The 100-Day Project, Day 38: Creative Boost From an Unexpected Source
Day 38 of the 100-Day Project has arrived!
I got up and started into my day and in the middle of making my first cup of morning coffee, the electricity went out!
Related, and of different sizes... yet all unique; part of a previous project.
We live in a place that has a lot of tall trees and a lot of strong winds. This is a recipe for trees falling on power lines, especially in spring when the ground is sodden from melting snow and repeated rainfalls.
That said, this is actually the first time the power has gone out since I've been doing the 100-Day project, and that gave me an interesting insight into our world.
With no electricity, and no Internet, I suddenly found myself looking at what useful things I could do with my time, simply using natural daylight. Thankfully, it was 9:30 in the morning, and although blustery and with occasional squalls it was a fairly bright day outside.
First "Retreat Stone" of the day
Since it was too cold outside for gardening (and I felt put off by the occasional rain squalls that were coming through), the brightest place in the house was actually my creative workspace. And because I couldn't get online and I couldn't do any of my other work which required electricity, I decided to sit down in my workspace and start creating!
It was a really poignant and object lesson in how we prioritize our time, in these modern days of ours. It also served as a poignant reminder of what is really happening when we say we "don't have any time on our hands!"
2nd "Retreat Stone" of the day
Day 38 Stone Painting:
So I started my creative session for the day with what I have been doing for a while now: I created another stone for the "Retreat Stones" project and it's nice to see that I am gradually getting closer to completion on that one. Almost at the half-way mark, now.
As something else to consider — because the electricity was still out — I determined that I do depend rather a lot on my strong work lamp for painting on dark stones which oftentimes have very little contrast between the value of the paint color and the color of the base stone, so I went to my bins and found a couple of nice blank pale stones which are easier to see the paint on when you don't have much light.
Yes, this I can still see in low light
So I started off with this one that is done in a mixture of greens, black and white.
As per usual, I had no real plan for how I was going to let this turn out... I just more or less let the stone and the colors speak to me, and while doing so I also found myself appreciating the absence of sound in the house.
It's surprising how many little background sounds we have in our living spaces, even when nothing in particular is running; the refrigerator and the buzzes of electronics in standby mode and occasionally the fan from the heater coming on. All those things were gone and all I could hear was the wind outside and occasionally a bit of rain drumming on the roof.
Taking shape nicely!
In truth, sometimes I find technology to be a little bit overwhelming in its pervasive invasiveness. And so, I found myself actually feeling relieved — at lest for a time — that we had no electricity and that I could sit down and work on my creative things as the highest and best use of my time, for a change!
So that stone actually turned out really well and in my own opinion is one of the better pieces I've done in a long time mixing a bit of purple in with the green black and white worked out better than I had expected.
The finished design — off to the drying shelf!
So with that stone painted, the electricity was still out! So it seemed like the most sensible thing to do would be to continue working on the Retreat Stones, so I painted one more of those. Both of them are pictured nearer the top of this post.
The power finally came on again, after about three hours.
At this point, a couple of extra observations about this morning without electricity. For one, I have to be aware that my eyes are not quite used to painting without all the usual artificial light and I had to get up and walk away several times because I was having a really hard time focusing. For two, as I finished the first stone and the electricity was still out, I became quite aware that there wasn't "something else" I needed to get away and rush off to do — I could just sit here and paint another stone!
I found myself grateful that at least my phone had a full charge, so I could take the photos as I went along, and write some accompanying words into a text document to be copied into Hive at a later time when we were back online!
Detail from a previously painted stone
Day 38 Summary and Social Media Bits:
Finished THREE new stones today: Two more Retreat Stones, and a nice pale stone for summer stock. Definitely a productive day!
Daily Twitter/X post: Check. Shared an image from my last major project.
Daily Facebook Page post: Check. Using the same photo as above.
Daily Instagram post: Check. Another photo post featuring a group of stones from a past project.
Other Stuff: As usual, this Hive post; quite happy with this day's endeavors. Daily shoutout to @gillianpearce!
Day 38 completed; a good day, it was. And very interesting how I actually have "plenty of time" when I don't have other things screaming at me for attention. Sort of makes me wish I could just be a full-time artist! Alas, I do have to make a living to pay bills and such... and this is not it.
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2024.03.28 AS-TXT-229/199
I loved this project. So many beautiful details and colors, it's really amazing.
Thank you for stopping by, and commenting!
It looks like you made very good use of your electrical down time.
Seems like the rare times we lose power, it is mostly late evening or night, when there is very little or no natural light. The once in blue moon when it is during the day, it is neat to see how many things can still be done.
Glad you made progress on your large order.
It was quite unexpected and really nice to let all the technology just fade away. Usually, our outages happen on weekend nights... it has been a really long time since a daytime outage!