Week 12 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. I usually listen to music ( I have middle aged lady solo dance parties all the time) or podcasts while I work but I’ve gotten into the habit of listening to a sound machine app when I do my sketchbook work. And always the same sound – wind in the pines. I find it peacefull and soothing in general and it helps me settle into sketchbook brain more quickly – it’s become an important part ot the ritual.
Week 11 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. I’m in the Adirondack park for a few days with minimal internet and without my scanner making due. I hope you’re having a lovely weekend too.
Week 9 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. For todays entry I painted my sewing machine – my mother’s old cast iron white rotary, the machine I learned on. I’ve always found it beautiful – other old machines too – elegant lines- so much thought put into the aesthetics of it. I saw it’s twin at a flea market a couple years ago – regret not getting it.
Week 8 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. Sketchbook will be back to it’s regularly scheduled Saturday posting time this week – I was teaching in Philadelphia last week. I was super stretched and would have loved to blow the whole thing off but I’m glad I didn’t. Getting it done the second half of the week was a little torturous and it feels pretty awkward to share things I don’t feel good about but it’s part of the exercise and this exercise has been incredibly good for me.
Week 7 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. I had a really good time with my sketchbook this week. I painted my favorite upstate houses, I got super into it. Wouldn’t it be lovely if there was all the time in the world to spend driving around in the country looking for forlorn houses and painting their portraits. That’s my new escapist fantasy.
Week 5 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. I really struggled to find the time this week – lots going on – but I did and was always happy in that little drawing and painting part of my day. I was often miserable thinking about doing it but not once I got started and settled in to it. I don’t always, or even usually love what I make but I do try to stick with them until I feel like I’ve gotten somewhere. This truly is an exercise and it is becoming a habit.
Week 4 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. Each one of these was a complete surprise to me. They always are a surprise in some way but especially so this week. I was overwhelmed with work and each time I sat down in a little bit of a panic, with no plan, no inclination, no idea at all of where to begin, my mind racing – impatient to get back to work. And each time the little experiment slowed me down and focused and steadied me – like taking a deep breath.
Week 3 in my yearlong sketchbook practice. I’m so glad I started this – I look forward to the little part of my day devoted to making marks on paper. All sorts of things creep in – they feel like little adventures and it feels good to be spontaneous and truly experiment – to respond and let things occur to me, especially in a week where everything else I’m doing is small and precise. And a note on the 3/1 sketch – the quote is from an essay by Poet Charlotte Mew:
“The real things are happening in the forest still.”
It’s March! I love March – it always feels like a corner is being turned. And I’m two months into My Big Creative Year. Since beginning (kind of impulsively) I’ve thought a lot about what I mean by that – a big creative year – what do I want from it. The short answer is – to grow. To grow faster, to know myself better and be true to that, to be uncompromising and unapologetic, to challenge my presumptions and explore the farthest reaches of my imagination.
The more creative work I do the more creative work I do. Quantity, or maybe more accurately consistency counts. Writing and sharing these posts with you, being intentional and curious and conscious about moving forward, trying new stuff that might not work, and the daily sketchbook practice are having positive effects on all my work, on everything really, there is an energy and agility in my thinking that feels new – I’m solving problems and getting unstuck more easily. The scheduled posts and daily sketchbook are also giving my week structure and shape and definition that’s making me more productive and building some momentum.
Searching for something, reaching and experimenting in public does not always feel good – it never has and it never will, but it keeps me moving forward and the commitment and constraints force me to let go of perfection. I love this quote from Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland (I’m reading it right now and loving it- I’ll definitely talk more about it when I’m done).
Letting go of perfection, letting go of outcome and expectations and giving myself permission to just respond to things and try stuff and play feels refreshing and like an opening. The sketchbook practice puts me in the moment and focuses me – I lose myself in these little experiments. I think its important that they are small, if I had a lot of time or a bigger space to work in (the little cards I made are small 4.5 x 4.5 inches) I would feel overwhelmed.
I show up for them every day, whether I want to or not (mostly I have wanted to) and just like physical exercise – it’s not always pretty and it doesn’t need to feel good all the time for the practice to be undeniably valuable and bring growth and transformation.
Week 2 in my yearlong sketchbook practice.
Week 1 in my yearlong sketchbook practice.
I was planning to share some artist’s sketchbooks I admire today. And I still am – but as I began to put the post together the idea to make room for my own daily sketchbook practice crept up. I take notes all the time and I make lists, lots and lots of lists – sometimes that’s the first glimmer of a new project for me, a big list or pages and pages of scribbled notes, but I do not, and have not had a consistent sketchbook practice even though I think it’s an incredibly valuable thing. I’m not sure why not – scared of it I think. The books below are a couple of my favorites and there is a remarkable collection of artist sketchbooks here.
And Mia Christopher:
The closest I’ve come is the cardboard horse project – it was kind of like a sketchbook – they could be anything, I experimented, they reflect where I was in a given moment, I got ideas – so many ideas and sometimes it was painful, sometimes it was a chore and sometimes I loved it.
* I’m already too busy and usually panicked about time. It’s adding another thing to my already giant to do list.
* Daily practices – even small ones – are guaranteed to be hard sometimes.
* I love a record – a reflection of the day.
* I have a deep craving to make marks on paper
* This year – My Big Creative Year has to do with moving towards something — searching for something I need that I’m not giving myself or a place I haven’t gotten to – reaching. I have a strong sense that this small daily practice will move me in the right direction, it feels like a gift to myself, medicine.
* I am making it small, physically small, so it doesn’t scare me away. And instead of an actual sketchbook I’ve made myself a stack of 4 and 1/2 inch squares and I have a little box to file them in.
* I’m committing to one year – beginning yesterday, Sunday 2/15/2015.
* The question of sharing it – for the moment I will – I’ll post all the week’s entries here every Saturday. The promise to share is important, I need the accountability. It will probably feel embarrassing often and if it is too painful for me or seems too tedious for you I’ll create a separate page for it so that you have the option to visit or not visit rather than posting on the blog.
There are no other rules – just making marks. It doesn’t have to be fancy or intricate or detailed; I can glue stuff, scribble, splatter, draw – anything – I just need to show up and make marks on paper and I’ve got to do it every day.
Here are Sunday’s and today’s :
Check back on Saturday if you like for all seven of week 1 – and if you’d like to join me in this experiment or you already have a regular sketchbook practice you feel like sharing – let me know – I’d love to see.
