Linzé Brandon's Blog, page 19

Planning the practical side of the #CreativeLife

 If you are expecting a post about my bullet journal and how I spend hours every month drawing and colouring many lovely pages, I am going to disappoint you. Bullet journaling in that style is not my style.

I use a plain diary/planner with a week to a view. They change every year since I don't prefer a specific brand or style. This year I am using one from my local Typo store. I divided every weekday with a pencil line into three columns.

The left-hand column is for tasks like writing this blog po...

The #CreativeLife 2021: review of week 1

Setting intentions means that you have to regularly check up on yourself. 

What I planned for last week:

Work: Finish the tests and the report of a job from 2020.

Art and craft: 6 hours

What I did last week:

Work: I finished the tests as planned but struggled with writing the report. Friday was such a frustrating day, but I eventually made some progress by late afternoon.   It was not the report's fault, I assure you. It happens sometimes, but I will get it done.

Art / craft: I ended up spending about...

Planning the week ahead for a #CreativeLife

Like everything I have to do whether it be work, shopping, washing the dishes, or drawing the next inktober52 prompt, I have to allocate time for it in my weekly schedule.

The problem we all have is that we have only 24 hours in a day. You may assume that since I am self-employed, I can allocate my hours in any way I want, and in some ways it is true. But it is not that simple.

My job is to work with other companies and their products, which means that I cannot call a client with a question at 3am...

Planning the #CreativeLife today

 The new year is already taking up its fair share of time. I am due to start working again tomorrow, which means that planning becomes more important to make time for drawing and art projects.

Working from home as well as at the lab makes it essential for me to plan for creative time since it is my time to relax and reboot.

Some things are simple to plan like the art sessions I have with a few friends on a Thursday evening. The other regular task to plan is the inktober52 prompt. Since it is a wee...

Setting an intention - blogging the #CreativeLife

Happy New Year! We have not yet shaken off the vestiges of 2020 just because the calendar ticked over. The pandemic will probably continue to have an influence on our lives for many weeks to come. That does not mean that I cannot make a decision (set an intention) to do a few things differently this year.

My intention for 2021 is to blog twice a week about my #CreativeLife. My twice-weekly tweet at #TheTinyBroom will also continue, as will my monthly newsletter, a Grain of Sand.

Tweets are short, ...

Art skills in lockdown: a personal story of 2020 #CreativeLife

Many people have mentioned that lockdown changed some if not all aspects of their creative lives this past year. It has been the same for me but in quite a surprising and unplanned way. I spent most of my available time writing and publishing books for the past ten years or so, but at the end of 2019, I decided to use 2020 to focus almost exclusively on improving my artistic skills.

I have been drawing and painting since 2015, but my primary focus had been to write and publish my books. With 25 b...

Book feature: ALONG CAME A SPYDER by Apeksha Rao

About the Book: Are your Spidey senses tingling?
At 17, Samira Joshi has only one dream in life. She wants to be a spy. And why not?
Spying runs in the Joshi genes.
Her great-grandmother was famous for sticking her nose in everyone’s business. Her grandmother had a flourishing side-business of tracking down errant husbands and missing servants. Her parents are elite intelligence agents for RAW.
Yet, they want their only daughter to become a doctor.
When she sees a college friend being trapped by a p...

Book Feature: BELLE VUE by CS Alleyne

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jealousy, betrayal, murder and a hunger for vengeance that spans the centuries…

History student Alex Palmer is thrilled when his girlfriend, Claire Ryan, buys an apartment in Belle Vue Manor, formerly a Victorian lunatic asylum.

But as Alex begins to discover the dark truth about the asylum’s past, he, Claire, and their friend Marianne find themselves on a nightmarish journey. Each will face the deadly consequences of the evil that began with the construction of the first Belle Vue ...

BOOK FEATURE: Truly Madly Crazily in Love by Esha Pandey

~ Book Blitz ~Truly Madly Crazily in Love by Esha Pandey 


About the Book: 
What happens when you can't let your first love go? What happens when you keep hoping that the one that got away, will be yours again...forever?
Sue is short, vivacious and dreamy. Viv is tall, spirited and focussed. Dressed to the nines on School Social, she bewitches him. He kisses her. She kisses him back. They fall in love. But the kiss that should have sealed their love, becomes their undoing.
Sue is truly, madly and cra...

Art Journal 2020: Friendship

It has been a while since I did an art journal post, mostly because I couldn't decide on the topic. But once I did it was only a matter of getting it done. Figure 1
The background (Figure 1) was done with Faber-Castell gelatos (Figures 2 and 3) then activated with water. The pages were not treated with anything beforehand.
Figure 2 Figure 3










Then I added the gold leaf blocks (Figure 4) by putting glue on the page, and dropping the gold leaf on top. Waiting until the glue dried, then I brushed the exce...