As it turns out, it’s not. Due to a variety of factors, I’m staying home. While this was a little crushing at first to realize (I was so excited!), I am choosing instead to approach it as an opportunity to enjoy the nice Halifax weather that’s been happening lately (must be a cosmic fluke and/or the universe conspiring to send me thousands of tiny little signs that I should abandon my plans of abandonment) and to spend more time doing fun projects, which I almost invariably wouldn’t be doing if I were on the road.

For starters, I’m finally going to invest the time and floorspace into setting up a proper workspace for myself, rather than just lounging on the couch all the time–I do miss having creative space (why oh why did I sell my drafting table at a yard sale for $15?) and things stuck all over my walls, and sometimes the entire upstairs of my apartment looks like it’s been hit by a cyclone that carries nothing but paper scraps, bottles of ink, and empty cans of energy drinks.

At the beginning of the year, I made a list of things I’d like to learn and try and experiment with. I’ve lost steam a little bit of late, but I’ve already starting playing with a good number of these things: I took a screenprinting class; I learned calligraphy basics and produced a series of Valentines’ cards; I learned how to make books (although I still need to refine the process a touch before I’m genuinely happy with the results). I’ve also started on a number of new projects that are exciting and interesting, which is keeping me feeling fulfilled.

My first (imperfect) hand-bound book. They’ll be better next round–I’m planning to use matboard en lieu of old corrugated card from shoe boxes, and using a more complex spine design, and I need to work out a better way of punching holes (a drill leaves rather eaten-up edges.)

What I’d like to add to the list: more new and exciting projects, of course, and more self-directed work. I’d like to make an actual book–Candide will probably be my first candidate (hardy har)–which I’m rather excited about. I’d like to start designing some patterns again (I rather like designing my own damask) and applying them to fabrics/stationary products. I’d like to start doing regular typography assignments, just because I like playing with type. I’d like to work more with screenprinting and various hands-on methods of making stuff, and I’m looking into building my own letterpress, which I’ve wanted to do for ages. Ultimately, spending time doing the sort of work that doesn’t necessarily generate money, but keeps me feeling creatively stimulated, will lead to me doing better work down the line.

So, while I was a touch crushed when I realized I wouldn’t be able to go, I’m determined to turn it into a positive event in my life.

Spain, Morocco, and Iceland will probably still be there in the fall (right?). And in the meantime, perhaps I’ll treat myself to a nice pair of shoes.

Like these bad boys. Only $650! (That’s half off, and still far, far too expensive for my tastes. So, probably not THIS nice pair of shoes. But they’re pretty!)

The time-crunch, however, meant that I needed to accept imperfections. Now, anyone who knows me knows well that I’m a tiny bit persnickety: I’ll spend half an hour adjusting the kerning of a font until it feels just right, I’ll go back over a design that’s already been client-approved in order to “finesse” the whole thing, and I typically complain that Photoshop won’t zoom to a level any higher than 1600%.  While I really do believe that this is a valuable tendency in a designer (and, in fact, I suspect that most graphic designers are by nature a touch anal-retentive), it’s also a major hindrance in an industry that is so intensely deadline-driven.

Finished thank you cards, each one screenprinted by hand! I’m not happy with the heart design at all–the lines are simultaneously too thick AND too thin. I think I might prefer this redesigned with more of a skull/vine design in the bottom-right corner.

This is why often my self-driven projects are finished late: while client projects are often do-or-die, if the client is myself, I’m often content to let my expected deadline pass me by in favour of producing work that’s closer to “perfect” (it’s never actually perfect, of course.) This is why it took me three months longer than expected to launch my new website, and why my Valentines were barely even printed and ready to go by the fourteenth. Given that it’s easy to sour on your own work after obsessing over it too long, this delay is a dangerous thing. Wait too long, and the whole thing ends up needing to be scrapped and started all over again!

But with the screenprinting class, I had no option (other than flakiness, which I’m giving up as a lifestyle choice as much as possible). So I showed up for my second class with a design that wasn’t perfect, telling myself that it was just a learning project, and it didn’t matter if it wasn’t right. I’m just learning! It’s okay to screw up!

