And so, we reached a 22 of the 100-day challenge. This is actually starting to get a little more familiar, and a little less annoying.
They — whoever "they" may be — say that it takes about 28 days to establish a new habit. So I guess I am moving closer and closer to that point... and it seems like "they" might be right...
Now that I'm a little bit back in the groove of creative endeavors on a regular basis I decided that today was right time to start the initial preparations for the commission (mentioned some weeks back) I have for "swag bag gifts" for a rather swank women's retreat later this spring.
25 + 8, ready to be painted
I still have about 6 weeks (plus slush time) to get things done and that's well within the realm of reality.
So the way this is intended to be presented is that they technically speaking need 25 stones — and I'm going to do a few extra because you never know if you need some overs for whatever reason. I like to do that for any major commissions I get for a large number of items... a lesson learned from my first large commission 15 years ago, when I had to paint 106 stones for guests at a large wedding.
The primary task here is to provide 25 fairly similar sized, fairly similar in terms of complexity, stones and they're all going to be bagged with standard Alchemy Stones info booklets and whatever extra retreat inserts/information the organizers need.
Coming up with 25 more or less equal sized stones that are smooth enough to paint is NOT that easy!
Size wise, these stones will be in the range I would normally sell at a conference or event for $20-25 each.
I already had a paper bag of plain stones set aside from last year when this first became talked about, so I took that out today and finalized a selection of 25 that are a definite *"yes," and added an additional eight "alternates."
It felt good to get started on this and now I have the stones sitting out in the open by my workspace, "talking to me" for a few days before I start painting.
Today's stone to be painted.
Day 22 Stone Painting:
For today's painting project I picked a stone from my bin that was slightly too large to fit with the 25-stone commission, and then I determined that it actually has a rather uneven surface.
I'm still going to paint it — just to see what happens — but it's also a good example to share as representative of a surface that is normally too rough for me to paint on, even though it feels super smooth to the touch.
It's a bit pitted!
This more close-up image above kind of shows you what I'm talking about. All those little pits essentially will trap paint and make it go in directions I don't want it to go. Unless, of course, I make the paint flow so thick that it just sits up on top of the stone and doesn't flow at all. The drawback to that is a tendency towards a "grainy" paint texture, which ends up not looking nice... a bit "out of focus."
So that's what I'm planning to do here.
In the next photo, you can see that I have only just started placing the central design, and I'm already experiencing what I call "runoff" in a couple of spots.
It begins... a bit of bleeding in the 6:30 to 7:30 area - sorry, my phone doesn't have great macro.
This isn't enough for me to abandon painting the stone and if that turns out to be the only spot where I have a problem then I can probably remove that excess paint with the tip of a needle and make it look neat and tidy. On the other hand, if this happens repeatedly throughout the stone design it'll end up as garden decoration!
No further mishaps... yet...
So far so good! It seems I've gotten fortunate... with any subsequent little pits on the surface of the rock falling right in the middle of a line in the dots so I can just fill them with color and not have to worry about additional runoff. We'll see how the rest of the stone goes.
Well, not at all unhappy with the outcome. Sometimes the predominantly white designs can look quite dramatic... it'll be even better after the finish coat is applied.
Day 22 Summary and Social Media Bits:
One stone finished: In spite of it's peculiarly challenging surface, it turned out pretty well!
Daily Twitter/X post: Check. Settled for just doing a nature post today, because nature does inspire much of this work. Note to self: Time to format more photos for web use.
Daily Facebook Page post: Check. Shared a photo of one of the "Goddess Stones" finished for the holidays, a few months back.
Daily Instagram post: Check. Another collage post.
Other Stuff: As usual, this Hive post; and very glad to get the 25-stone commission brought to the forefront and "percolating" for the creative phase. Knowing myself, chances are I'll end up painting all those stones over a 3-4 days intensive session, which keeps them all connected, in terms of design flow and energy. Daily shoutout to @gillianpearce!
Day 22 completed; today's efforts felt pretty good... and I have to say that I also feel a bit more positive — in a much broader sense — as a result of the recent upturn in the crypto markets. It's nice to see your stake grow rather than shrink, for a change!
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2024.03.12 AS-TXT-215/185