Knowing Yourself

Knowing Yourself

Taking on a personal challenge or beginning a new habit can exciting. Just think of the possibilities! The change! And then, old habits show up. One thing that can help with learning that new skill or practicing the new habit is to be aware of what you already do. Be willing to have some stumbling on the learning path.

I've had more free time recently because I finished up my Amsterdam Dailies. One thing I've been wanting to do is to pare down my collection of chocolate bar wrappers. I collect them so I can draw them. The pile is a bit out of control though. I like to be fairly tidy, so I came up with a mini art and house-cleaning challenge for myself.

For one week, I will work on one wrapper a day, limit my time to about 30 minutes and see if I could get the essence of the wrapper design down on the page. One session per wrapper and the end of it, the wrapper goes out.

At the end of this mini-challenge week I wanted to have seven drawings done and have the pile of my wrappers be seven less. Repeat the week challenge as necessary over time.

Last night was my fifth drawing and my fifth wrapper. So far so good. Except that I went on auto-pilot. I enjoyed my drawing. I loved the wonky lettering. The colors were wonderful. The shapes not very complicated. And when the timer went off, I was not done.

Figuring out how to draw and color a complete picture in a short period of time is a skill. What a challenge!

If time is not an issue, I’m good at paying attention to details and rendering fairly accurately. For my mini challenge though, I have to experiment and try new things. I need to mix things up. Maybe I use fewer colors, use only pen, skip some details, work on a smaller piece or only a part, try mostly paint and little ink or pencil, use pencil instead of paint, or something else entirely.

Sharing this story is not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t continue to do the things that you enjoy and are good at, or that you need to beat yourself up if the new skill isn't smooth from the start (please don't). Rather, it’s being aware of how you usually approach things and figure out what parts of what you usually do will work and what new strategies to try out. Keep at it and be gentle with yourself.

What’s a challenge or habit you’ve taken on recently? What are you learning?

100 Days of Drawing Daily

Day 100. Progress on drawing Westerkerk in Amsterdam.

Today is the 100th day I’ve been working on my Drawing Amsterdam Dailies! I’m very pleased with myself to have done this. To celebrate, I’ve made a video with all 100 days of progress:

https://youtu.be/ItOoUG-008E

There’s a lot that can be accomplished by repeatedly showing up, day by day, little by little.

I challenged myself to draw for at least 30 minutes a day using photographs I took on a trip to Amsterdam last year with the additional goal to try to use something from every photo. I’ve been mostly successful with using every picture, but some have been more challenging to figure out how to include. Those few I’ve skipped over I’m keeping in the back of my mind to perhaps use later.

I plan to keep on showing up daily with this but if I miss a day, it won’t be the end of the world. I’ve really been enjoying this and seeing the drawings and spreads develop. I’ve spent a lot of time drawing but haven’t gotten very far geographically from where I started. The last drawing at Westerkerk is about a 20 minute walk from Amsterdam’s Central Station where I started from on Day 1. I like to look at details. :-)

Have you ever worked on a series or creative project and deliberately showed up daily for it? What kind of project was it?

Music in the video is Gypsy Caravan by Vendla.

Little by little

October seems so long ago, doesn’t it? I thought I’d share with you how my monthly project of drawing Amsterdam went and what can happen drip by drip, day by day. Consistently showing up adds up to a lot of progress. I have no immediate plans with what I’ll do with my travel journal aside from enjoying it. It might be something to try on-demand publishing with. I do know, however, that I will offer a workshop on drawing architecture in the spring as part of my monthly Sketchbook Sampler series.

1st spread from #inktober2020, Days 1-6. These are mainly train station pictures with a fare card and a random person I spotted headed in the right direction.

2nd spread for #inktober2020, Days 7-15. I love all the detail and deliberate ornamentation on all these things. Fun to look at and fun to draw.

3rd spread for #inktober2020, Days 16-25. This was my first glimpse of a canal as well as some of the narrow houses that Amsterdam is known for.

Start of the 4th spread for #inktober2020, Days 26-31. I’ve always loved doors and windows and bits of art that I come across. Signs with cats on them also capture my interest!

I really enjoyed this daily dive into drawing Amsterdam, so for the immediate future I plan to continue drawing it daily. I am enjoying all these complicated, fiddle-y buildings as well as the challenge as to what to draw from each picture.

Related to showing up daily, check out the newly published book, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin. The book is about having and keeping a creative practice as professionals. A certain part of the material comes from observations from the first running of The Creative’s Workshop, February – July this past year. I was part of that group of 400 plus self-described creatives. We were a talkative and productive bunch. The organizers said we created over 50,000 posts during that time! There have been books written and published, record deals made, podcasts recorded, blogs started, communities started and grown. I highly recommend the workshop and think the book will be quite interesting.

If you get the book, let me know if you spot me in the inside cover.  

What do you work on bit by bit? Are you able to do it daily?

The Start of New Things Isn't Always Pretty

I had an idea for a new project last week. I was very excited about it. I’ve been trying to figure out what I could do with some narrow strips of leftover jeans fabric. They're big enough to use some how but not big enough to use pieced together (the material is too thick to have too many seams close together). I thought that maybe I can piece the jeans material with flannel since the weight of the two fabrics is closer than quilting cotton would be with the jeans.

