Hope your December is going well! I just wanted to give you a heads up that I will have very limited access to internet, and cell phone reception will be pretty bad over the Christmas holiday. I decided to put the daily “Happiness is” posts on hold between December 24 and 31. (*I originally thought I could resume on 31 but realized later that I won’t be able to post until January 1!)
This is a hard decision for me as I was planning on not missing a day for this 365 day challenge, but I just didn’t want to stress too much about it while we spend our holiday with family and friends. I will resume on Thursday January 1 🙂 Same time, same place!
I will pre-schedule some holiday posts while I’m gone, so stay tuned for those 🙂 I’m also going to be drawing while I’m on vacation (of course!), and will be posting some of them on my Instagram when I can, so if you haven’t already, follow me there as well!
Thank you! See you on my “Happiness is” post tomorrow 🙂
This summer, I created a custom illustrated portrait for my friend Stacy , who writes an awesome urban homesteading blog, Seattle Seedling , for their lovely wedding. Stacy is full of joy and positive energy – I can’t help but being inspired when I see what she’s been up to. When I see all of her accomplishments on top of her full time job, I quit making the excuse of “I don’t have time to do XYZ.” It reminds me that I have to make time to do what’s important to me!!
Anyway, Stacy is a lovely person, and I am so happy that they have found each other!! I tried to capture their personality and outpouring of love in this portrait. Their little Yorkie, Sprocket, and one of their chickens are also featured in this piece 🙂 And, bunting is her thing ❤
Here is a couple of photos of the portrait from their lovely wedding!
She also gave me this lovely review:
“I absolutely love the drawing that Yuko created for my fiance and me for our wedding. I intended to use it for thank you cards, but loved it so much I decided to use it as decor at the cake table as well! With a few ideas and pictures as inspiration, she created a unique and colorful piece of art that totally captures our love and personality!”
May your life together be filled with joy and many, many blessings! xoxo
My life has been pretty busy for the past couple of months with multiple projects at my day job and planning a big event for a group I volunteer for. It’s all good stuff, but I have been feeling stressed and a bit burned out. The stress was definitely depleting my energy to do anything creative. After all of my major projects were done, I’ve decided to take a long weekend and focus on making art for a couple of days.
You may have noticed already, but I’m a homebody. If I don’t have to leave the house for the entire weekend, I’d be happy. So that is what I was going to do for the long weekend. But then I started thinking about all the disruptions I’m going to have at home – the chores, kitties, birds, and the husband – although I love all of them dearly (ok, not the chores), they often take my focus away from art-making. What I really needed was to be somewhere quiet and peaceful where I didn’t have to worry about all that stuff.
yes, I’m a bit like a hermit crab…
I booked this cozy cottage on airbnb on lovely Whidbey Island, Washington, which is about 2 hours away from Seattle, for a couple of nights over the weekend. I packed my bag with food, art and crochet supplies and left home with anticipation of the mega relaxation that was for sure to come!!
One my favorite snacks: Chips.
It was raining. And that was perfect. The cottage was so sweet and cozy. All I could hear was the sound of rain and occasional bird chirping. I doodled and drew without any special purposes. I made tea and ate when I got hungry, and I slept when I got sleepy. I went to bed without setting the alarm.
lovely chair & the pillowI finished crocheting these gloves!Random things I found and sketched.
I also explored different medium and techniques which you will see in my future works 🙂 I enjoy making art for other people, but taking the time to make something just for yourself is so important! I often get new ideas for my art through experimentation and exploration. Having a mini retreat like this also allows you to relax and refill your creative energy reserve. I think I’m going to have these mini “retreats” more regularly from now on! So good!
Honeyberry Diary 