My birthday was this last Thursday. I turned twenty-six.

I tend to get reflective at this time of year, turning inward to compare where I am now to where I was last year, and this time I thought I’d share those thoughts as a blog post. Hopefully you’ll enjoy reading it!

I went back and looked at the blog posts I was writing this time last year on my old blog; apparently that’s when I got my iPad. I didn’t write a lot, but I did make many pieces of art as I dabbled with Procreate for the first time. I’ll share a bunch of the art I did last June farther down in this post.

Recently, I’ve fallen into a bit of a rough patch with my art and work flow.

Instead of spending time on art, I would say I’ve been more focussed on my crochet work. I’ve been busily creating projects for some friends, work commissions, and for my shop inventory. Here are some of my recent finished projects:

I feel like I’ve been getting better and more consistent at crocheting since I’ve put so much energy into it lately. I’ve noticed an improvement specifically with my seaming, my stitch tension, and face details as compared to some of my older work. I’m working on writing down my designs more regularly, too, so I can start writing patterns. So as far as my crochet, I think I’m at a good place skill-wise.

On the other hand, I haven’t been as disciplined with my art, and I feel like my art skills have slipped. I haven’t been making as much art as I would like to be, even including rough sketching and doodling. I just haven’t made as much art lately.

That being said, I have done a handful of pictures I’d like to share.

Those are the only ones I’ve done worth sharing. That is, everything that isn’t rough sketches and crochet designing. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been feeling a lot of art block whenever I sit down with the intention to create art.

I seem to have found myself drawing in a specific style lately – big, thick, black lines paired with very soft shading. I think I like this style. It definitely works with drawing Pokemon designs, at least, since that’s not too far off from the original style but a bit thicker.

But as far as intentional original art, I have done very little recently. I’m very aware of this fact now that I’m reflecting like this, and I’d like to work on changing that.

Okay. Let’s look at some artwork I was doing in June last year.

I was very productive last June, which I think can be chalked up to the fact that my iPad was brand new that month and I was still very excited to discover making art with it. Now, the novelty has worn off, and I’m dealing with getting distracted whenever I sit down to draw.

Looking at my art from last year, I feel motivation to work harder now. I haven’t done very detailed art in a while. Let’s change that.

So that’s my scattered reflection on where I am now compared to last June, specifically regarding my art and crochet. It’s both better and worse, in different ways.

I feel like this reflection has helped me see where I need to refocus my efforts. Hopefully you enjoyed joining me on this introspective ramble!