turnip

I’m looking outside my window right now.

Sitting in my home studio at Noble Bunny Manor. With the window open. I see the stretches of forest before me. I hear the birds singing. And see the squirrels climbing.

But I also see that it’s about to rain soon.

And that means I can’t hang my clothes outside to dry today.

Oh, bother…

While a lot of the world is doing their laundry using washing machines and tumble dryers, I’m still sticking to the old time ways of washing my clothes by hand right after I shower.

And hanging out the clothes to dry too.

A little physical labor is good for the body and mind.

One of my mentors, who is a farmer, once said:

"In the modern world, people keep looking for ways to get rid of their work. They make machines to do everything for them. But the end result is that they have nothing left to do. And they sit around bored all day. You don’t want to be too bored. Because then, you start doing dumb stuff."

And I believe in many ways, that’s true.

Now that I think of it, it’s hard for me to find time to even BE bored. Which I’m grateful for.

Practicing and creating art takes up huge chunks of my day.

Doing the housework takes up another chunk.

And reading takes up yet another chunk.

I enjoy what I do everyday, and every moment of my day. But sometimes I wish I had more hours in the day so I could enjoy even more stuff. Because there’s still a lot of hobbies that I don’t have enough time to do regularly.

What hobbies, you ask?

Well, for one, sewing.

Hand sewing. Which I love. And find relaxing.

But haven’t really had a lot of time to do recently.

In fact, sitting on my ironing board right now is a dress that I hand-stitched all by myself, one stitch at a time. With my bare paws and string and needle. Without any sewing machines or any robotics whatsoever.

It isn’t easy.

But it is meditative. And relaxing. 🙂

And I know a lot of my fans who enjoy a little stitch-work too.

So I’ve just put out a lovely little design you can use for your Sewing Room. You can even use it to make a sewing uniform for yourself to wear everytime you start stitching. 😉

Don’t really do sewing?

No worries.

It can be used to make a great gift for those who do.

If the thought of any of that excites you, then all you gotta do is click here to check it out now…

Sincerely,
Aurelia Nobleia
"I Wish I Had 8 Hands"

I’ve been spending the last few nights watching…

… survival videos on YouTube!

In preparation for the worst-case scenario where Etsy doesn’t like me anymore and shuts my Art Store down (maybe because of something I said that used to be normal but turned offensive overnight after a new movie came out), and my career as an artist suddenly takes a turn for the worse, and I get tossed out onto the streets, having to draw and beg for pennies and scraps.

Hey, you never know…

Artists always seem to have a tendency to go starving for some reason or other.

For example:

Sometime back I read Vincent Van Gogh’s biography.

He spent most of his career starving. And by starving, I literally mean that he had no food to eat. What little money he did have (which his brother kindly sent him), he used to buy art supplies rather than food. And he numbed his hunger pangs by painting.

Eventually, he starved so badly… was so malnourished… and on top of that also struck bad by heat stroke… that…

… he did some terrible things to himself.

Things that I won’t mention here.

Because all my letters are rated PG.

But:

What would I do if I were in a situation like Van Gogh and only had $1 a day to survive on?

Some stuff I learned from watching YouTube videos:

– You need to be good at foraging for wild fruits and vegetables.

Unfortunately, I’m ashamed to say that… even though I’m a herbalist, foraging is not one of my strong points. I’ll have to work on that…

– If you live next to the beach, you can go hunting for live oysters.

Unfortunately, I’m mostly vegan. As most bunnies are. But I guess you can’t be picky if you’re starving.

– If you hang around fast food places, or even food courts, you’ll always find extra condiment packages on the table that people didn’t use.

Good for using with whatever you’re cooking. Extra flavor.

– You can get reduced price, stale bread for pennies at a local supermarket.

You can also can get tiny portions of vegetables (like a single tiny mushroom!) for pennies. Get lots of those different tiny produce items, and you can make coleslaw. Or soup.

– Some coffee cups people litter on the ground have stickers.

And if you collect 6 stickers you can get free coffee at McDonalds. And if you give the lady at the counter a sweet enough smile, she might even give you some free butter.

I think I’m prepared enough now for any worst-case "starving artist" scenarios in case they ever pop-up.

Hmm…

But now that I think of it…

I don’t really need to do all this stuff. Do I?

Even if I lose my store. And my business. And everything else…

… I still have…

… my greatest asset…

… which is my existing stock of artwork.

And unlike the typical artwork that can only be hung on a wall, with my digitalized art, I can always take them and:

– Put it on T-shirts and Mugs and sell them for a profit. Nowadays, you can even use Print on Demand sites that do it for you, so you don’t have to keep any inventory or do any manual labor.

