The value of making art (almost) every day
a short Peachtober reflection
I did it! I finished Peachtober — sort of…
Per my last post, I did an abridged version of Peachtober, so to say. I planned to do about half and finished with 11 of the 31 days. Not exactly half but close enough.
And honestly, I still loved every bit of it. I was thinking about what it does to you when you get to take a bit of your day to create something and I’ve realized that it makes you inspired to make something else. A few of the days, I didn’t totally love what I came up with, so in a bout of procrastination before posting, I more easily came up with ideas for a different day. I’m not saying this is a good thing to do, but it definitely helped move those creative juices throughout the month.
I thought for the rest of this short reflection, I would go over my most and least favorite days and why. Starting with the latter:
I didn’t love how these turned out. I wanted to bring out the same energy as the fish from day 6 but with my journaling touch, but I felt like it was a little too scratchy for my taste. I also just don’t think I draw owls very well lol. Some of them are a little creepy.
When I planned the days where I did contribute, I usually started with a sketch as I do any illustration process, but sketching has never been a strong suit of mine. So going without any sketching whatsoever and just winging it didn’t work out too great for me that day (not that it can’t work other days, it just wasn’t my favorite final product).
Now my absolute favorites of the month go to a small category of all my pixel art! I have discovered that I love making pixel art (I thank my recent Stardew Valley obsession for starting it), and I’ve been trying to learn new techniques and animation styles to make it better and better. I’m going to place this lantern video in first place of the four I made.
It was the first one I did, so it’s not the most polished, but I get the best cozy nighttime feeling looking at it. Reminds me of every year my family went to Chinese New Year celebrations in the city (even though they weren’t at night, the lanterns were still there!).
I’m definitely going to keep doing more pixel art and animations going forward. I love how it seems simplistic in look because it’s not realistic, but it requires more thought behind where each color is placed. Each pixel means so much more when it takes up more of the image. No longer the 1080 pixels across the canvas.
Peachtober was really fun. Maybe I’ll do it again next year and actually commit to the full 31 days, or maybe I’ll try a different challenge a different month. We’ll see.
What’s brought me joy this week:
I loved this blog post on Figma about the GuideOne team that created the new National Parks Service app. I always love a historical deep-dive, in written or video essay form, and my personal bucket list item of wanting to visit every national park made this a great read, highly recommend.
One of my dreams is to open a brick and mortar stationery store and craft workshop, and the first step I’m taking is to finally open the sticker shop I’ve been meaning to start since senior year of high school. A little over 4 years later, it’s about to happen! I’ve been working on designs and logistics all month, and it’s almost here, so keep on the lookout for more!
Lastly, it’s “Gilmore Girls” rewatch season, so you know exactly what’s been playing in the background of my life. I’ll just leave you with a line I quote constantly:
Until next time,
Madison💌