Why My Life Looks Like My Art (Living a Storybook Cottage Core life in New Zealand

Before I even open my sketchbook, I have already spent some time in the illustrated world I am going to bring to paper.

At 5.30 am it’s coffee and chess, followed by a few pages from Plutarch. I am wrapped in a nice shawl and pugs settled behind my back on a chair. And this is the best morning for me. We joke at home I need a custom office couch to place all involved into illustration process - dogs, cat, chickens possibly.

With the sun rising, the ducks line up next to the dog door calling me to start the feeding duty and the sheep starts dancing near the gates in the hope of some mischief opportunity. Then there is  a good morning run for me on the gravel road through the pines, cows and eucalyptus with an anticipation of a beautiful day filled with creative work and nice people.

And this is all even before I get my pencils and brushes out.

Living what I draw looks like set up aesthetic. However this lifestyle is in the core of my ideas and desire to create. I can not wait for those summer months when picking aquilegias for the house bouquets in the morning, whose heads look so much like the gnome bonnets will bring more fairytale into my days. Or for the times when the fog, descending from the porch into the valley, giving back the pieces of the hidden nooks of the land puts me in the instant writing mood. Or for those royal dramas in the peacock family I have to sort out, which find their way to the watercolor paper later.

Storybook living is something people fantasize about. I believe this type of life can be lived not just imagined. I had to learn that the structure of my day either feeds creativity or destroys it. The main thing is not torestrict it. When I give enough attention to each moment: to slow mornings, to cooking, to teaching, to love, to nature…it fills the poem of the day and long term creative inspiration :) This metaphor came to me after our home schooling studies of the structure of the poetic literature and diving into a poem creation.

The myth of waiting for the right time to live what you value is believed widely.

I got tired of waiting for the perfect time to be able to allow myself to live in a perfect cottage in perfect surroundings.

I created the world that matched my dreams and desires with what was available at a time and keep working on it.

I value the beauty - man made and offered by nature, the purpose in every day, the elegance and aesthetic of the simple domestic work and wild grasses dancing with the winds at the doorsteps.

Why lifestyle and what we produce and leave behind are connected.

I want my daughters to take into their adult life the aromas of cinnamon buns, the skills of making the art inspired by the most close and common things, the treasure of time available to create and many other things, learnt by using the resources we have wisely, at the very place where we are, the best way we can.

As Tolstoy said once: “Life is not a handicraft. It is a transmission of feelings.” May be creating the fairytale in everyday and living it, helps me to share the feelings that guide me to draw those fairytales with people looking at my illustrations. I do not know. I just try to do the best with what I can at the moment.

Have the beautiful sunsets after creative days.

See you next week

Yulia

P.S. Would you like to add more storybook moments into your own days? Download my free guide here

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