Welcome to Morning Ink, where I share my daily fountain pen drawing and whatever thoughts (sometimes none, mostly reasonably short, occasionally long and very rambling) jump out and onto the screen. If you don’t want daily emails you can toggle them off by going to Manage subscription – just turn Morning Ink off, no need to fully unsubscribe!1
I broke my 10,000 step streak yesterday, only managing 3272. (I blame rain and work, but really, I could have surmounted both of them.) I am both very annoyed and also accepting. The trick, for me, will be to not let one day of not doing it act as a permission slip to not to do it on most days. Because that is my tendency in habit building. If I miss a day too early it can prevent it from embedding.
I need to be more motivated to walk in the rain and the dark.
Made macaroni cheese last night. I was going to make mushroom risotto, which neither of the other people in the house will eat due to a risotto aversion, ut got a request for comfort food and was quite happy to comply.
I did a little bit more on the illustrated recipe for the mushroom and kale soup, but started feeling I wanted to go in a completely new direction and use inky drawings in some way, rather than sticking entirely with digital. Maybe I should do both and see which I prefer.
While flicking through the current sketchbook (10 pages in today) I spotted a spread where the days had semi joined, completely by accident and unintentionally.
And I thought it might be fun to see how I could do this intentionally sometimes.
I also had an urge to do a word on two lines and thought Friday would be an ideal opportunity for that.
I love doing these patterns where I ‘colour in’ the background black. They definitely have a mindful benefit.
I was about to colour the left tree in so the branches were white but the rest (the leaves, I guess) was black, when I decided to go in another direction and make it night on this page. Plus, I do kind of love filling in big blocks with the scritchy scratchy lines that come out of the fountain pen.
I finished listening to We Need Your Art by Amie McNee this morning and had a new Audible credit so I got Normal Women by Philippa Gregory and started listening to it. I do still have the second Neapolitan book in Italian to listen to and am wondering about listening half to one and half to the other on mornings or a day of one and then a day of the other – with an ocassional Archers day thrown in, as I still have to catch up with that. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I can play it by ear.
Thanks so much for being here. Your presence on its own is a joy, but I love to hear from you, too, so please do feel free to leave a comment. About something that has resonated for you in today’s picture or in today’s words. Or about something completely unrelated. Tell me about your morning, your creative practice, your particular work or life juggling act. Anything. If you want to go even further you can take out a paid subscription – if you’re happy to give me your postal address I'll send you some art of some kind in the post.
And if you don’t like subscriptions (I totally get it!) you can ‘tip me’ instead. But really, your presence and comments are the best rewards – if they could be exchanged for food and electricity, I’d be so very happy.
