As I’m redirecting my art biz goals this year and subsequently expanding the scope of this blog a bit to bring you more inspirations for creative and happy living, I thought it would be fun to share some of my other creative projects I’m working on from time to time. I always enjoy it when other artists share their non-work-related creative projects, so I hope you’ll enjoy mine, too 🙂
I’m sure many of you creatives can relate, but I like doing/making stuff from scratch (or as “from scratch” as possible). I find it so satisfying and empowering to learn to make something and do it myself. I know it’s not always practical to do things myself, but at least I learn how to do it, and I appreciate having the knowledge.
I’m particularly excited about DIY-ing when it comes to eating healthy. I’m passionate about eating organic, fresh, whole foods as much as I can. Maybe it’s because I’m becoming middle-aged, but I’ve been noticing more and more the effects foods have on my physical and mental well-being. I’m learning to listen to my body more and becoming more proactive about taking care of myself.
I can’t create inspiring and joyful art if I’m not well mentally, physically, or emotionally, you know?
A fun Northwest themed book cover I worked on a few years ago.
I’ve been learning more about food and nutrition and trying different ways to incorporate more healthy eating habits in my everyday life.
So today, I wanted to share with you how to soak nuts for healthy eating. Enjoy!
First of all, let me confess: I’m nuts about nuts. I’m especially nuts about almonds. It’s kind of an addiction… They’re great snack packed full of beneficial nutrients and taste SO good! Mmmmm.
As much as I love them and want to keep eating them all the time, sadly, my body doesn’t digest them very well, and I’ve noticed weird taste in my mouth if I eat a lot of them. Yuck.
I’ve been reading about nuts and learned that there are some toxins that are present in nuts, seeds, and grains to protect themselves, and soaking them will help remove the toxins and will help make it more digestible in human body. (Just a disclaimer: I’m no nutritionist and haven’t done any extensive study or anything. I got a ton of information about how to soak nuts, seeds, and grains and nutritional benefits of it on this website in case you want to learn more!)
We usually buy our nuts in bulk at our grocery store, but they don’t carry organic soaked almonds there. So I decided to soak almonds myself and see how they turn out!
Here is an illustrated recipe of how to soak and dehydrate almonds!
Information from healthyblenderrecipes.com. Note: you don’t need to dehydrate them if you’re using your almonds for soups or dips right away.
Here are some actual photos from the process.
These almonds had been soaked for a few hours already, and you can see the gunk in the soaking water already.You want to soak them in filtered water (about 2x volume of nuts) with a tea spoon of celtic salt dissolved in it.Cover the bowl with a thin flour sack cloth or other breathable cloth. My 100% cotton block printed artichoke tea towel did a perfect job!After soaking them for about 24 hours, I drained and rinsed them throughly. Then I put them in the dehydrator to dry.They were dried in the dehydrator for about 24 hours. Then I turned them off and let them cool/dry for another 12 hours or so.
This is an extra step, but I love roasting nuts! I think they taste so much better when roasted. So crunchy and extra nutty.
After the nuts were completely dehydrated, I roasted these in a baking sheet at 350°F for 10-15 minutes. You need to check/stir occasionally to make sure they’re not burned. When they burn, they burn very quickly and will continue to burn even after you take them out of the oven! I had an unfortunate accident a couple of times before 🙂 I listen for the crackling sound and the aroma of almonds and pull them out when I start hearing/smelling them.
Ta da!
I must say, it was kind of a lot of work just to eat some nuts, but I’d imagine it’ll become less of a hassle if I do it more often and it becomes a routine. I hope it makes a positive difference for my system!
I was so honored to be interviewed by Stephanie Medford on her blog Everyday Artistry the other day! Stephanie is an artist and encourages others to build a life full of creativity through her art and blog.
She’d asked me to share my creative process and how I embrace creativity in my daily life with her readers, and of course, I said yes!
