It's not Monday, but isn't that nice?

But if you want to wait until Monday to open this I totally get it.

Hello, friend!

I try to always post here every Monday but this coming Monday I can’t because I’ll be out of the country. Long story short, as a true social anxiety introvert, I have exactly one friend in my town who I can call to grab a margarita at any time and she very rudely decided to live her one wild and precious life fully and that meant selling everything to explore the world as she works from her laptop. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen her but tomorrow I’m flying to the Canary Islands to meet up with her. YAY! (Now to quiet the travelers anxiety that tells me I will either not poop for a week or have nonstop diarrhea. Is that just a me thing? I feel like it’s just a me thing.)

Anyway, that means that I won’t be here Monday to mail you this letter and I don’t know how to schedule future stuff so instead I’m sending this now.

This weeks drawing is a little different because I wanted to make something travel related since I always use my drawings to encourage myself when I’m feeling scared and so I decided to try grid journaling, which Lina Forrester teaches here:

@linaforrester

A post shared by Lina Forrester on Instagram: "This is a video from awhile back, but I'm still so in love with this green and pink together.

From the original post:

Grid journaling is one of my favorite methods of intuitive art. It allows me to work on several ideas at once, keeps my brain busy so it doesn't interrupt my improvisation with critiques, and gives me the opportunity to try out a few experiments without wasting a lot of materials."

I put down painter’s tape on watercolor paper and then outlined the boxes and drew my own wild map borders.

And painted a little green and grey randomly…

And when I pulled off the tape, I had some lovely little art (and also a fair amount of small paper tears because I used really cheap watercolor paper).

It’s a fun and easy project if you’re looking for something mindless to do with your hands and I highly recommend it. (If you make one, tag me so I can see it.)

“I am not lost. Simply making my own maps.”

I went outside to take a picture of it and my neighbor walked by and said, “Oh that’s so pretty. ‘I AM NOT SIMPLY MY OWN. LOST. MAKING MAPS,’” and I was like, “Welp. Close enough, I guess.”

Love and canaries,

~ me