furthering my ability to make my highest possible contribution to the planet.

All of these thoughts had been rolling around in the back of my mind when I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert's Magic Lessons podcast. In one, talking to a burned-out art teacher who wants to recommit to making her own art, Liz tells her to have an affair with her creativity. To pursue something that is just for her, that is even a bit furtive and secret, that doesn't depend on having an audience and in fact does better without one. And I loved that idea. It made things click for me. It was immensely reassuring to be reminded that my creative life, if you can call it that, needs to serve no further end than my own enjoyment.

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 44

This was a fun week full of lots of writing. (And editing, which can feel like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.) "Neighborhood news" is a reference to the fabulous Girl Next Door podcast - the big news in Columbia Heights these days is the Chick-fil-a that just opened, and since Austin was away I treated myself without someone there to remind me of the human rights abuses I was committing by proxy. Then Sunday, I ran a 10k across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and celebrated that with some Maryland flag pride.

The "she's a rebel" card is all about serendipity and the power of the crop. I cut out a magazine picture of a rebellious-looking guy to accompany that caption, but then I noticed the perfectly-framed image on the reverse side, and decided to use that one instead. I love the about-to-take-a-leap moment it captures, and how the crop focuses on one person in a crowd. I was composing a blog post in my head about the power of creative accident when Austin asked if my card was "about a girl's butt." So that brought me back down to a place where I could take myself a little less seriously. :)

Otherwise, my favorite new technique is using watercolor to paint on stamps. I stumbled into this one by not having paint or ink the shade of blue that I wanted, so I looked for alternatives. I totally dig the ephemeral way it turned out.

Moving right along! So crazy that we are now on month 12 of 12 of the year of creative habits. I am hoping to finish this project strong.

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 43

Eek... I had better keep up with posting these or I will still be sharing this year's cards well into next year. In some ways, this project has faded into the background. I don't really think much about it (until it's time to post here, of course). It's just a part of my routine. So it's going to be weird that in less than eight weeks I won't be doing it anymore.

There are some things that aren't so much a part of my public identity, in the way that gardening is, but more something that makes me feel like myself. The daily cards do that for me. Bar Method does that for me. On a good day, running does that for me. Walking around my neighborhood and listening to podcasts, reading before bed, do that for me for sure. It is like an internal touchstone. It is a reset position. It's not something I talk about much. Despite the fact that I'm sharing here, this project is really just for me.

When life gets busy, as it is at the moment, it's tempting to want to jettison this project to have more time for Things That Need to Get Done. But I've found that when life gets busy is when I most need this, to keep me in touch with who I am and to help me find the calm center underneath it all. In times like this, I am so glad that I made this commitment to myself.

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 42

Hi there! I am falling off the regular blogging wagon until the end of the year as I work on some other projects - but I will still plan to share the remaining weeks of the daily card project.

My favorite by far is October 24, which is a washi-tape recreation of the Anthropologie dress that I wore to a friend's engagement party. My least favorite - like, possibly of the entire year - is October 21. I like the concept but the execution did not work and it looks like a Claire's catalogue threw up on a graffiti wall. But the quote is from Elizabeth Gilbert's fantastic podcast and her advice to stay present and find inspiration in what's around you, however mundane. On a similar note, October 19 is inspired by the alt-text of this comic, which I think of when I get bogged down in stuff at work that probably doesn't matter too much in the scheme of things.

And for another creative playing card project, I recommend Austin Kleon's steal strategies.

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 41

This is one of my favorite weeks in a while. Inspired by: the pattern on my favorite plaid shirt and rummaging through my childhood bookcase; the first Democratic debate (it's Hillary's logo on a photo of Vermont); the deliciousness of runny eggs, especially on bibimbap; collage inspired by a Katie Licht zine; rainbow stamping; a favorite line from True Detective (so good); and a moment of existential doubt (don't worry, Mom, I'm okay). The latter is done in the style of one of my favorite pieces of modern art, by Steve Lambert via Wendy at First Person Singular a few years ago. Lots of orange this week - it's feeling like fall for sure.

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 40

For Monday through Thursday, I went with a theme of black brush script, mostly of quotes I like on magazine tear-outs and a photo. (Quotes are from Hafiz / Bob Dylan / Virginia Woolf / Liz Lemon.) But I got a bit bored with that and switched it up for the weekend. I did actually make seven cards this week, just redacting Sunday's for my personal records.

