Four months and 16 cards into the year for my 52 Cards Project. Whoop whoop!
So far, I'm pleased with this little passion project. Surprisingly, it's taken 0 self discipline to complete it every week—unlike art challenges where I always seem to lose steam midway through and really have to push myself to complete.
I often wonder about that aspect of art challenges. On the one hand, art challenges are SO useful. I’ve
Read MoreI did it! I actually took one hour of my vacation in Loreto, sat myself down and in my art journal drew the lobby of this lovely hotel where we stayed that night. Then, still on vacation, I took another block of time a few days later, sat myself down and finished it with watercolor and linework. As I said last week, I have such a hard time carving out time for art while traveling so this is a huge accomplishment.
And the drawing isn’t half bad either. Ha ha.
All kidding aside, as soon as I stepped into the lobby of the Posada de Las Flores — Inn of Flowers — I knew I had to draw it! All those angles! That circular staircase to floors two and three! The water fountain! the colors! It was a great drawing challenge. I certainly didn’t get it all right — at all — but I’m pleased. My urban sketching is making progress, I think.
Read MoreIt’s week 16 of my 52 Week Cards Project and this is the first time so far that I really struggled to find a theme—AND it’s the first week that I didn’t meet my self-imposed deadline (Mondays). Oh well—I gave myself a break and wha la, it’s Tuesday and I’m done.
I found it curious that I just couldn’t find my theme. Normally at week’s end, when I think about my experiences and emotions that week, the theme quickly comes to me—in words. Then I find the visual composition to express those words, generally by brainstorming in my sketchbook with quick thumbnails until I hit on something I like.
This week, though, the words just didn’t come—and instead I found my way entirely with image.
I spent it with
Read MoreThis was one of those weeks without appointments, errands or obligations. I started every weekday outdoors exercising or hiking with friends, I spent good time in my art studio—and it’s spring. It rained twice this week, which here in California drought-land is a true blessing. All the land is bursting with new growth.
I believe in joy. I believe that Life is brief and amazing and we are here to experience as much joy as possible.
This week for my 52-card project, I thought about
Read MoreOne of the things I’m instituting in my art practice—or at least re-committing to—is a daily warm-up in my sketchbook (practice and play). The problem I’ve come up against before when I try to open with a daily warm-up is that I skip it.
The blank page looms, I don’t know what I want to do that day—so I don’t. I either have other art projects in progress or I have an idea for some final piece, and I launch into those instead.
But practice and play for no other reason than to practice and/or play is an important part of an art practice, i know that, both for building skills and discovering new ideas. Not to mention fun.
So I think I have the answer. I’m going to
Read MoreTen weeks into my 52 Cards Project! This week my card expresses all my sadness for Ukraine and all the innocents in the world who get caught up in pain and violence, war and death. So senseless. My heart bleeds.
Whenever I think of war, I think of what Eckhart Tolle says about humans in A New Earth:
Read More“The collective manifestations of the insanity that lies at the heart of the human condition constitute the greater part of human history. It is to a large extent a history of madness. If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be:
In a so many ways—personally and collectively—2020 has been crazy, sucky year, but what got me through? Basically three things: hiking and streamed workouts in my living room, reading—and especially my art practice. I sat down almost every day at my art table. I filled almost five journals with words and pictures and created more than a few drawings and paintings that filled me with joy—and make me happy still.
I thought it would be fun to bring together my very favorites of the year so here goes!
Pre lockdown, January found me fully engaged in my second art class at the Community College San Francisco, Intermediate Drawing, with the oh so talented and inspiring teacher, Diane Olivier. I had just completed Basic Drawing in the fall, and as my first experience ever taking art classes, I loved it!
graphite, 18X23” drawing paper - my hallway
graphite, 18X23” drawing paper - a favorite scarf
Pastel, 12”X16” - my first try with pastel and then the class shut down
The lockdown hit us here in March and before I knew it, my drawing class was gone, not to mention all the other things that came to a sudden halt.
Like so many of us, it took me a while to adjust and I can see now that creatively, I pretty much came to a halt too. I did not work on drawings at all. Instead I turned to my writing journal with all the unsettled and fearful feelings, filling one and half books between March and July. Interestingly, I also created several visual journal spreads in this time period that I now see as SO expressive of what I was going through. I am so glad I have these pages now! Here are a few:
March 2020 Visual journal
april 2020 visual journal
may 2020 visual journal
june visual journal 2020
If my art practice is any indication, it took me to about June/July to fully adjust and adapt to the new normal. From the beginning, I kept to a pretty tight workout schedule, shifting to streamed exercise classes in my living room and three or more days a week hiking the redwoods. Dennis and I found a comfortable daily routine around the house, 24/7. We started doing takeout dinners once a week, instituted Friday movie night and we began to venture out into outdoor spaces with other humans.
My daily art practice shifted. While before, I had instituted a pretty firm commitment to myself to “create something even if for 15 minutes”, which meant I was fitting it in between other priorities that filled my days—now I took it to the next level.
With all this uninterrupted time gifted to me, the commitment became in 2020 to spend several hours per day on my art practice. To finally work as if it was my actual work—to commit, I now see, to myself.
Here are my very favorite drawings I made in basically the second half of 2020—after I finally settled in and realized the pandemic wasn’t going to end soon.
After I realized that maybe, just maybe, the universe was giving me the nudge I needed.
I got into drawing fairy tales for a bit. I want to do more. I like these two:
Art challenges prompt my way into creating. For a couple of months I created weekly drawings for the #transmundanetuesdays challenge hosted by Carson Ellis on Instagram. These are my favorites:
But the main drawing challenge of the year for me was #Inktober, a global event now on Instagram where participants draw one drawing with ink every month in October. I completed all 31 days this year (all posted on Instagram). I love these the best:
By the time I finished Inktober I was exhausted!
Last Inktober drawing of the year
Challenges are SO GOOD for growth and output—and I really feel like I stretched into a creative place—but I needed a break after that.
I continued my daily art practice in November and December, but I didn’t share it instagram. We are ending the year in lockdown again, and in a way my creative work went underground again as it did at the beginning of lockdown.
However, this time I wasn’t processing the shock so much as leaning into greater determination to go into the next year and out of the pandemic (soon, soon!) more self- empowered.
What I didn’t quite realize at the time is that I was laying the groundwork, creatively, for larger projects that I am very excited to share in January, 2021.
But In the meantime, I can honestly say that 2020 was the suckiest of suck years in so many ways, but this year gave me the huge gift of much greater clarity and connection to my art. I know all of us are seeing the gifts that were presented to us in this year of pause, too. For me, I was given the gift of uninterrupted time to find my real work—and for that I will forever be grateful.
Where I spill my heART and share my obsessions: art journaling, mixed media, and my creative life.