The thing I started to realize as I got into the printing process is this: everything that looks like a fatal error to me is basically invisible to everyone else.  (Not a major revelation, but something I ought to constantly keep in mind, because I never seem to remember it.) The fundamental flaws in the initial design weren’t nearly as glaring or as apparent to others as they were to me.

Then, as I proceeded with the printing process, I realized that I hadn’t been as precise with the first colour “plate” (the red accents) as I would have liked. (In screenprinting, each colour is printed independently of the others, much like a traditional CMYK plate-printing process that I learned about in school, but never actually had a chance to witness.) Accordingly, when I printed the black “plate” on top of the red, the registration often didn’t line up perfectly, and there was an overlap.

Then something funny happened. I could, in theory, have used an acetate sheet to register and measure the placement of every single print to ensure a perfect output on every single print. I thought about it, briefly, and then threw caution utterly to the wind, and just started printing willy-nilly. Prints came out with white where red should be, and red where white should be, and instead of breaking down into tears or tantrums, I carefully put them on the drying rack with the others. Not only was I not upset, but I actually discovered that I rather liked these mis-fit mis-prints! Whoever knew?

And really, where I’m so gung-ho on the handmade process anyway, it’s about time I learned not only to accept, but to embrace my mistakes. (Are you listening, brain? I’m talking to you.) Mistakes are often the most interesting part of a piece of work, and they so often generate new ideas and concepts that might otherwise forever remain undiscovered (gravity, nylon, penicillin, chocolate-covered bacon). And especially when something is handmade, part of its appeal lies in its imperfections: signs of the inherently flawed human touch. So often the aesthetics of error (cracks in pavement, burned-out buildings, rips in a sheet of paper) are more interesting, alive, and vibrant than the sterility of pixel-perfection.

Can you spot the errors? I bet I can find more than you can!

Now, if only I can apply that sort of thinking to everything else I do, I might finally be able get some sleep!

First lesson learned: just because you make something that people like, doesn’t mean that people will actually buy it.

This weekend, at a friend’s suggestion, I booked a booth at a local farmer’s market. For only $60, it seemed like a wildly clever business idea. How could I possibly NOT make a fortune?

Well, not only did I not make a fortune, but I actually didn’t sell a single card, unless you count the one that I traded a bookseller for a tattered copy of The Slang of Sin. There were quite a few people who came by and told me how much they liked them, and one person even asked how much they cost (they were next to a sign that listed prices, but that seems irrelevant).

“I just don’t get it! Are my cards not pretty enough? Why does nobody love me?”

Midway through day two of sitting behind a booth, bored to tears and trying desperately not to leap on everyone who walked past, I realized that nobody would ever buy one. What was I doing wrong?

Second lesson learned: research your market.

Of course, I didn’t think to look around me, but once I did, I realized what I had done wrong–I’d come to the wrong place entirely. It wasn’t even so much that people weren’t buying from me, as it was that they weren’t buying from anyone. I’m still not quite sure how anyone at that market sells enough to make a profit, but perhaps they did better in other parts. The busy bits seemed to be the “food court” and the flea market tables.

Had I done my research and actually visited this market prior to committing an entire weekend to it, I may have had a little more luck with it.

The charming Miss Laverdure kept me company, and helped fill my table, on the first day. I doubt I would have survived the weekend otherwise. (She’s also an excellent negotiator, whereas I just giggle and act like a moron.)

Third lesson learned: bring a book.

I forgot how boring it can be sitting around waiting for customers that never appear.

Fourth lesson learned: Don’t take it personally.

It was midway through that second day that I started really doubting myself. Four hours seemed like forever away, and, while I knew that I wouldn’t be selling anything that day, I was determined to stick it out ’til the better end. Prior to that point, my abysmal failure hadn’t gotten me down. I kept having to remind myself that the whole affair was an experiment, and that it’s okay to fail. (Not that I plan on making a habit of it.)

Apparently showing a little cleavage doesn’t even help matters.

Fifth lesson learned: stores will sell your things FOR you if you just ask nicely.

Thanks, Duly Noted and Love, Me! Not only is it totally exciting to think that things I made are in a real-live shop, now I get to stay home and make more!

