This is the space for our members to discuss and share their creative projects, ranging from written works to drawings, photography, and even craft projects such as knitting and woodworking. Self promotion is welcome (websites where we can view and/or purchase your work). Please do continue to preface if content is NSFW and be sure to properly spoiler/link such content.

Despite fond hopes at the start of the year, 2023 has, thus far, not turned out like I’d hoped. The traditional slow season at work that’s historically let loose a lot of creative energy failed to materialize due to some annoying changes in workplace practice (in particular a couple of annoying co-workers), and despite some great social interactions in the past several weeks, February in particular’s gotten me down a bit due to the lack of finished creative work (a lot of sketching, at least, which I ought to consider a better thing than I do). The “cherry on top,” if you will (I don’t actually care for cherries, so that makes more sense than it looks), was the appearance of my first real cold in almost four years. I was expecting this to knock me on my ass, but it wasn’t as intense as I’d feared. Unfortunately, it sapped even more energy, so that the sick days from work I’d hoped to use for a little painting and drawing were spent mostly getting addicted to Line of Duty and following the news of friends’ power outages (got lucky there, at least) from the barrage of winter storms over the past couple of weeks.

I’ve felt a lot better in the past few days, both in terms of physical recovery and the potential lightening of my day-job workload. And so it was that, this weekend, I did my first real painting in weeks, finishing one acrylic, getting halfway through another, and starting yet another. As has become my wont, the “planned” painting will likely be a writeoff of sorts, as I grew much more enthused about the extra picture that was supposed to swallow up the excess paint (I still need to get better about that, but it’s yielded some great results in the past). Hoping I’m able to keep with this nice new groove at least until next month (we get busier at the start and especially the end of April; maybe there’ll be a nice squishy middle?). Hoping, too, I can get on some of the infrastructural improvements (both creative and otherwise) I’ve long been planning before I hit my half-century next November.

How’s your work going?