This reawakening of my artistic drive has been an incredible experience for me. As long as I limit myself to short 30-minute bursts of working on my Christmas card project during the mornings and early afternoons, and make sure to get plenty of fresh air and exercise in between sessions, the whole thing is one big joyous renaissance of creative bliss. Seriously, it’s like a drug.
But I have learned something about myself: I cannot be a good artist and a good parent at the same time. When it’s time to drive to the bus stop and pick up the kids after school, I have to shut down my computer before I go and leave it off until after they’re in bed. Because as a Solitary Artist I am joyful and inspired and full of happy, but as an Artist Who Keeps Getting Interrupted By The Needs Of Children I am cranky and impatient and snappish. Apparently art mode and mom mode are mutually incompatible frames of mind. Hunh.
So anyway, my Christmas card. I’m creating it entirely from scratch in Photoshop, which means it won’t be quite as polished as what I could make with the Corel Paint program, but it will still be quite lovely. Eventually I will get my Mac’s memory upgraded and then I can get all fancy with Corel Paint.
This is the beginning of something big. I can feel it.
An Invincible Summer 
Don’t feel bad even God finds it needfull to have more than one PERSONa.
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Don’t feel bad. I plan out my messy times to coincide to the Duck’s school schedule. Sometimes if I just can’t tear myself away I toss in…a movie! Horrors, right? She’ll have stuff to tell her shrink some day. On the flip side, I try to spend extra time with her after these sessions. I’ll pick a game or we’ll paint together…go to the park or out to lunch. Sometimes I just stop when I get to a point I can and then snuggle with her or have her help me make an indoor picnic lunch. Things will balance themselves out. Soon they’ll be on their way and you’ll have more time than you’d like. So we won’t be cutting any ears off or painting for days on end with only coffee and granola to sustain us. In the end we will have a hobby that we enjoy AND memories of our little ones…even if it’s of them tearing us away from a project. š
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Lol! The kids are definitely my priority at this point, though. I have precious little time with them during the school year anyway, between school and visits with their dad and early bedtimes. I’d rather be with them when I can and save the art stuff for when they’re away or asleep. Like you said, there’ll be plenty of time for artwork after they’ve grown up and moved away. Also, Luke is Very Concerned that I’m going to permanently damage my eyesight with too much computer time, so I try not to worry him by working to the point of eye strain.
On a related tangent, does Shawn know how to upgrade memory in iMacs? I can buy the RAM, but I’ve read that installing it in an iMac isn’t a job for beginners or the faint of heart.
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Mac…Mac…shudder… No he keeps well away from those things. Sorry hun.
On a pervious tangent… My sister was commenting on how wonderful it was that the Duck does all these wonderful projects. I told her about Luke and Elizabeth’s. She was amazed. I told her that it wasn’t really so amazing what our kids do…kids will, if given the right tools/atmosphere. It kills me to see kids tied down to video games and the boob tube without any encouragement or outlet to be creative…to use that wonderful imagination they all have. I think anymore, finding a mom that gives them that room…is amazing.
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I think that’s one of the saddest things about modern life. As The Onion puts it, most people (or most Americans) spend 90% of their time staring at glowing rectangles of one kind or another. Creativity is messy and glowing rectangles are tidy and convenient. Never mind that we’re raising whole generations of people who find the concept of rolling up their sleeves, getting their hands messy and actually creating something to be incomprehensible or actively distasteful.
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