Creative Recommendations for August

What I'm reading, learning, dreaming about, and making art with!

Hi friends,

It’s time for my Creative Recommendations for August! These are just for my lovely ~patrons~ aka my paying subscribers. 

Each month, I curate my favorite things I’ve been reading, learning, dreaming about, and making art with. If you want to upgrade to receive these once a month, you’d make my day 🥰

Free Climate Art Workshop

I’m co-hosting a workshop on making comics about weather with

K. Woodman-Maynard

on August 19 at 3pm EST. RSVP here

Reading

I read Your Head is a Houseboat by Campbell Walker in a single day. The art is so fun, and it ties together concepts from Internal Family Systems, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and mindfulness using hilarious metaphors.

One of the lines that spoke to me was “fear makes sure you don’t take risks, because risks are how you can lose what you have.”

Making Art With

I’ve been illustrating a children’s book for the Building Decarbonization Coalition called the Clean Green Neighborhood (think: Richard Scarry meets clean energy). It’s about thermal energy networks and the labor unions and workers that help make neighborhoods more sustainable. It has been such a delight to bring this project to life for them!

I started painting last week, and it’s turning out so darn cute. I had to figure out a new process for painting double spreads so the art flows seamlessly across two pages. I’ve got a system down now and am loving how it’s coming together. The book is coming out this November!

Learning

I’ve been learning UX design to create the screen-time blocking app I’ve been building. Over the past month, I’ve read Hooked, Indistractable, Make Time, Tiny Habits, and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (I haven’t been watching TV, so I have a lot of free time to read).

My app is called Free Time, and the idea is to help you use your phone less by breaking the habit of checking distracting apps. To access these apps, you go through a three-step process to slow you down:

1. Solve a puzzle like a word scramble or a math problem

2. Notice where you are to understand your screen time patterns

3. Have a mindful moment to breathe

I’ve been using it every day for the past month, and it’s honestly changed how I use my phone, which is wild! If you want to get on the waitlist to beta test it, you can here.

Dreaming About

I’m swapping the Watching section to a Dreaming About section. I’ve been dreaming about what I want future Nicole to be like. I imagine her being outdoorsy and camping and surfing. I currently do none of those things.

So I’ve been on a mission to change that. This weekend, I took Amtrak up to visit my very outdoorsy childhood best friend who lives in Providence. She drove us out to Cape Cod, where we camped in a National Park and had the best time.

While we were there, I began to remember all the times I camped throughout my life. From growing up going on camping trips with my parents, to camping on the beach in Vietnam when I was solo traveling through Southeast Asia. I even did a night of backpacking in the Desolation Wilderness in Tahoe with my friend

Blake Boles

.

I realized I've been conflating camping with backpacking. Once I realized I didn’t need ultra-light backpacking gear or incredible hiking skills, camping began to seem much more accessible. It was a big aha moment for me and helped me imagine being closer to the future Nicole I dream of.

Backpacking with Blake in Tahoe many years ago

Listening to

I’ve been on a mission to find more music I like. I’m looking for recommendations, so feel free to send your favorite playlists my way! One of my new favorite musicians I’ve discovered is