Thumbnail sketches. This is how things started. I hate showing people my sketchbook because things invariably look like they were drawn by a blind five-year-old. Basically, I’m just trying to get the composition right.

Of course, I forgot to factor in the fact that I’m a crazy workaholic perfectionist with an insomniac streak a mile wide whenever I get really passionate about a project. My little lark of a project kept me up late, made an utter warzone of my apartment, and still took far longer than I’d anticipated.

I made this card last year and still had the sketch in my book. I think that was done in pigment liner and watercolour, and was severely lacking in calligraphy and mass-production capabilities.

However, it did succeed in teaching me to use my digital camera more effectively, so I’m grateful for that. I took a lot of photos along the way, mostly because I became highly paranoid about committing to ink and mucking things up, and I thought it’d be interesting to share a bit of the process that’s involved.

Initial line drawings. I marked off an active “image area” space using my health card as a ruler so as to keep the illustrations roughly the same size.

I started by drawing “proper” versions of each illustration on this lovely smooth square bristol board. I’m anal-retentive, so I tend to prefer mechanical pencils (they’re also easier to find at the grocery store when you run out, although they typically stock a .7 lead and I like a .5 better).

Here’s my roommate modeling her best “hungry arms” for me. I had her do a few different positions. You can tell how impressed she is about it.

I’m always surprised when drawing things by what I don’t know. Like “what an astronaut breathes from”, for example. Or how long the optic nerve is. This was an awesome lesson in anatomy, although I’m still not quite sure I got everything right.

My calligraphy tests for the captions. I can’t do calligraphy without graph paper, so I ended up developing a style of lettering for each phrase, then re-inking it a few times on a clean sheet, scanning the sheet, and selecting the best one.

After developing line drawings I was quite happy with, I became paralyzed with fear that I’d screw them up in the inking process and would need to start all over again. I realized this was insane, but appeased myself temporarily by working on the calligraphy designs instead. My calligraphy’s still a little questionable, but I’m starting to get the hang of it, and it’s more interesting than my (slightly bizarre) handwriting.

No turning back now! Line drawings, all done in ink. I refused to use a ruler and was quite tired, so you can see where I screwed up, especially with the lines of the cage.

That dealt with, it was time to commit to the drawings, and start inking! I like using a proper dip pen, but that’d be too messy, so I used a 0.1 pigment liner instead. These are lovely creatures and I absolutely adore them–it took me a little time to find a good pen that wouldn’t smudge when erasing or inking over top. The inking process took FOREVER and gave me insane hand cramps.

Yep, I’m anal retentive enough to shade first in pencil. I might actually like them best at this stage.

Since I still was suffering a fear of commitment, I sketched out all the shading in pencil prior to inking the lines again. In some cases (the ball-shapes in particular) this actually helped quite a good deal, as cross-hatching in ink isn’t exactly the most forgiving method of shading.

More arduous work that took forever and nearly made me blind. I have strange depth perception issues anyway, so I typically work with my face about two inches from whatever I’m doing.

After that, I inked the lines with a pigment liner slightly smaller than the outline liner. I really wish I could find a liner smaller than .05, although I suspect that they don’t make one, and I should have just made these illustrations larger, then scaled down from a thicker primary pen.

Adding the red accents. I used pure red ink and it gave a lovely hue, especially when laid over the shaded lines. I’d originally planned to use a much lighter wash, and possibly use some other colours, but then I liked the red so much (surprise!) that I decided to keep it.

I think it was at about this point that I started saying “I’m nearly done!”, which probably went on for another two days until I actually WAS done. Even painting in the red was an arduous process, and I tried really hard to ensure that there was a good balance of colour in each. (This is why the little cannibal girl is a redhead, and not because I’m a raging narcissist.)

At this point, I thought I was done. Wrong.

Next, I scanned all the final illustrations and calligraphed captions into Photoshop at gigantic resolutions, in case I ever need to make a gorey billboard, I guess. I cleaned up major messes only, since I had doing tedious Photoshop masking work, pieced everything together, and printed it out. I also made a design for the back of the card involving a little calligraphy and a little handwriting.

Mistakes often create really lovely things, unexpected and impossible to reproduce.