Every time I’m asked to talk about my passion and process, I discover something I hadn’t thought about before. I wanted to share the interview with you and hope it inspires you to have creativity in your everyday living, too 🙂
I participated in the #MakeWithMe daily drawing challenge hosted by Janine Crum in January. This was my third time to join in the fun.
When I received the email about it in December, I thought about not participating because I felt my plate was already full. But then I remembered how fun and challenging it was last time I did it and thought what could be better than to start a new year with a consistent drawing practice?? So I told her I was in. And, of course I had a lot of fun again! 🙂
For those of you who are not familiar with how the challenge works – you receive a daily email with a prompt for drawing for a certain period of time (in this case, from January 1 to 31). You draw your interpretation of the prompt and post it on Instagram with the hashtag (#MakeWithMe for this one). It’s a great way to keep your motivation up and challenge yourself creatively in a fun, community environment.
To make it a little more challenging for myself, I decided to use just a black Micron pen (size 1) for the entire month. I did use color for a couple of them because they were just begging for it!
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorites from the challenge here!
An Iceberg – I was really tempted to draw more details in but loved how it turned out.
A Kangaroo
A Matchbook – found a random matchbox from Peru
A Praying Mantis – I love their dramatic poses!
A Rooster – they’re so fancy-looking!
Sea Otters – what can I say? They’re SO adorable. I have this drawing as art prints in case you want to enjoy the sweetness of these cuddly creatures in your home!
Fury – the prompt was meant for an emotion, but Nick Fury from the Avengers movie popped in my head first… so here he is!
Sunflowers – It made me miss the sunshine in the summer 🙂
Things in My Pocket – gotta have something with cat eye laser on!
A Toucan – I had to add Dave in – this is from a snapshot at Kobe Flower and Bird Park when we visited Japan several years ago.
If you want to join in the fun in the future, be sure to subscribe to Janine’s list on her website!
You can also see more drawings from my sketchbook on my Instagram @honeyberrystudios if you’d like.
My short answer: it comes from my deep desire to make my art business successful. I daydreamed about becoming a full-time artist for so long, and once I had the opportunity I wanted it to work out so badly. I hate letting myself down. And since I’m just a one-woman show right now, if I don’t hustle, it won’t happen. And I’d be a very sad person if I failed!
Even though I had a great job, it’s no surprise my heart wasn’t in it 100%. I was sad that I wasn’t following my creative passion all the time. I was frustrated that I couldn’t devote more time and energy into my art business. I had this yearning to have my life centered around creativity, and my reality wasn’t matching my vision.
When I quit my day job last summer, my reality finally matched my vision. And the scary thing was, I didn’t have any more excuse for how slow my business was growing. There was no “oh, well I have a day job and don’t have time to do my art and make my business happen!” It was time to hustle. It was time to do what I said I wanted to do for a long time. People around me seemed to think I could do it, and I had to prove to myself I could do it, too.
It’ll have been 6 months since I quit my day job when this post comes out, and the best thing about running my own show is actually not the fact I have more time to make art (because actually, I do a lot of other stuff to run the business than making art…), but it’s the fact I get to make decisions about my work and do what I love on my own terms. It also means if I slack off, it’ll take me longer to achieve my goals or not at all.
Sure it can be hard and stressful, and there are many annoying things about being your own boss. But it’s also extremely fulfilling. I just love it and want to protect it as much as I can!
With that said, I have other tools to keep me motivated and disciplined for the long run. Hope you’ll find them helpful!
1. Find your “why”
When I work for a goal, like working out regularly and sticking to a healthy eating habit, I need to have a very clear purpose. If I don’t understand why I’m doing something, I tend to be less engaged with the process, and it usually won’t last.
So when I quit my day job last summer, I spent half a day creating my artist manifesto. I went through a whole process to clarify why it’s important for me to have art and creativity as a center piece of my life. It’s a declaration of how I want to be in the world. You can peek into my process here.
My artist manifesto is put up on the wall by my desk, and every time I look at it, I feel encouraged and centered.
