Sofa Snippets #001

trees, heatwaves, pasta, pitch decks and Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Hello and welcome to the first edition of Sofa Snippets! This is a new weekly little roundup of bits and bobs from my week. This first one is a bit long, but my plan is for these to be short and sweet and more a quick summary.

If you’re reading this in your email inbox, it might be too long and you might be prompted to read it on the website. Sorry!

This section is mostly about what my Morning Ink practice has shown me this week. It might sometimes also include some other general exploratory sketchbook stuff, too.

This week’s Morning Ink has included trees on four days, creatures (a bear, a wolf and, of course, a bunch of cats) on four days, buildings on two days, a woman on one day and big chunks of pattern on two days.

It also included one day of drawing at a non-morning time, due to the heat and wanting to get some work done early enough before the heat descended. And I did not like it. Not least because I almost forgot to do it. But also because it genuinely sets me up mentally and creatively for the day ahead. And not doing it was just wrong. So, next heatwave I will just get up super duper early to fit everything in.

My favourites bits from this week’s Morning Ink

This section is for what I’ve been doing illustration business wise. So, what I’ve been drawing, outreach I’ve doing, that kind of thing.

Illustration work this week has mostly involved curating stuff. Putting together a pitch deck for my Cuppa Creative Calm book idea (as part of the Inky Goodness Pitch to Perfect challenge). Putting together a last-minute #portfolioday post to share on social media (one day I will do this in advance and not rush to gather stuff together in a panic on the actual day).

As well as that, I have been drawing sketches and layouts for a food illustration, a festive pattern and some birthday cards.

Messy sketch snippets

This section is for how freelancing life has treated me this week and what I’ve been working with my educational publishing hat on.

This week, in publishing freelancer land, I have been working on a nice variety of projects, including two Spanish projects (development editing and proofreading), childcare resources (editing and typesetting), an international maths project (checking press proofs) and some PowerPoint design work (creating templates). The workload has been pleasant and manageable, making it easy to switch around when I was working on things to fit in with the heatwave we’ve been having in the UK this week. I have pushed some work to next week, when it will be cooler and am grateful to both work in a business where this is possible and also to have not been in a crazy busy time when this would have been hard.

This section is for books and culture I’ve been enjoying.

I have multiple books on the go at the moment, now that I have added listening to audio books while doing my Morning Ink drawing. As with the Morning Ink drawing practice proving a useful way to flex my drawing and creativity muscles at the start of every day, the (audio) reading flexes my reading muscles, making me want to read more throughout the rest of the day. I have been finding I’m watching less TV and reading more recently, and I think this may have something to do with that practice. But I think it’s also because I’m sometimes audio reading while doing illustration or typesetting work, rather than putting a TV show on.

• I finished reading Amy Tan’s The Hundred Secret Senses. I enjoyed the second half of the book more than the first half. I didn’t hate the first half, but I found I wanted to keep reading more with the second half. I think maybe because more of that was set in China.

• I started (and have got a long way through and might even finish it today) Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors. I am really really loving this book. It’s giving me Nora Ephron and Rona Jaffe vibes, in the sense that the characters are so very fully drawn, as are the quirks and oddities of social life. Plus, it’s mostly set in New York. Very highly recommend this.

• I have barely opened my two non-fiction physical books that I have on the go at the moment, though. Amie McNee’s The World Needs Your Art (maybe because I’m not questioning that the world needs my art right now, but I think I am saving it to read during my next creative retreat) and Unmasked by Ellie Middleton. I think this is more that it’s sitting in the wrong place for me to pick up and read a little bit.

• My two audio reads at the moment are The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi and The Gendered Brain by Gina Rippon. I’m enjoying both of these a lot. I read The First Woman a couple of years ago and, as with my other audio re-reads, I’m loving reading it in a different way and getting more out of it and remembering bits from the first read. The Gendered Brain I only read the first couple of chapters of, and I’m finding it easier to digest while listening, though I am not sure how much I am embedding. I am definitely out of practice with reading deeper non-fiction like this and I think I should be taking notes of some kind to fix some of it in my head.

• I finished watching Mad Men this week and my new rewatch easy-watching show I have started is This is Us. I like to have a show on the go that I can just pick up easily, in addition to anything new I’m watching. Oh! Talking of new. I finished the latest series of The Bear this week and I absolutely loved it! Contrary to most other people, I loved Series 3 so was a bit unsure of how I’d find Series 4, but it was wonderful. If you watched it, I’d love to hear what you thought of it.

This last section is for general other stuff. Things to talk about while sitting drinking a cuppa at the kitchen table.

This week we have been enjoying the newly painted bathroom, which is madly bright and colourful. I wasn’t sure what I thought as I was painting and was a bit concerned that I’d actually hate it, but we are all loving it - especially the part where the ceiling is no longer covered in mouldy peeling paint!

I haven’t cooked anything especially exciting this week. Spicy tomato and tofu noodles and spicy sausage pasta were the main things I cooked. Chris cooked a nice stir fry on Thursday, with a special glutinous sauce made with potato starch. Today, I think I’ll make either roasted Mediterranean vegetable pasta or creamy leeky pasta.

And we have all been eating a lot of ice lollies.

Oh, I got the results from my first breast screening (in the UK we get breast screenings every 3 years once we’re over 50) and it’s all clear, which is nice.

I hope you enjoy this new weekly roundup format. I still absolutely plan to write ‘proper’ posts with individual subjects, but I’m enjoying other people’s weekly roundup posts of varying kinds and felt that doing my own would help me get back into a more regular writing routine.