Inktober for October

After months of working on it here and there the Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook that I started in June and have exclusively filled at home in my art studio is full! 

Just in time for October and a new sketchbook for Inktober! I tested out my new Leuchtturm sketchbook with watercolor and it failed my tests. Making it the perfect sketchbook to fill with ink drawings. Fingers crossed!

Inktober was a lot of fun last year despite some early bumps and lack of direction, and um skill. Excited to do it again in 2015!  This year I have a theme. Stay tuned to find out what it is and if I stick with this theme. 

My weapons for Inktober 2015

March is my sketching anniversary!

A year ago in March I decided to keep a regular daily sketchbook and picked up my first set of watercolors since childhood. Things have changed a lot for me in this year and a sketchbook and some paint has always been nearby and along for the ride. I am super grateful for this adventure and looking forward to sketching more and continuing to grow my skills in the coming year. Thank you for following along. Here is some then and now. I try to only compare myself to my past not to other artists. 

One of my earliest watercolor sketches. If I could go back in time I would tell my past self to use more paint!

Thinking of spring a few days ago in Oxford.  

Plenty of paint on this paper!  

365 art challenge and thirty minute paintings

At the end of 2014 I decided that I needed to take on some sort of big year long sketch challenge. But with an international move looming and tons of change coming I didn't know exactly what type of challenge was going to work for a full year. I really liked the idea of focusing on ink and watercolor and setting a time limit but instead I simply promised myself that I would create in my sketchbook 365 days of the year and leave it at that. I am glad I started out easy on myself because early in the move I got sick and stayed sick for over three weeks. I was able to fill pages in my sketchbook during those weeks, but just barely with real struggle. Temporary housing limited space and supplies and that also limited what I made. But the boat shipment did come and after six long weeks in a new country in temporary digs we moved into our new home and my art studio was one of the first rooms I unpacked. With that everything changed. I was able to spread out and create and my creativity and energy flowed as a result. I would reward myself for unpacking rooms by giving myself uninterrupted time in my art studio. And now here I am finding myself doing 30 minute ink and watercolor paintings in my sketchbook everyday.

Did you plan any challenges for the new year? What are they and how are they going? 

Thank you 2014! Welcoming 2015 with much excitement.

Saying a fond and grateful goodbye to the year 2014 today. It was a year of finding a new artistic voice and growing my skills and confidence. It was a year of saying goodbye to a current life, city, friends and country and it was a year of me often unconsciously self-sabotaging myself. I am going to say goodbye and thank you to all the piles of good from 2014 and thank and learn from my very personal mistakes. I am ready to wrap up things here in Boston and start our adventure in Europe. Just thinking about the inspiration for my art that I am sure to discover has me super excited and ready to get started. 

Stressed and distracted

Moving across the ocean in two weeks is stressful and distracting. Who knew? I am going to miss our friends in Boston so much but at this point I just want to get it over with and get over there already. We have one more full week in our home then the movers come and pack us up and we spend part of a week in temporary housing in Boston. Then we fly out on a Friday red eye flight. The girls are due to start their new school in the UK that following Monday. Some art supplies will come with me on the airplane. Some will go on the small air shipment but most of it will go on a boat and take a month or longer to get to us along with all of our furniture. I need to choose wisely. Temporary housing is waiting for us over in the UK. We will be fine. My goal is to keep working, prepare to depart and enjoy our friends here while we still have them. Life is a party at the moment.