My artist manifesto
2. Seanwes podcast
I get SO much motivation about creativity and business from a handlettering artist/entrepreneur, Sean McCabe’s contents (especially his podcasts and YouTube channel). When I feel like slacking off, I listen to his podcast and get fired up immediately. You must check out his work if you’re a creative entrepreneur!
This 2-minute video always gives me the motivation boost! Show up every day for two years.
3. Public Commitment
When I’m working on something big or new, I like to let the public (i.e. social media & blog) know that I’m doing it and when. It worked really well when I worked on my 365 Day Happiness Project from 2014-2015. Even though my audience probably isn’t tracking what I’m doing as closely as I am, it gives me the extra motivation to say it out loud to the people who support my work.
4. Track your progress
I like to write down what I’ve accomplished every day. For most days, it’s small things like, writing a blog, sketching ideas for new work, or shipping my Etsy orders etc. But I’m no longer saying “What did I do today?” and actually see how productive I’ve been. And if I hadn’t been productive, I could review the day to see where I got stuck.
What’s great about tracking your progress, ideally every day, is that you can see how your everyday small accomplishments are helping you achieve your big goals. What you do every day, though it might seem unimportant, counts.
I hate doing finances. I just find no joy in the bookkeeping activity! But I make myself do my finances at the beginning of each month. I usually have a pretty good idea about how much revenue I had the previous month, but it’s nice to see the actual numbers especially if it’s more than what you thought! And it makes the year-end tax preparation a lot easier…
I also started tracking my social media following monthly a few months ago. I don’t want to put too much weight on how many people follow me on social media, but it’s good to know that my audience is growing 🙂
5. Accountability Partner
I have a few accountability partners I meet on a monthly basis. Having a one-on-one accountability and a dedicated time and space to talk about your goals and challenges is very helpful. It’s like when I know we have a visitor, we do a better job of cleaning our house. When I know I’m going to have my accountability meetings, I’ll be extra motivated to get stuff done. I wrote my experience with my accountability partners here and here if you’re interested!
6. Set a deadline for a project (even if it’s fake!)
I’m not gonna lie – If I don’t have a deadline for a project, it will NOT get done. It’s a fact. When someone (usually a personal friend) wants me to do something for them and tell me “whenever you have time, no rush!” It just won’t happen. I need a hard deadline to get motivated!!
So when I don’t have an external deadline assigned to me, I usually set one for myself and pretend it’s the hard and fast timeline to get something done by. I often combine this with the public commitment piece for extra motivation!
For example, when I had offered to teach my block printing class and group coaching sessions this spring at a local art school, I set the dates and time for the classes first and started promoting them before I had the contents. This way I have to make it happen, and it helps me backwards plan all the steps to execute it.
7. Develop habits that set you up for a long-term success
Of course, I’m human, and if I’m on all the time, I’ll eventually burn out. I believe firmly that avoiding burn-out is one of my top priorities for my long-term success and well-being. If I lose joy in what I do or get sick because I neglect to take care of myself, all bets are off, right?
Some of the habits I’ve developed for self-care are: getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night, getting up early and do something productive first thing in the morning, workout regularly, eating a healthy diet, no social media during meals, making sure I have plenty of alone/quiet time, and taking every 7th week off to recharge.
As you can imagine, maintaining these habits are not always easy! It means you have to say no to many things you enjoy doing. But that’s the thing about habits – once you get used to doing something over and over, you’ll start to feel off-balance if you don’t do it! And even if you slip every once in a while, it’ll be a lot easier to get back into it. If you’re trying to replace some of your unhelpful habits with more helpful ones, I say go slow, focus on one thing at a time! Be patient and kind to yourself if it doesn’t happen as quickly as you want. Developing new habits takes time.
Finding your motivation isn’t easy – especially if you’ve been trying hard for a long time and haven’t seen any significant results. These tools have helped me find a motivation when I felt like crawling into a hole and forget about everything. I hope it’ll inspire you to come up with strategies that work for you!