I had the brilliant idea and for a few days happily treated that as enough. I planned to start doing something with my great idea but instead procrastinated by cleaning off my sewing area and worked on other projects while “cleaning.” I did that for four or five days because I didn’t know how I was actually going to do what was in my head. I was procrastinating because I didn’t want to be disappointed.

Today, I finally touched my jeans strips. I found some leftover flannel strips that seem like they’ll work with the jeans. I made a rough sketch of a pillow front that I’m thinking of and tried very hard to get in the mindset of just playing and seeing what would happen when I started sewing jeans and flannel together. Unfortunately, I’m so NOT impressed with what has come together so far.

The creative process isn’t always smooth and doesn’t always work. I won’t get better ideas based on experience unless I actually start working with my materials. I have an idea of what to do next which makes me happy. I’ll know more whether I like how the project’s going after this next step. If the idea of using jeans and flannel this way doesn’t work, it’s not a big deal. Both are scrap fabrics that I’m trying to repurpose rather than toss. Experimenting with a new idea with them is a good thing to try.

Have you ever had a great idea and then worked through the challenges to make it come to life?

Art as a Distraction

I spent too much time yesterday looking at the news which aside from the way it’s described to be to attract more attention and because of real events, was just generally and wholly dreadful and depressing.

What to do? I pulled out a pen and ink drawing I am working on. It’s an MRI of my left foot that was recently done. When I saw in the doctor’s office, I immediately thought what a great thing to try to draw! Yes, I like bits of medical illustration. I like learning the way the foot is put together. I’m curious too what the big black circle is on the picture too.

I’m not done with it, but I am enjoying getting caught up in the process. I also like the challenge of how to get darks and lights down using only a black pen. Lots of stippling.

I did my drawing. I was able to distract myself and get caught up in lines and marks to get myself out of the funk I had been in. No more news for a while.

MRI and ink drawing of my foot

Take a Trip with Me to see Where I Get Ideas to Draw

Today I want to share a bit of how my mind wanders and gets inspiration from the things I come across. I took a mental trip to Asia.

Korean roof tile , 700-800 AD

This morning I was reading in A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor. Normally it’s a bit of a dry read. I’ve been trying to spend 10 minutes a day reading my way through it as it’s been a book that’s been sitting by my bed waiting for years to be read. The object I read about today was a Korean clay roof tile from 700-800 AD. That sounded rather ordinary, but then I turned the page and saw a lovely detailed and ornamental object that would have been stunning to see in multiples on roof tops. What a surprise! See link to the BBC episode. I immediately started thinking about how would I draw that. Lots of stippling - one of my favorite things - came to mind. So that tile from the past is now on my to-draw list.

Dancheong painted patterns in Korea

I then moved in time to slightly more recent Korea because another thing which is on my want-to-draw list are dancheong. These are decorative colorings in green, yellow, white, blue and red that I’ve seen on older wooden buildings and temples. I love patterns and these are repetitive but not exactly. I don’t know how to sit down and draw one so would like to spend some time with them to figure them out. If I spent long enough on it, I could eventually become a dancheongjang, an artisan who paints dancheong. It’s good to have goals!

My final mental destination today ended up in Japan on the islands of Okinawa. When my son went off to his first year in college this past fall, I came across a subscription service called Bokksu that sends snacks from Japan. Every month he would get a bright orange box filled with snacks designed with some particular theme.

Because of the coronavirus and the pandemic, when he came home early, I had the Bokksu subscription continued but mailed to my house. He was happy to share with me and I have been delighted! I lived in Japan for three years in the 1990’s and have lots of memories from that time. Japanese snacks are so interesting and sometimes so strange to Western tastes. I enjoy both trying them out, but also, and more importantly, I enjoy drawing the snacks and their packaging.

This month’s box was treats from Okinawa. I’ve had an empty package sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks, so that is what won out from my mental world inspirations. I spent about 30 minutes working on the inking of the box and one bag of rice crackers and then another 30 minutes adding some watercolor to it. There are lots more treats to add and taste!

100 Days of Being Creative

For the past 100 days, since February 9th, I have been part of The Creative's Workshop on Akimbo where all participates were challenged to show up daily with something they've worked on, created or thought about. There were days when I didn’t really want to do anything but I showed up so I wouldn’t break my streak.

The Creative’s Workshop has been a great course. Like many things, the more you put in, the more you’ll get out. Creating a creative practice is good, but doing this along side a community of hundreds of like minded people was really the highlight of the workshop for me. Showing up with what I did and then reading about what other people were doing was where it made a difference. People commented on my posts and asked questions to get me to dig deeper. I read about their thought process and what inspired them and what was holding them back. It has been an amazing experience and I highly recommend this workshop.

All that said, here's a record of my hundred days of my creative practice.

I finished 42 drawings and 2 sketchbooks, and made 30 videos during these 100 days. Wow!

Enjoy!

The music is Saturday Coffee by William Claeson

Let me know what workshops you have taken that you were really impressed by and that made a difference for you. I’m always on the look out to learn more.