I love these things! They make painting in a sketchbook on the go so much easier. They hold a fair amount of water, are small, durable and most importantly they don't leak so they are portable. I also like giving them to my children when they paint so we don't have to worry about mess too much. I do worry about my youngest turning every set of watercolors I give her purple but that is a different issue. Nothing will top a quality brush and a cup of clean water but having a waterbrush or two around has often meant the difference between me being able to get a sketch done or not.
Failed but not a failure.
Coming off the high of completing October's #inktober Instagram daily ink drawing and sharing challenge I signed up for the daily blogging challenge #nanoblopomo as a way to improve my blogging habit. It started out pretty well but about halfway through it I started resenting the challenge and remembered doing it last year and all it accomplished was blog burnout. So I stopped and promised myself weekly blogging combined with daily drawing, painting and Instagram sharing and enjoyed the rest of the month of November. Ready for new challenges for December!
Marking time as an obsessive sketcher.
I am an anxious person. Drawing (rather obsessively) helps me channel that anxiety and remain calm (more or less). I feel time passing strongly and often painfully. I feel myself losing time and I worry. Drawing helps me remember my days and gives a record of my days. Ever since I started keeping a sketchbook I have been infinitely more engaged and happier. I recommend it to everyone.
Making my mark.
Jamaica Plain Open Studios this Weekend!
The JP Open Studios are this weekend September 20th and 21st all around the JP neighborhood that I and work in. You can find me with my work inside at the UU church by the JP monument in Central JP and some of my work will still be hanging at Hatched until the end of the month. I will be be sketching and painting, will have my woodblock prints along with a couple of carved blocks for demos throughout the weekend. I have been looking forward to this weekend for months now. There will be some fresh prints, including new collagraphs, but this is the year that I decided to teach myself watercolor and became smitten with the medium.
About six months ago I decided to teach myself watercolor. Feeling ready to go outside the sketchbook and onto good paper just in time for JP Open Studios.
Portable Art: Vacation Day Bag
My vacation day bag includes:
- my sketchbook
- camera
- iPad Mini
- stylus
- books (Die Empty and Daily Habits)
- travel sized watercolors and water brush
- pens
- colored pencils
- iPhone
- my brain
Will see how many of these items I actually use during this trip and report back. What art supplies do others bring when they travel?
Thinking about my home of Boston today while on vacation at Disney with my family. Good luck to all those running in the Boston Marathon today.
Daily Rituals for the Creative
Having some sort of daily ritual may be the most important part of the creative process. It took some time to actually figure out what works for me. With my eldest in school full time until late in the afternoon and my youngest in preschool until after lunch 4 days a week I have those four days to work. Twice a week I need to drive out to the burbs in the morning for an appointment, but I am able to bring more portable work with me and I don't lose much productive time outside the driving time. The daily ritual mostly stays intact.
Morning Rituals:
- Coffee + Morning Pages
- Blog
- Light Breakfast
- Shower
- School Dropoff
- Exercise/ stretching/walking/biking/activity
- Studio Core Hours
- Lunch/ Social Network
- Tidy
- Preschool Pickup
After the preschool pickup I am try to squeeze art or reading in whenever possible but I can't schedule it in. Some days are better than others and it is important to wake up each morning with a fresh perspective. That is where the Morning Pages become so useful. When I wake up in a funk I can often write myself out of the negativity and salvage my mood. So many days I wake up without a plan about what I am going to make and I just get going and something happens.
Saturday Share Book Review: Steal Like an Artist
I love books. Fiction is great but as am artist creative inspiration and encouragement is always appreciated. Sometimes I treat myself to buying books to add to my art studio reference library. I love reading novels on my Kindle but I just don't enjoy books like this on the screen. I like to physically flip through the pages. So I picked up a copy at a local bookstore while I was out one day. Oh how I had these books Steal like an Artist and Show Your Work by Austin Kleon when I was graduation from art school. It could have saved me a whole lot of pain and years of floundering. I wish I had this book when my children were born as a kick in the pants to keep doing my thing despite the lack of sleep and devotion to my children. But I have it now and damn straight I am going to put the good advice that is contained within it's pages to good use.
Make something today. Make something everyday. Starting can be hard but once you get going it is a lot like breathing. Share what you make and a bit of your process. Have fun and keep going. I am still drawing, painting, writing and printing waiting to figure out what the next "big idea" thing I am going to do is. I know it will somehow come from all my current tinkering and experimenting and purging my thoughts in the morning and on my blog.