In some ways, it feels like the year is wrapping up - even though we have (almost) a full quarter of it left to go. I'm already trolling the web for 2016 calendars and thinking about what, if anything, I'll do next year. I would love to keep up the habit of daily, or at least regular, creativity - but I would also like to take some of the pressure off.  I will confess, I am looking forward to the day when I don't have to make a card. It is so impressive to me that Crystal Moody went right from a year of drawing everyday to a year of painting everyday.

Right now, I'm thinking I would love to try something a little more free-form than completing a card. Like art journaling, or maybe just "making something," (almost) every day, and not worrying so much about missing a bubble on the goal tracker. It would also be fun to try drawing or doodling every day since this project has made me want to build my skills in that area.

What I love about this project is that it got me creating every day. But I don't like that it meant that I had less time to art journal and make minibooks and do all of that other good stuff. But then again, I'm not sure that I would have done much of that without the creative habit in place either. The beauty of the daily card is that it can be quick and simple, while my art journaling and book making processes tend to be longer and more involved. Maybe the trick is just to bring some of that permission to be quick, simple, and imperfect to my other creative endeavors.

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 39

This week I felt like drawing a Bloody Mary and getting a bit messier. I made fake blackout poetry with a line from Sister Corita Kent's rules for creativity. (Blackout style and quote both via Austin Kleon.) I played around with tissue paper and used a paper clip as a stamp. And then I spent the weekend in Chicago and prepped simple cards based on vintage Chicago posters. All good stuff.

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 38

In the interest of full transparency, I will confess: the cards for Saturday and Sunday were made after the fact (like, on Monday and Tuesday). If a card needs to dry, sometimes I'll wait until the next day before applying finishing touches. But it's been a while since I flat-out haven't made a card - the only other times have been when I'm literally traveling all day long, and even then I end up doing it ahead of time. On Saturday, I ended up crashing at a friend's house after an all-day beer olympics birthday party and a late night catching up around the fire. And then the festivities continued on Sunday and I was too beat to make a card. Both days, I came up with an idea for a card that I promised to execute later and called it good enough. Good to remember that the point of this project is to encourage creativity, not to squeeze it so tightly that it gets crushed. 

Commemorated this week: the pope visiting, learning the phrase "Netflix and chill," watching Wild, and playing a Lovecraftian board game with friends. It was a good 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 37: Q4 edition

After our trip to California, my new plan is to move out there and start a line of Central Coast-themed letterpress greeting cards. The hitch is I'm pretty sure a bunch of people are doing that pretty well already and that the September 16 card is my only design so far. September 15 features a quote from Crystal Moody. This week also features the first naked card I've done... both one of my lazier and more brilliant moves. Word to the wise, this is what happens when you do your crafting late at night after too many beers.

Now that we've rounded the bend of October 1, we're in the last quarter of 2015. (When will I get used to how quickly the years go nowadays??) I keep thinking about trusting the process. When I started writing this post, that felt like a totally new idea until I remembered I'd said the exact same thing at the end of the first quarter. Between then and now, I feel like the habit has become more established and it's easier to come up with new ideas. Though there are still days where it's like, "you mean I have to do this again? I just did this yesterday!" But then again I have the same reaction to doing laundry and grocery shopping and exercising.

I've been thinking about trusting the process in other areas of my life too, as I try to figure out how best to move forward in my career and life. About trusting that if I take the next step, the step after that will reveal itself to me - or at least be clearer, if not magically delivered on a silver platter. You just have to chip away at what's in front of you, not knowing exactly what you'll be doing tomorrow or the day after.

At the same time, the daily card challenge hasn't magically made me better at tackling other projects one day at a time... even when I'm faced with a big binder of evidence of the cool stuff that can result when you do just that. Just like Bar Method didn't magically make me more confident and effective at work, or like how I doubt that cleaning my closet would give me the boost to change careers like Kon Mari believers sometimes say. I guess I'd like to think it would carry over more than it does... but it has reminded me that I can set and achieve goals and keep commitments to myself. I just have to work on building that discipline - and establishing good systems and processes to support it - bit by bit in each area of my life.

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 36

This week was all California. (Which, of course, was FANTASTIC. I'll hopefully be sharing more thoughts and photos soon.)  Before we left, I printed off four stock images of the four major places we'd be spending time - in San Francisco, Napa Valley, on Highway 1 down the coast, and in Newport Beach - and used them as the background to the cards.