– Learn to scroll saw. Or carve wood. So I can carve my designs on wooden blocks and turn them into signs. And offer that as a service to make money.

– I could always use my art as a template for an embroidery piece. And sell that too.

– I could probably even print my art on greeting cards and sell those for a profit.

Hmm… the possibilities are endless.

Well…

It’s good to know that I have some assets that I can fall back on in an emergency.

And you know what?

As long as you have my art, you have an asset that you can use to do all that too.

So you don’t have to starve on the streets when disaster hits.

Or have to learn how to forage or fish for food.

Life’s good!

Sincerely,
Aurelia Nobleia
"Artist Turned Survivalist"

I’ve been doing some weird stuff recently.

For example:

On Instagram, you may or may not have noticed that sometimes I just spontaneously burst out into poetry on the fly. And so, you may be scrolling through your Instagram feed, and all of a sudden, you see some rhymin’ from Aurelia, and you start to think…

"Uhh… Say what?"

Yeah.

I know I’m weird. But I’m supposed to be weird.

I’m an artist.

But bear with me. There is method to my madness.

Some time back:

I was watching a recording of a retirement seminar given by one of the world’s top writers.

In the seminar, he decided to share all his top secrets for becoming one of the greatest of writers.

One of the biggest secrets I learned?

Be an artist. Not an athlete.

While the athlete peaks at a certain age because of the physicality of his profession (and so the never-ending mad scramble to achieve as much as possible before they hit their prime), the artist doesn’t have this problem.

As artists, we are athletes of the mind.

We don’t have to care about the prime of our physical bodies passing us by.

So all we really have to do is to keep sharpening our minds while not putting too much stress on our bodies. Theoretically speaking, the mind doesn’t really have a peak. Which is probably why the saying goes… with age comes wisdom.

This also means that…

… as long as we keep honing our minds daily…

… and take proper care in maintaining our bodies…

… the older we get…

… the more mentally amazing we become…

… and the more incredible our art becomes!

In other words:

If you’re in any creative profession, don’t try to rush things. You don’t need to. Take your time. Relax more. Rest more. Spend more time daily working out. Mentally and physically. And just have more fun.

We don’t need to burn ourselves out at both ends.

Because we don’t peak at a young age like athletes.

As long as we keep improving, the older we get, the more powerful our minds get, and so does our art.

One of the things I do to improve my mind daily?

Spontaneously bursting out into poem.

Sometimes even song.

Other weird things I do in an effort to improve my mind:

– I always eat and brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand (left hand, since I’m a rightie).
– I spend time practicing and writing out positive affirmations in cursive everyday (helps direct my focus while building my brain, aka homunculus theory).
– I like to fall asleep to the sound of Christmas music (hey, it helps me relax and I just love Christmas).

I guess I’ll stop here.

If I share anymore, I’ll REALLY start to get embarrassed…

Sincerely,
Aurelia Nobleia
"Weird But Wonderful"

P.S. A little random poem from me today:

"A fishin’ I will go.
Because of how it relaxes me so.
But skies are gray.
And the storm doth stay.
So inside I play.
Drawing about fishing today.
To the store I now add this.
For those who would reminisce.
About a fishin’ day gone by.
Missed out because of dark skies…"

Making money is Art. Working is Art. And good business is the best Art."
– Andy Warhol

When I was a kid, one of my relatives was an amazing baker.

She’d often bake all sorts of cakes, cookies, and tons of other pastries for us and the rest of the family. And her baked goods were uber delicious!

One day:

She decided to start her own business. Making cakes for birthdays and other events.

I still remember her first order.

It was from one of her friends.

This friend had a kid whose birthday was coming up soon.

And so…

She ordered a delicious chocolate birthday cake. Just for the event.

My relative was delighted!

And she got down to working. Preparing to make a delicious cake, like all the others she was known for. And soon, as the day approached, the cake was done.

But it wasn’t over yet.

There was one more thing to do.

Before she delivered the cake, she still had to…

… decorate it.

I still remember I was in her kitchen at that time. All of us there suddenly had blank looks on our faces as we stared at the almost-finished cake on the counter.

Uhh…

How do you decorate a cake?

Turns out that my relative had always been making delicious-to-eat cakes. But she’d never actually had to decorate them before. Now that this was the first time, she’d never thought about what she’d do.

It’s just decorating a cake?

Couldn’t be that hard, right?

A short while later, out came the whipping cream.

And:

With an unsteady and untrained hand, she made a really unsightly-looking "Happy Birthday" squiggle across the top of the cake that was hardly legible, along with a couple of hearts.

To be honest…

… it was hard to look at.

But the cake was delicious. And that’s more important right?