My last step was to create a full set of cards, properly printed on my cardstock. This was, by far, the most arduous and painful task of the entire operation. (My laser printer is a beast. It weighs about as much as I do; people think it’s a high-tech humidifier, and it sounds like a jet plane taking off.) I ended up crying and yelling at my printer for about three hours, surrounded by an utter MESS of half-printed papers and falling-over cards. It wasn’t pretty, but I eventually (sort of) figured it out.

I’m excited to learn to screenprint instead of wrangling with this beast, but my workshop isn’t ’til early February, so the timing wasn’t quite right.

Finally! Finals.

And in the end–was all the effort worth it?

Of course it was! I ended up learning SO much, and, while I genuinely doubt I’ll make ANY money whatsoever selling them (the profit margins seem pretty low) the experience of selling them will give me an opportunity to learn a little about retail business, which I haven’t dealt much with since becoming a designer.

And now I can send out delightful cards to all my friends and enemies!

They come on white or ecru stock, with a blood-red envelope and a hand-painted heart sticker to close the whole she-bang. I am a sucker for pretty packaging.

(PS, if you like them, you can see more on my website here, or purchase them at my new Etsy store. I’ll also be selling them at the Harbourside Market in Dartmouth February 6th and 7th.)

So, where my major issue has always been burnout (both of the creative sort and the plain old good lord, am I ever exhausted! variety), I’m looking to add more work-play balance to my life. Over the past year, I’ve become better at adding play to my life, and, just in the end of December, I found myself unexpectedly doing things I’ve always meant to do while running my business, but have somehow managed to evade quite consistently: eating and sleeping on a daily basis, working less than sixteen hours a day, and playing with creative projects that take me away from The Machine.

My poor kitchen table. It is utterly COVERED in ink stains now.

What I’m excited about for the new year, not surprisingly, are also the things that I’m passionate about in my life.

1. Ink! Loomis DeSerres had these lovely inks on sale when I was there in December, and I liked the first set I picked up so much that I went back for another. Pen and ink has always been one of my favourite mediums. I’ve been teaching myself calligraphy, albeit in a rather loose and unstructured manner, and hopefully I’ll find a creative application for it other than writing overly flourished notes to the postman. The Roberts Street Social Centre hosts screenprinting workshops from time to time, and I’m crossing my fingers that the next one happens soon. I’m hoping, too, that I’ll be able to buckle down this year and create the designs for my sardonic Valentine’s cards in time to send them to all my friends (and possibly also my nemeses).
2. Shoes!

   Clearly, my shoe collection needs expansion.

   While I will be spending my Valentine’s composing snarky cards, my love affair with footwear just keeps getting hotter and hotter. I figure it’s about time I put it to creative use. Hand-painting shoes sounds like fun—I have a test pair that’s just a half-size too small for me (with a heel that’s just a touch too short for my liking) and I’d like to see if I can make designs that will last. (As a bonus, if this works, I’ll have an excellent excuse to purchase more shoes!)

3. Books! I’ve been reading Indie Publishing: How to design & publish your own book, and it’s inspired me to make my own. (I have a number of topics in mind, but I’m leaning towards a purse-sized illustrated shoe bible and a guide to fashionable travel, along with some more personal endeavours). When I was much younger, I used to make zines, and though I cringe to read them now, I loved the process of creating something entirely from scratch. I’ve been interested in book design for some time now, but I’ve yet to land a book-design gig. I figure if I write my own, then I’ll have one to design.
4. Travel! In the last year, I’ve visited sixteen different foreign cities in eight different countries, and my appetite for travel has only increased. One of the most delightful aspects of this job is that I’m able to do all this traveling, and I’ve had an opportunity to meet all sorts of new people and experience all kinds of amazing things—without depleting my bank account too severely. This year, I’d like to see more (I’m hoping for a Death Valley/San Felipe combo, a stint from London through to Morocco, and maybe an abridged tour of South America) while honing my travel-work methods.
5. Business! I like my work best when I’m doing projects that excite me, so obviously, I’ll be looking for more of these. I’m also looking to do fewer projects at a time, so that projects have a shorter turnaround time, which is generally how I prefer to work anyway.

Got an exciting new project, tips on shoe-painting, or a book you need designed? You know I want to hear from you!