Since we were road-tripping and moving so much, I brought fewer supplies than I do when I'm headed to one place (like on a work trip) and can spread out all over one desk. There really isn't much artistry and not a ton of creativity in this set. But it was a nice way to get down a few themes, thoughts, or highlights from each day while keeping up with the daily rhythm. For Sunday, after we arrived back from LAX, I took the leftover scraps and wove them together. It sort of mirrors what it feels like getting back from vacation - a smattering of images and memories that blur together in one big scenic highlight reel.

And if you're keeping score at home, here is what all the California cards look like together:

That's about it. This week made for a nice break in real life and a nice break heading into the last quarter of the daily card challenge. As much as I sometimes find myself looking forward to December 31 when I stamp the last date-stamp on the last card, it really is crazy how quickly this year is going by.

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 35

Every time I think I'm totally over this project, I get into a groove again - and I am really happy with what I came up with this week.

Highs: The "I love you" card is one of my favorites this year... it's blurred not because it's anything truly secret or inappropriate, just some inside jokes that I figured I would keep inside. And starting with The Last Days of California, I've had fun this summer recreating the covers of the books I read. Then we took off for California and got started with some pre-made travel cards... more on that coming next week.

Lows: I messed up my back again but, more importantly, there was renewed focus on the Syrian refugee crisis as the body of little Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach. The "no one puts children in a boat" line is one I'd seen circulating on Facebook, and is from a poem by Somali-British poet Warsan Shire. This is my very minor tribute to one heart-wrenching moment in a long, intractable conflict full of them.

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 34

I love the late summer palette (unintentionally) creeping into the cards. This week was a fun one in art and in life: participating in the 30 Lists blog hop, prepping and throwing a Middle East-themed potluck dinner party with my friends from high school, hitting Virginia for a wine-tasting, and (as always) playing with pattern.

I also started sharing the cards on Instagram. (One of these days I'll figure out how to have nifty little icons for all my social media profiles on my blog sidebar, but that day hasn't come yet.) It felt disproportionately daunting for such a minor thing - but somehow it is less intimidating to share my various endeavors with people, many of them strangers, in this space than it is to slap them in the Instagram feeds of my colleagues and my high school classmates and whoever else may be following me. It felt like vulnerability for sure - getting out of your comfort zone and daring greatly and all that jazz.

But putting myself out there also meant I could link up with the #yearofcreativehabits crew that inspired this whole project. It's part of the process of owning who I am and what I like regardless of who my audience is. And those are very good things.

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 33: notes to self edition

On Sunday of this week, Austin and I were listening to Weekend Edition as we worked on some writing (him) and made muffins (me). In between segments on dying villages in Galicia and dogs who can detect cancer, a French swimmer came on to talk about his upcoming swim across the Pacific Ocean. Speaking to how he handles the mental challenge of such a daunting physical task, he said, "I try not to think about the entire ocean. Instead I pretend I'm swimming in a pool, and the pool is moving with me."

It's one of my favorite things I've heard in a while - it's hard to think of a more poignant way to talk about not getting overwhelmed by an entire project but instead just getting started and taking one step at a time. And he had a shark follow him for five days once, so he has definitely earned the right to come up with motivational sayings. It reminds me of the E.L. Doctorow quote: "Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

Otherwise this week is full of notes to self- the little themes and lessons each day holds that may or may not stick with me in a lasting way but, taken together, are what's going on in my head these days. Also inspired this week by: my Rifle Paper Co phone case and my Method hand soap. (Neither of which furnished any promotional consideration.)

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 32

Favorite techniques this week - "cloudy day" is from a mod-podged Anthropologie mailer. And I have a feeling more JCrew ladies, like the one from August 13, will be back with life and career advice before this project is over.

Failed techniques this week - wax resist. It didn't work with water-soluble crayons (go figure, I guess) on August 14 and it didn't show up with regular crayons on August 16. I like the sentiments from those cards, but the execution flopped a bit. No big deal - onto the next. :)

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 31

I feel like I'm back in a groove with this project after a slump. The thumbprint monsters were totally inspired by Katie Licht and were a perfect creative release after a long day at work. The airplant sketch, similarly, is a tribute to my sole living companion when I'm in the office after hours.

As the first Republican primary approached, I got the catchy phrase "not my circus, not my monkeys" stuck in my head. I was delighted to discover (via Gawker) that it's a Polish saying - nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy. And I'm always glad for a chance to use my "VOTE" stamp before 2016 rolls around.

As I prepare to take steps in a new direction, more and more mantras and motivational phrases are creeping in to the cards. I've been liking the results.

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.