My Flow Keep Calm Daily Craft Book has got off to a good start. The first exercise was writing. The next one involved making a stencil and printing a pattern. This was more of a challenge, and involved cleaning out my desk drawers in search of materials. This took an hour or so of happy mucking about.

I unearthed a stash of calendars and pictures for card-making, my water colour paints and palette, stamps, and a book of stencils. The stencil book proved useful when my potato print stencil failed. It was much easier to cut out the pattern than around the pattern in the potato, and I ended up with a print that looks like a paua shell. So I tried some wooden stamps instead, which were far too pale and, finally, the stencils from the book which were much more successful.

Now, for a week, I am supposed to take photos of the same thing or place each day. I decided that since I’ve begun making my own rules as I go along, I might as well continue in that vein, so I’m making sketches of the same place instead of taking photos. So far I’ve done three days.

I began on Thursday, not Monday, so I may need to write notes on each one to give the sequence. I intend to show the progress of the caterpillars on the swan plants. The first sketch is of the barrel beside which the plants are growing. A Monarch butterfly helpfully appeared as I was doing the first sketch. Nothing is to scale which I can hardly put down to artistic licence – just ineptitude! The next two show close-ups of the caterpillars as they munch up the plants. Actually, they are moving down the plants. I rushed today’s sketch and made it darker than the first close-up as it was cloudy, whereas yesterday, the light made the leaves look translucent. The largest of the caterpillars is now nearly four centimetres long.

Propped up beside my craft book are two birthday cards I made today using calendar pictures uncovered when I cleaned out the desk drawers. I am enjoying these creative projects!