Mimi's Newsletter - A Cyclone & A New Chapter (Patreon)

Hello lovelies,

A lot has happened since our last catch-up!

I've locked in my plans to go travelling on a new adventure in South East Asia (and then onwards to Europe) and have been busy preparing to leave home in the next week or so to start that new chapter. I'll be going on my own this time as Dan will be hiking in North America, so I'm also doing all of my own editing and content again which has given me a good opportunity to reassess the videos that I make (and how I can make them as easy as possible for myself)!

I'm excited for this adventure - I've always loved travelling on my own so I think it'll be a really great refresh and allow me lots of time to make art and put more energy into my creativity and community.

I'm going to Vietnam first and will spend a little while there before making my way across to Thailand and down to Singapore. I can't wait!

Before I go away though I need to finish the illustrations for my next picture book which have taken most of my time over the past couple of weeks.

Illustrating all day is lovely, and I get to listen to podcasts while I draw which makes it even better, but it's not great for the body and I can definitely feel the strain on my arm, shoulder and neck when I have to draw a lot. I do a lot of stretches which helps and I try not to sit for too long at once, but I definitely don't think it would be healthy to draw full-time. That's why I like the balance of drawing with making other content, because it prevents me from putting too much strain on one area!

Do you ever feel the physical strain of drawing too much?

I've been organising some of my old things before I go away and found an old diary from 2020 that I forgot I had. It has some entries from the very first week that I started making plans for my Mimimoo Illustration business, and it's so crazy to look back on now - nearly 5 years later!

It was 9 months on from these entries that I started earning money from my art, and a couple of months more before I started my Patreon, but it was all so worth the wait. I was 28 when I started this little business, and something inside me just knew that I could make it work, even if progress was slow. I'm so thankful to have this art community and to be able to share so much of my creativity with you all! 💖

We also had a cyclone last week! I'm currently based near Brisbane in Queensland, and we get a lot of summer storms but it's very rare to have a full cyclone this far south. Fortunately we were sheltered from the worst of it and didn't have any damage, but our power was out for four days and the end of the street was flooded so we were stuck on our hill like a little island!

I'm staying with my parents though and it was a great excuse to dig out my Disney Trivial Pursuit board game that I got in the 90s to play together.

It also gave me the opportunity to finish some crafts that I started recently. I got a flower press for Christmas so I pressed some lovely flowers from my Mum's garden and made some bookmarks from them, and I also got a gnome painting kit so I got to paint those too 😄

I hope you're all well! What are you up to this month?

💖