Take care, my friend 🙂
xoxo Yuko
p.s. My Creative Coaching service is officially open! Let me know if you’re a creative person needing help getting stuff done. Learn more here.
In my effort to offer even more creative inspirations for your life (read more about that in my blog here), I’m starting to share more of my art products and creative processes on my blog now! My goal is to publish at least 3 posts per week as compared to one weekly post previously, and I hope you’re enjoying it so far 🙂
Yesterday, I shared a story behind my new untraditional Valentine’s paper products. (If you missed it, you can scroll down to yesterday’s post or check them out here. They’re adorable!)
Today, I wanted to share behind the scenes of my new block printed XOXO Tea Towels and Project Bags!
Some of you know I’ve been block printing on fabric since winter of 2015. I took Jen Hewett’s Design, Carve, Print e-course and immediately fell in love/got addicted with the block printing!
Here are some of my block printing works from last year:
Colorful tea towels from fall/winter 2015
Totes and drawstring bags from summer 2015
A typical block printing set-up. This artichoke printed market tote is one of the most popular items on my shop so far.
When I create new designs for my block printing project, I keep in mind the following:
My block printing design needs to have a cohesive look and feel as my other illustration work on paper.
It needs to have clean line work and a little bit of details/texture to make it very simple but interesting.
It typically needs a good balance of positive/negative space.
A motif around 4.5″ x 4.5″ usually works well with what I do.
For my new Valentine’s XOXO collection, I had an idea of designing a simple lettering of XOXO. I initially thought of just creating a simple “XOXO” shapes, but it looked a little boring/not in line with other products I had created.
As I was making a bunch of sketches to add decorations to my letters, I remembered this sketch I made several weeks ago.
I like to crochet and was doodling some tools as I watched some Netflix shows with Dave one evening. I was vaguely thinking it would be cute to create a project based on these but didn’t have a real idea yet.
And then I realized the letter X could be two knitting needles crossed together (2 crochet needles would’ve been a little funny because we only use one needle usually!) and the letter O could be a yarn ball!
I know knitters/crocheters like having project bags for the things they’re working on, and I can dedicate my block printing Valentine’s gift products to them ❤
So I sketched some more ideas using knitting needles and a yarn ball on paper. I like to draw with bold felt-tipped or brush pen to get a better idea of the final image. I don’t like having a really thin line as a positive space in my block printing project because I use a softer carving block and thin details are easier to break or get accidentally cut away in the process.
Once I’m happy with a design, I trace it with a tracing paper and a pencil.
Then I flip the tracing paper over and rub the pencil drawing on to the carving block with a spoon (or a bone folder if you got one.) I use MOO Carve carving blocks because they’re softer and easier on my hand when carving.
It’s going to look like this after you rub your drawing on to the block. The black lines indicate the part I leave out, and the white part gets carved out.
Then I carve away the white part! I use a linocut carving tool from Speedball.
Once the block is carved, I start test printing on my test fabric. For this design, I kept the two motifs together on one block since they’ll always be used side by side, and it’ll save me some time when printing!!
Seeing the image come alive for the first time on fabric is absolutely my favorite moment!
When test printing, I look for parts that need to be cleaned up/tweaked. And then I print and clean several times until I’m happy with it.
Once I’m happy with the blocks I carved, I print them on my products. Since I don’t sew, I usually get my blank tea towels and bags from these companies:
I design the layout that works well with each product and get to printing!! I let them dry overnight and heat set the ink using my iron after they dry completely.
And voila! These Valentine’s XOXO Tea Towels & Project Bags are ready to delight a special knitter/crocheter in your life ❤
Red and White 100% Cotton Tea Towel is also available on my shop! It’s going to be a lot of fun to make some Valentine’s Day treats in the kitchen with these bright and joyful tea towels 🙂
You can’t go wrong with the simple repeat pattern.
They’re even cuter together as a set 🙂 Swoon ❤
And the new design comes on 100% Cotton Drawstring bags as well! They are another great gift idea for the creatives in your life. Use them as a project bag or to organize things (especially for your little ones) to carry around in your big bag!
