Letting my subconscious do the work

Sleeping on my problems

For weeks, I was agonizing about what color palette to use in the epilogue of my graphic novel. I wanted the tone to be a bit different from the rest of the book, but not hugely different. And I wanted the colors to symbolically convey change, but also consistency, and although the chapter is quite sad, I wanted the feeling to be uplifting.

I tried a bunch of different color palette options using tiny watercolor thumbnail drawings. But nothing I tried was clicking.

Every night, as part of my nighttime ritual, I’d ask my subconscious to think about what color palette to use for my epilogue while I slept. I repeated this for many days.

A panel from the epilogue of my middle grade graphic novel.

Then one morning I realized what I needed to do. I ended up using a grey color to tie it all together which worked both visually and symbolically. And I ditched a teal color I kept trying to make work, but was just messing everything up. And suddenly everything came together.

What about you—do you let your subconscious try to figure things out?

Plants in the ground

Last week, I posted about my new found gardening interest and my design plan for my new pollinator garden.

After lots of hard work (why did I think hand tilling was a good idea?!), the plants are in the ground, and the garden is enclosed to protect it from Leif’s enthusiastic romps and the rabbit’s interest when Leif isn’t there to chase after them.

Leif love

We’ve had a ton of rain this spring here in the Twin Cities, so the water on the Mississippi is especially high. Leif enjoys the river as his personal water bowl, taking water breaks there on our runs together. He’s not yet much of a swimmer, although we do hope to get him swimming this summer.

Take care and keep creating!

–Katharine