Sofa snippets #017
Cabaret. Tables, cups and books. A birthday. Florine Stettheimer (will probably be my art crush for the rest of the year). Juggling two freelance careers. Exploring style for illustrating recipes.
Hello and welcome to Sofa Snippets, a weekly roundup of bits and bobs from my life and work.
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!
1. Morning Ink
This section is mostly about what my Morning Ink practice has shown me this week, and sometimes other general sketchbook insights.
This week’s Morning Ink has had three scenes, two patterns, a big tree and a small vase of flowers.
Wordwise, there is the usual prevalence of introspection about how much or how little work I have done. But not much of interest, I would say (though, I give you permission to disagree, of course). Some anxious thoughts about the hurricane in Jamaica, a little bit on a couple of days about the order in which I drew things. Saturday had quite a lot of words, including some pondering on the etymology of the word ‘November’, fresh starts and Florine Stettheimer.
(Morning Ink is a section of my publication that goes out daily. You can toggle these daily posts on or off, via Manage Subscription.)
2. Illustration Business
This section is what I’ve been doing illustration business wise - drawing, outreach, and so on.
There has been much pondering on how and why I think I can have two full-on freelance careers. I go through these doubts every month or so (sometimes every hour or so) and I do know that I am not able to give the illustration business anywhere near as much attention as I should because I am busy with the other business. I know that I need to be more organised about integrating consistent illustration business admin, and not just drawing, into my days and weeks. I also know that it is absolutely my habit to want to go off on some other tangent as soon as I start getting into a reasonable flow with this business. Hence, the thoughts rattling around in my head right now are so very very many ideas of what I could and should be doing, none of which there is time for. I need to stick with creating new work for the agency (and doing the darned admin there, too, though how bloomin lovely that, having an agent, means that there is actually a teeny tiny bit less of that admin to do) and write down the ideas so that they are ready to do when I do have time, and not stress about not having time immediately.
So, I am going to start an Ideas file. To be honest, I probably have five or six of them stored away in some folder or other. But I will start a new one and save it somewhere very very obvious. And I will write all the ideas in there and then come back to them to see if they still resonate when I am feeling I have the time and energy for something new. And, meanwhile, I will make sure I spent 30 minutes a day on illustration business admin. I will make a star chart for myself to stay accountable.
I did draw stuff this week. None of which that was officially for the agency, but some of which might be relevant to the outreach they’re doing, so I will check rather than assuming not.
I did nothing on the website update. Arrgggh… Maybe I will fit that in next Thursday or Friday, though I was kind of wanting those days to be my de facto weekend. We shall see. Or I spend my week in Florence on it. No! That’s absolutely not the thing to do with a week in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
3. Freelancing Work
This section is about freelancing life, including what I’ve been working on with my educational publishing hat on and just general bits about working from home in a self-employed capacity.
Work was a bit mad this week. The start of the week was two very full days (I think I actually did over 10 hours on Tuesday!) getting some development edit files sorted to go out to authors for final checks, but also so that I could take the day off on Wednesday, which I did. Actually, having that day booked (we had trains and a show booked so there was no way I was going to not go) helped me get things finished, I think. Having non-negotiable life stuff that I don’t want to miss is a definite push. Thursday (which was my birthday) I only did about an hour, and probably should have committed to taking the whole day off rather than feeling bad about doing that work and also bad about not doing more. Friday I didn’t feel well (diverticular flare-up - grrr) and so, while I did do a full day’s work, it did not feel productive enough. And then I come to another weekend where I am working. Saturday I did about five hours and they did feel very productive. And today, I will also be doing probably around five hours, maybe even six.
I then have another three pretty full days, with handovers on Wednesday and then probably Thursday and Friday mostly free, just with invoices to send out. And then hopefully the next job will come in on Friday, rather than the Monday after, because I want to do my utmost to get it finished and returned before the Friday after, and to be work free for my holiday.
4. Culture
This is the culture section - mostly what I’ve been reading, but might also include TV and film and wider culture, too.
Books: Continued reading Mon Mari by Maud Ventura. Bought Rivals by Jilly Cooper in London (because I couldn’t find my old copy - it might actually have fallen apart). Got given Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors, Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin and Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry for my birthday.
Audio books, podcasts and radio: The Archers, Storia del Nuovo Cognome, Normal Women
TV and film: Film Club, Only Murders in the Building, Down Cemetery Road, Invasion
Music:
Show: Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
Other: Halloween
5. Substack
This is the Substack section - Substack posts or publications that I’ve particularly enjoyed over the past week.
Some Substack pieces I particularly enjoyed last week (I have noticed that these embedded links look right in the app; they just don’t show me the pretty pictures on the desktop version):
6. Food
This is the food section - meals I cooked, new food I tried, places I ate out, and other food-related bits and pieces.
I took no photos of food this week. What happened? Well, busy week, I guess. I made pasta (aubergine, courgette and tomato) on Monday, and then ate it for all the meals the next day. Yes, including breakfast. I do often eat leftovers for breakfast, as it’s nice and easy. Wednesday we were in London and we had Pizza Express and I had the Leggera Padana, which seems to be my go-to there. And then some Yaki Soba and Vegetable Gyoza from the sushi place in Paddington while we waited for the Super Off Peak train we were booked on to. Thursday I had some cake and then we went out to the Curio Lounge in the evening, where I had their tacos, which were nice, but I suspect the beans may have contributed to my diverticular flare-up. It also might have been underlying stress of going to London. Or a bit of both. Friday was a broth day. Saturday I made leek and potato soup. Today, I think I’m OK to make something proper and we have mushrooms from last Saturday to use up, so it will almost certainly be something mushroomy, but probably not the mushroomy nut roast I had been wanting to do because my digestive system is probably not ready for little itty bits of nuts.
7. Kitchen Table Chat
This last section is for general other stuff - things you might talk about over a cuppa at the kitchen table.
I had a birthday.
I am now the age my maternal grandmother was when she died. This seems unfathomable to me. For some reason, 52 is feeling so very much older than 50. I am still mostly in the ‘50s is a great stage of life’ phase and still fairly determined that I will live until 100 (ah… maybe that’s it - I now have less years to live than I have lived already), though also stubbornly (or lazily) doing very very little to make that happen. I barely got any steps this week - my 7-day average is now under 5000 instead of over 10,000 - and still haven’t restarted daily yoga and nor have I ‘become a lifter’ yet, and that’s on my 2025 bingo card and the year is almost over.
I also realised that I have mostly ignored my words for the year, since close to the start of the year. I set up a new Substack with the title from those words and then barely wrote a thing there. I have absolutely not been Maximalist - authentically or otherwise - this year, and actually feel that I have been remarkably quiet and invisible. I think I might use some of my time in Florence to do an end-of-year introspection/stock-take, a little bit earlier than usual. And, if I am going to come up with some words for the year, then I need to keep them visible the whole year!
I hope you enjoy this weekly roundup format. I will still be writing some ‘proper’ posts on individual topics, but I enjoy reading these and it will keep me regularly showing up in your inbox (it has a section of its own, though, so you can untoggle it if you prefer, by going to Manage subscription).
Thank you again for the link. I love your illustrations!
Thank you so much for recommending my substack Tasha!