A very horse time in my life

I really do think this MIGHT be my year, and I wholeheartedly believe it’s because it’s the year of the horse. I would love to say I don’t know why I’m kind of associated with horses, but I would be lying. I would love the reason to be that I used to ride horses, or that I have a horse - Something nice and sweet along those lines. But it’s more because for a long time in my life, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a horse so badly that 98% of the time I pretended I was one. I would gallop around, make my mum walk me round the shops like a horse (sorry mum). Most my life I’ve been so embarrassed of this fact, but I don’t know why recently it feels like I’ve come full circle in my love for horses. I’m not quite trotting round the shops anymore, but more just enjoying what they represent. And THAT is why I think this might be my year. With the abundance of horse themed presents I’ve received over the last couple of months, I feel weirdly comforted by the presence of the year of the horse. Especially since last year was the year of the snake (my biggest fear and the worst year of my life). So yes, this will be a very horsey blog post. Happy year of the fire horse everyone.

I will be kicking off this horse themed blog with my favourite thing I’ve ever made: My little horse hat. I really threw myself into this project.

I haven’t been very good at intricate colour work in knitting, and for my big year project I want to make my dream knitted jumper, which means I need colour work practice. Unfortunately (or fortunately), everything takes practice. and thank god I practiced, because I had to make this hat three times. My first go, I was loving it. But as I got closer to the end, I had the dreaded thought “yeah…I don’t think this tiny hat is going to fit on my head.” So off I went again. I changed the stitches on my needle, added more, altered the style. The put it on, bated breath… and yeah. No. Still too small. I realised I was knitting too tight and the gauge was off. I needed less speck in the tension I was holding my yarn. And finally, I got it right. And THAT is why we practise. Because I could’ve have made a whole knitted jumper too small but luckily it was just a hat.

I finally finished my Sophie scarf and I’m so happy with it. It’s so warm for when I’m walking home. I love that when I’ve shown people, they get a jump scare that it’s a hood as well as a scarf.

Lastly I wanted to use up the extra yarn from my lovely little horse hat, so I made a super simple hood with a stretchy bind-off. (I do feel like I might have a big head because everything I make is too small.)

Update on the house refurb, it’s definitely slow progress. Sometimes I start a project and then think, god why have I done this to myself? It feels like I’ve filled my head with an expectation of how it should look, and because  it doesn’t happen straight away, I delay it as long as possible. That being said, I DID make a chain decoration of my cat, Maple. It really shows her in her best light.

Now onto something I wasn’t sure if I was going to delve into in my blogs but I probably should, because it’s literally what I want to do with my life. So okay, twist my arm I’ll talk about illustration. To continue the horse theme, I want to talk about the illustration I made for this blog edition (scroll to the top for a visual, sorry I do know this isn’t a dissertation). I won’t lie, This illustration got me back into digital drawing and I loved it. I think the time in my life I feel the least stressed and all over the place is when I’m drawing, playing music, just in my own world. And I haven’t felt like that for a while. Even though I’ve waking up early and being ‘productive,’ I wasn’t focusing that productivity on the right things. I just needed to sit down and make something. Even if it was horrible. Even if it made me doubt my whole existence as an illustrator. Turns out, when you sit down to draw after a long time, you haven’t forgotten how to draw. You’re just relearning how to be comfortable with the inevitable imperfection that comes with being creativity. I worked on the composition and colour, and when I was done I was so happy with it. And within a second, I’d already thought of another illustration idea. So I sat down and did another drawing.

I’m starting to retrace my steps on a kids book idea I’ve had for god knows how long. I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of it, but I’ve been working on character design, which is great and necessary for my portfolio. Here’s a little sneak peak of one of the character sketches I did.

It’s actually so nice to feel excited to draw again. Lord knows I’ve just been in such a rut with illustration. It’s felt like a do or die situation, like every day is my last chance to ‘make it big’. It’s too much pressure. But I don’t feel that way anymore. I’ve done a lots of practice sketches, and when I look at them I think yeah they’re good - but that’s it. The thing I want to work on the most is creating clever composition and making exciting work. I think what Ive learned recently is that not everything has to be realistic. When I started drawing, I used to get so in my head about whether something looked how it was ‘meant to.’ But recently I’ve been following the flow of the drawing instead of chasing perfection.

The year of the horse signifies independence, action, and passion. This year should feel like a rhythm that gallops toward momentum, change and excitement. Stuff like this can sound silly to some people. But it can feel like guidance for others. Maybe it’s nice to think you’re a horse running towards a goal. Younger me had the whimsy to believe that without embarrassment so I think 25 year old me will too. (If you see me galloping, mind your business. I’m running toward something.)

Niamh