They’re heat set, so the ink is printed on the bag permanently. You can machine wash cold. Easy-peasy!
I hope you enjoyed learning how my block printing products are created. I love how each product is slightly different and is a unique work of art you can use every day 🙂
If you’re interested in learning how to block print on fabric, check out the workshop I’m teaching in Seattle in April and May! If you’re not in Seattle area, Jen’s e-course I mentioned above is a great place to learn, too.
OK, I hope you’ll have an inspiring day, my friend!
Today, I wanted to introduce you to a new line of products I made just in time for Valentine’s Day! ❤
When I create art for products, I imagine who’s going to use them. I imagine that it’s going to be loved by someone who is creative and wants to live her life full of joy and happiness. Someone who values simple things that are made with love and care. I imagine someone who likes to make things themselves, perhaps a gardener, who believes in taking care of themselves, people around them, and the earth. And I imagine that the person smiles a lot 🙂 I imagine their cozy home with lots of light, art, and books.
I wonder, “What would make them smile? How can my art products inspire even more creativity and happiness in their life?”
And, those are the essences that make all of my products so sweet and joyful. And these new Valentine’s Day goodies are no exceptions!
OK, but before I tell you the story behind the new gift collection, let me back up a little to the winter holiday season last year. You may remember I created this 2016 wall calendar with my sumi drawings.
This calendar became the best seller during the holiday season. Anyway, the Style & Design editor of Seattle Magazine saw them at one of the pop-up holiday shops and emailed me to ask if I had a Valentine’s Card they could feature in their publication!
They wanted something unique – something that’s done in my sumi drawing style and different from the traditional red & pink design.
At that time, I didn’t have any – BUT when a magazine wants to feature your product, you make it work (of course channeling Mr. Tim Gunn here!)
The turnaround time was pretty short, and I knew I didn’t have time to create something from scratch. So, I took a couple of images from the calendar and added some floral/heart motifs and created two brand-new Valentine’s/Love cards!
This sweet sumi drawing Tea for Two Love Card is a perfect alternative to a traditional red & pink Valentine’s Card. You can invite someone for a lovely afternoon tea date ❤
I also created this design using one of the images from the calendar. I imagined this kitty sending a music of love to his love ❤ This sumi drawing Cat Violinist Love Card will be sure to make any cat lover in your life smile 🙂
I also turned them into art prints! Gift of art will remind your special person how much you care throughout the year 🙂 The 8×10 giclee print of Tea for Two sumi drawing would look very nice framed.
The simplicity of these sumi drawings is timeless. Give a gift that fits right into your loved one’s everyday life. Cat Violinist sumi drawing is also available as 8×10 giclee print!
“Sea Otters hold hands while sleeping so they don’t drift away from each other.” Now, this is ADORABLE. This pen and ink drawing of sea otters holding hands was a happy accident I created for a fun personal project in January. But when I posted it on Instagram, people loved it and asked if I would sell prints. So I did! I didn’t create this specifically for Valentine’s Day, but this Sea Otter art print (8×10) will also make a lovely gift that will add extra sweetness to any home.
OK, I think that’s enough adorableness for today! (or can you ever get enough???) I’ll be back tomorrow with more inspirations for your Valentine’s Day gift ideas! Be ready for another dose of cuteness 🙂
I’m very excited to let you know that the registration for my (very first!) Introduction to Block Printing on Fabric class is OPEN! You can go to this link to sign up!
In this hands-on one-day workshop, you’ll learn the basics of making your own design, carving your block, and printing them on a fabric.
Early bird rate ($105) is available until February 15, and then it’s going to be $125. Materials and tools will be provided. I’m keeping the class size small, so sign up early! No drawing or printing experience necessary 🙂 It’s gonna be a blast, guys!!!
If you’re in the Seattle area and want to find a new creative activity to get into (and just a warning, block printing is highly addictive!), join me on April 3 or May 1 at IGIMO Art Station (4739 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118)!
Honeyberry Diary 