I know, I know. It’s the first of August, and if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the hottest it will be all year. Here in Texas, we’re having a string of 100+ degree days, as is usual in August. I’m hiding inside with my air conditioner cranked down low, wearing as little clothing as is possible. It’s ugly…
But it doesn’t matter what the calendar or the thermostat say. Summer’s over for me. I’m working on nothing but fall, Halloween, and oh, here it comes, I’m gonna say it—Christmas.
Every year on the first of August, I resign myself to the march of time. If I’m going to have Halloween and Christmas products and kits in stock at Ten Two Studios in time for folks to purchase and make things from them, I have to do it now. If I wait until the weather gets cool here—well, it will be Christmas Eve by the time it gets cool here, so forget about that. So, here I sit in shorts and a sports bra, listening to the hum of the a/c, and designing Christmas ornaments. It’s hilarious.
This year, to nudge myself into the season, I timed the deadline for a fall-themed tip-in swap at Art Forty-Two to fall in the first week of August. There’s nothing like a deadline to get me going—and now that I’ve done some work in lovely fall tones, it doesn’t seem so unreasonable to leave those colors out on the table and keep at it. And now that the fall swap is coming to a close, I’ll post one for winter tip-ins, which will both close out the four seasons of swaps I promised the participants of the first one, and keep me working in the right frame of mind.
If nothing else, I’m incredibly adept at tricking myself into making the artwork that must be made today…