I had a bit of a setback last week when my thumb exploded with enormous pain from RSI (repetitive stress injury). This is a problem I’ve had in my hands on and off for years, mostly because I’ve spent so much time on the computer. I’ve shifted to ergonomic equipment which has helped a lot. But it seems that my enthusiastic use of the digital pen and tablet the past couple weeks finally caught up with me. It was a shock, and it hurt, and it led to me spending most of the past four or five days with my left hand in a thumb brace.

I did manage to work my full goal hours doing non-stressful work that still advanced the project. As of this morning my hand is almost entirely back to normal so I’ll push on this week. But clearly I need to pay better attention to switching among types of work and let my drawing hand rest and recover.

I am very happy overall with my progress in January, and I am determined to keep it up through February. So, same goal for the coming week: one hour a day each weekday, with one session writing or editing. And a new sub-goal: mix in the actual drawing with other types of work, to make sure my hands stay functional. It would be much harder to work without them.

Below, after the jump, is an example of the botanical illustrations I’m creating. They are sketched over my own photographs, and I’m still figuring out the best way to resize them for image quality and file size. This one has a medium level of detail; some have less and some much more. I think there will be between six and ten of them in the final project.

Here’s the blog hop link for today’s ROW80 check-in. Time to go see how everyone else is doing.