Tag: sketchbook

sketchbook : week 25

August 9, 2015
by annwood
sketchbook - week 25

Week 25 in my yearlong sketchbook practice.  

sketchbook : week 25

My daily experiments are making me a better observer of everything around me and my own thoughts and patterns – what I’m attracted to, what I say to myself, where I get stuck. It is making me a more free and less judgmental experimenter and it has made a place for ideas and beginnings of ideas to sneak out. I wander in my imagination and new relationships and intersections appear. Things occur to me that would not unless they had this opportunity and this space. It is such a good thing and it’s making me think more and think differently about making room for things. I’m curious what it would be like to designate a bigger space and more time. I wonder what might show up if  there was the opportunity.

sketchbook : week 22

July 18, 2015
by annwood

Week 22 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. I get so many ideas from my little squares, for all kinds of things. This week I had lots of ideas for fabrics and ceramics.  I’d love to take a hand building class this fall. And for now I’d like to experiment with Spoonflower – have you tried it?  Or maybe some block printing on linen. Wouldn’t it be nice to spend a couple weeks just messing around with stuff you haven’t tried? 

sketchbook : week 22

sketchbook : week 21

July 11, 2015
by annwood
sketchbook : week 21

Week 21 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. This was an extra busy, extra tense, summer coldy, sore throaty, foggy brained week and it was hard to focus on the sketchbook part of the day. To make it feel do-able and to refresh myself I mostly finger painted – I highly recommend it as a loosening up, getting over yourself exercise.  Sometimes I felt like I got somewhere interesting and sometimes I didn’t but it mostly felt loose and free and experimental – so much of what I look for in this daily practice.

sketchbook : week 21

sketchbook : week 19

June 27, 2015
by annwood

Week 19 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. I love having a record of  the days – it’s an extra bonus that comes with this sort of daily practice. It’s a different kind of remembering – looking back at each days little experiment.  The memories are of sensation and mood, the little squares mostly don’t relate to external events  – except when they do. Today’s experiment refers to the world – the strange, disturbing and fascinating events surrounding the prison escape upstate are on my mind – the intensity of it, the ideas of desperation and flight, the reality of truly dangerous humans and the massive, harsh and beautiful forest where it’s unfolding. From here it’s surreal and it almost feels like fiction – how terrifying and disruptive it must be to people in the vicinity.

sketchbook : week 19

my big creative year : daily practice

June 8, 2015
by annwood
daily experiment

The hard thing about a daily practice is that it’s daily. And days and weeks are guaranteedto be weird sometimes. But I think committing to a daily practice – even a very small one – is valuable and fruitful. My practice is to experiment – to do something each day, on paper, to meander, and wander my imagination and try stuff that is entirely separate from the busyness and work of the day.

daily experiment

I chose to work on paper because it’s something I miss – making marks on paper – and I chose to keep it small ( 4.5 inch squares) to keep it do-able – especially in weeks where I’m overwhelmed and / or traveling. I share it here every Saturday and that adds some pressure but I think it’s pressure I need.

Some sketchbook favorites:

sketchbook_favoritesLast week showing up for it was particularly hard. If I was going to bail, take a vacation from it, let myself off the hook, last week would have been the week. I’m so glad I didn’t – I took James Clear’s advice again – reduce the scope and stick to the schedule. I didn’t have my full array of tools but I had a little paint and pencils and my little squares and they came with me to Squam. I got up a little extra early each day and spent time with my experiment before class started. I’m so glad that I did.

I don’t think it matters as much what I do as it does that I do it. It matters very much that I find a small part of each day that is personal and expressive and my own. It should be a priority.

sketchbook : week 15

May 30, 2015
by annwood
sketchbook week 15

Week 15 in my yearlong sketchbook practice.  The small scale of these was a good choice for me ( they are 4.5 inch squares). It has kept the task managagable – it feels reasonably  do-able most of the time. But it has also made me crave something bigger  in scale and more time to be thoughtful and time to experiment. I’m curious what that would feel like – curious and intimidated.

sketchbook week 15