How is it the middle of September already!! I genuinely can't believe how quickly August passed!
I swore to myself that I was going to get my August update posted sooner than this, but somehow time slipped away from me again.
To be honest I'm pretty happy about it being September. I love Autumn. It's absolutely my favourite time of the year. I know it means the dreaded winter is coming, but I love the fall colours and watching the leaves change.
I think one of my favourite things about Toronto is how abruptly the seasons change. In the UK it can feel like pretty much one dreary, drizzly season all year round. But here there's this sudden change, like BAM Autumn's here, and everything feels different. I get the same motivation that I get at the beginning of a new year. I like to sit down and take a good look at what I'm working on and see what changes can be made. So I pretty much end up doing a mini life overhaul every three months.
Anyway, back to August! I had a pretty great August. I've really settled back into tattooing now. It took a while after being out of the studio for so long to get used to tattooing again. I'll be honest, I found I was exhausted after tattooing for a half day, so a lot of my evenings were spent relaxing and getting some extra shut eye. I think because of this I feel like I haven't accomplished all that much out side of tattooing, but that's ok.
Here's some of the wonderful pieces I got to finish in August... I even tattooed some pink!!! That's pretty exciting for me...
One of my biggest accomplishments outside of tattooing in August was finally launching my ebook! It's a 70 page book of floral sketches that I made during lockdown. I know I mentioned this in my July blog post, but it officially went on sale in August! Plus I'm proud of it so it deserves being mentioned again.
Of course I made another round of tutorials for my Patreon in August. These tutorials were Lavender, Rosemary and Thyme (all in one tutorial) and Morning Glories (miraculously I managed to make that whole tutorial without one innuendo!).
I also made a mini 'How I draw A Rose' tutorial during August for everyone (not just my patrons), which you can find here.
I guess the final big thing that happened was that I booked up September and October at the end of August. I had so many wonderful requests it was overwhelming. I wish I could have taken on every single project. I will be taking new booking request for November/December on 25th October. If you're interested you can check out my booking process.
Here are some other things I enjoyed in August...
Books:
- The Skin We're In - Desmond Cole
A look at racism in Canada, from a Toronto journalist/activist - a must read.
- Art In & Find Your Creative Voice - two separate books by Lisa Cogdon
I wiiiiish I had read these years ago! So valuable if you are creative and want to pursue a creative profession.
- The Vegetarian - Han Kang
Sooooo good. This is another book I've been meaning to read for a long time.
- Deep work - Cal Newport
Now I've heard people raving about this for sooo long, but I just hadn't gotten around to reading it. But I finally got the audio book from the library (Libby app). It's really interesting, definitely worth a read if you're interested in productivity. I'm going to implementing some of the strategies he suggests during September so I'll update you next month with how that goes.
TV / Film:
- Queen & Slim - you should watch this, it's fucking great, and heartbreaking.
- Atlanta (s1) - how has it taken me so long to watch this?! This might be my favourite TV series alongside Fleabag, and I haven't even seen season two yet.
Other things:
- I did a lot of walking. Just around my neighbourhood, trying to enjoy the sunshine and soak up some vitamin D (and get myself out of my basement apartment).
- I met up with some buddies for a socially distanced drawing club at Riverdale Park, which was sooooo nice.
And that's about it for August!
Enjoy your September, I'll let you know how mine went soon!