Inkvent

I’m finally done with reviewing the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Black Edition calendar and it’s been exhausting. I haven’t been able to get a proper buffer for the even this year, which meant that I was chasing every post every day.

On the plus side, it was nice to dust off 25 bears and sketch them. My sketching and my blogging had been in a rut recently and this event kickstarted them, so I am grateful for that. I also got some lovely comments from people, which is always wonderful to read.

Cal Newport

The latest episode of Cal Newport’s Deep Questions podcast was excellent, and in the final segment Cal discussed his new approach to making a quarterly plan. It’s worth listening to, but basically his idea of pillars and foundations and focusing on a certain pillar at a time really resonated with me. My next quarter will be focused on craft as a pillar, as I want to earn a professional certification and work towards a deeper understanding and more hands on experience with certain more obscure aspects of my job.

Reading

I finished reading the HBR “Dealing with Difficult People” book, and started reading Paul Auster’s “The New York Trilogy”. So far it’s a very Paul Auster book, for good and for bad.

Impressionism

I went to see an Impressionist exhibition, celebrating 150 years to the movement, at the local art museum. The exhibition itself was nice enough, but a bit thin in terms of the artwork on display. There was also a nice print exhibition, and an excellent retrospective exhibition dedicated to Moi Ver. It was wonderful seeing a master photographer at work, and his design work is also worth seeing.

I went to the museum store later and went a little wild, purchasing a handmade ceramic cup made by a local artist, three postcards (which I wrote on and will give away), and a Leuchtturm1917 A5 dotted notebook that I didn’t need but I wanted anyway. I bought a Leuchtturm notebook the last time I was in that store, and it’s now my work daily driver notebook, so I assume I’ll find use for this notebook soon enough. The paper isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for me for daily fountain pen use.

Have a great week!