Well, shortly after… the cake was delivered to the client. We left right after dropping it off. My relative had a smile on her face. She didn’t think that the design really mattered. But in the car, I couldn’t stop imagining the look on the kid’s face once she’d open the box and saw what her Birthday Cake actually looked like.

Yeah, it was a delicious cake. For sure.

But:

That’s not really what most children look for in a cake, is it?

They want it to look fancy. Cute at least. And maybe even get a gasp or two from their friends at the party.

Needless to say:

My relative’s friend never ordered another birthday cake again.

And the cake business…

… rather quickly came to a halt.

So it is for most businesses out there.

There are so many well-meaning business-owners with a great product or even a great service. But then, they underestimate the importance of having great design and packaging to top it all off. And they try their luck at doing it themselves with their unsteady hands.

The end result?

Their customers come once for a taste…

… and…

… they never come back again.

(Some kids even end up getting scarred for life in the process too.)

And while there are businesses out there where looks don’t matter at all, and no matter how ugly your goods are customers couldn’t care less about how it’s packaged and only care about the end result…

… those businesses are a rather… tiny… minority.

But if you’re not in that minority?

And you don’t wanna risk scaring all the kids away with an unsteady hand and watch as your customers never come back?

No worries.

As always, I’ve got your back.

All you gotta do is drop by anytime… 😉

Sincerely,
Aurelia Nobleia
"The Steady-Pawed Princess"

Today, I received an email from an old friend:

"How are you doing, Aurelia? Why didn’t you reply to my message on Whatsapp?" the message went.

"I’m doing fine, thanks. Long time no see! How’s it with you? Uhh… I don’t have… Whatsapp?" I replied.

Truth is, I don’t even use social media.

Except for my business.

Yeah, I know…

You must think I’m weird.

That’s ok. I’m an artist. I’m supposed to be weird. 🙂

But then the conversation continued:

"It’s tough. I’m working my fluffy butt off everyday. Struggling to survive. I envy you. Dumping your job all those years ago to pursue doing stuff you love," she said.

After a few back and forth emails…

… it was clear that…

… unlike what they would have you believe on Labor Day…

… according to my friend…

… labor really isn’t something worth celebrating about.

On the contrary. It’s downright rough, tough, filthy, uber hard work.

I would much rather celebrate finding something you love doing everyday, so much so that it no longer feels like labor, and so (in the words of Mark Twain) you never have to labor a day in your life.

And so, in spite of all the celebrating about Labor today…

… I’ll gladly decline.

And throw it all in the trash!

Because I don’t want to be doing labor. And celebrating labor. And taking a day off from the harshness of labor just to celebrate about doing labor for the other 364 days of the year.

I just wanna have fun.

Doing stuff I love and enjoy.

And not having to take a day off from it all.

Because I love and enjoy doing it. Just as much as I love having my enjoyment seep into my masterpieces, and spreading cheer and joy throughout the whole world.

When you love what you do, it shows.

And people can tell when you put out stuff that’s made with love and enjoyment…

Sincerely,
Aurelia Nobleia
"Labor-Hating Bunny-Sloth"

P.S. Speaking of having fun, I had a lot of fun today making this new wreath. Ha ha.

It’s so different from what I normally create…

But I had a blast making it! LOL.

On the evening of our wedding anniversary:

Me and hubby were watching an interesting documentary at home.

It was about an artist competing against a computer to see whether computers had reached the point where they could beat humans at art.

It wasn’t your average traditional art.

No drawing.

No painting.

No wood carving or scrolling.

But:

It was the art of…

… chess!

Well, a variation of chess anyway… called GO. Basically it’s a strategy game where the only pieces are black and white stones. With the objective being to capture more territory than your opponent.

It’s infinitely more complex (and creative) than chess.

And for the longest time, no one could develop a computer program that could beat a top level pro at the game.

Until 2016, when Google developed the AlphaGo program that beat the world’s greatest Go genius, Lee Sedol.

Honestly:

I knew that the documentary had won a lot of awards. But a game of Go? I thought it was gonna be boring.

How wrong I was.

And it gave me a lot of insights into a different kind of art. And how machines are slowly eclipsing people even in the most creative pursuits.

But what amazed me the most:

It wasn’t the fact that the machine beat the man.

While everyone else in the film was focusing on an epic battle of man versus machine (the heartbreak was apparent when man lost, the joy of victory was clear when man won), my focus flew away to somewhere very different.

What I saw was not a machine.

But rather, a product that was created by the intelligent minds of hundreds of people… pouring out their knowledge and skills into a single pursuit.

That’s what defeated the man.

Not the machine itself, but the unity of a hundred men.

