The dishes are dirty but that’s okay, I’m rediscovering my passion

Over the years, being a wife, running a business, dealing with infertility, giving birth (finally!) and now trying to be an attentive mother while keeping up with a demanding job have left me feeling like I’ve lost touch with myself a bit. I’ve been trying to regain that creative side of myself which has long been neglected and regulated to the back shelf while life was too crazy. I set up my craft table in the basement and have started painting again (perhaps I’ll post pictures later of some of my projects) but my desire has always been to marry my 2 loves – technology and art.

I’ve played around with using PowerPoint to draw with and have done a few things which I’ve incorporated into my work at Microsoft:

But PowerPoint, while great for some things, is woefully inadequate for what I need to satisfy my creative itch. So today I downloaded GIMP – the GNU Image Manipulation Program. The first thing I worked on was a new logo for this blog:

I’ll likely change it several times as it’s a good simple project to work on while I get familiar with the tools. Although I’m using a tablet computer (a Lenovo X201) and a stylus, my lines look pretty shaky. I almost feel like I have to learn how to draw all over again. But I’m loving it!

So now when the dishes are sitting dirty in the sink and John has had to reheat leftovers for him and the boys yet again, I can show him my screen and say, “But, look what I drew!”.

Ruth Morton