It got me thinking:

Instead of pouring all that intellectual effort into making a machine that could defeat a person at the most creative of pursuits, what if…

… we took those hundreds of men and…

… used their skills and intellect…

… and poured it all into the development of…

… a single person!

Would we get the next Captain America?

Or maybe even another Leonardo da Vinci?

Well, only time will tell.

I don’t know of any computers intelligent enough yet to create the beautiful wreath borders I illustrate though (fortunately). A lot of people probably wish we could have one in every home. My hubby would probably love creating one. But we aren’t there… yet!

(* wipes sweat away)

So for now:

You’re stuck with me.

And my store.

And the lovely stuff in my store. 🙂

Which you may or may not be happy about.

But I’m definitely glad that I haven’t gotten replaced yet.

Phew…

Sincerely,
Aurelia Nobleia
“Still Irreplaceable”

A couple years ago:

I was in my home office. And wondering whether I’d gained any weight.

After all, I’d been sitting at my desk a lot recently… drawing, painting, molding, sculpting, crafting, and what have you… resulting in a not-so-in-shape type of lifestyle that included the sin of not getting enough exercise either.

I pulled out the scale from under my desk.

Stepped on it.

And was shocked.

You know, I’d never actually been overweight before.

But this time, I was dangerously close to crossing the line. And I mean dangerously. If I didn’t do anything about it, it would be a nightmare. So it was time to take emergency corrective action.

I started eating less.

I started exercising more. A lot more.

And most importantly…

… I started keeping track of my weight throughout my waking hours, just like your kid at the back of the car checks on you during a long drive (are we there yet?) to the point of you almost having a mental breakdown.

But:

Check as I would…

Days passed. Weeks passed. Months passed.

Still no weight lost.

I mean seriously. This was in spite of less eating, more exercising, and a hundred other things I tried. Well, maybe I did lose weight. Maybe I did lose 100 grams, or some other number too tiny to register on a non-digital scale.

But I was getting frustrated.

Seeing this, my hubby looked at me and said:

“You wanna lose weight?”

I turned to him sheepishly and said:

“Yeah…”

“You sure?” he questioned.

“Uhh… yeah…?” I looked at him blankly in response.

“Alright, here’s what you gotta do. Just stop doing everything you’re doing. And do this one thing… Turn off your alarm in the morning, and sleep as much as you want,” he said.

Uhh???

Ok???

Well, what did I have to lose?

I gave it a shot. I stopped all the less-eating, the more-exercising, and just went back to my normal daily routine.

Except that:

I turned off my alarm in the morning. And started to sleep as much as I wanted to. Or as much as my body needed to anyway. One of the perks of being a work-at-home artist, fortunately. I’m allowed to do stuff like this.

One week later…

… to my shock and surprise…

… I actually lost 8 pounds! :O

Oh. My. Gosh.

I never realized then that… sometimes… the most basic things in life are still the most powerful (and the most important).

Stuff like air… water… sunlight…

And yes…

Sleep.

Just another one of those necessities. But if you think it’s just a basic necessity, you would be wrong. Because since then, I’ve learned that it’s so much more…

Everything, from better weight management, to better social relationships, to better art creation, to better finances, to better looks…

It’s all affected by how much you sleep.

Some time after my weight loss mis-adventure, my hubby recommended me the book “Why We Sleep” by sleep scientist, Matthew Walker.

In the book, Walker talks about how…

… one day, after one of his lectures on sleep, a performance pianist came up to him.

This pianist happened to attend one of his earlier lectures on the importance of getting more sleep.

For years, the pianist had been having problems with certain songs he had to perform. No matter how much he practiced. No matter how long he practiced. No matter how he practiced. He just couldn’t play certain passages right.

And he just couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

After listening to Walker’s lecture, he decided to just give it a shot. He went home, and got himself more sleep. Several hours more.

The next day:

Lo and behold, he started excelling in all those problem pieces without any extra effort or practice.

Sleeping more makes you better at almost everything.

With way less effort.

It’s also the reason why…

… in case you were wondering…

… it’s one of the things that makes my art pieces different from everyone else’s out there…

… namely that…

… these days, I always make sure to get more than enough sleep before I start creating my artwork (at least 8 to 10 hours a day). If I don’t sleep enough, I don’t create art. That’s just a simple rule I try not to break.

So:

It’s the Labor Day weekend!

Even if you have better stuff to do, why not try catching up on some sleep?

These days, almost everyone’s sleep deprived. Almost everyone needs more. And almost everyone will benefit from more. Your body and mind will thank you for it later.

With better looks, better health, better income, and better skills too…

Sleep tight!

Sincerely,
Aurelia Nobleia
“The Bunny-Sloth Hybrid”