Whoopsie! Guess who accidently deleted all of my latest in progress photos? I guess we just have one photo today as I pick up with more of my rambling thoughts from yesterday.
Now on to the rest of the ramblies:
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The difference in feeling between “have to do” stuff and “just being” activities can be seen in all of my old sketchbooks and in the pages I’m drawing today. My sensitivity to which is which has really sharpened over time, though. In my oldest sketchbooks I can see myself learning and relearning how to recognize when my lines and shapes flow freely from a sense of being, and when they look like I’m trying to push my pencil or pen to “do” something.
In my more current sketchbook pages, I often (though not always) get right into the flowing pen/being zone so much more quickly. And my bits of drawings are more closely linked to my words and notes on those pages – and the notes have a clarity of mind and heart that reflect the fact that I’ve been working on all of this for a long time. In another decade I’ll probably look back at today’s pages and marvel at how raw and unrefined they look compared to recent work – at least I hope so.
I am at my happiest when the things that I do as part of my “work” as an artist are completely in sync with the things I do to be an aware, thoughtful, healthy minded person. So the way that plays out in today’s sketchbook page is that I do a little wellbeing check and notice that I feel like about a 7 on a 1 – 10 wellbeing scale. And then I do another little check and notice that I have a bit of a sense of tightness and a feeling of reservation – kind of a little “I want to curl up and not deal with stuff like that weird rattle in the car muffler”. And then I assign myself some drawing homework that’s designed to boost my sense of wellbeing just a dab. Today’s was “create 5 shapes that express the feeling of expansiveness” and it’s not just “try to do it 5 times”. It’s sit there and work on a shape until it feels like it has an expansive lift – and if one shape won’t go there start again and again until I can’t help but feel optimistic expansiveness in the lines.
I have the page sitting right here next to me, and just a glance over to look at these shapes brings this wonderful happy lift feeling. When these shapes eventually get reworked as part of a finished coloring drawing, I draw them again as many times as needed to make sure that my professional line work also holds the same feelings that were in my sketchpad versions. Sometimes the shapes transform quite a bit in that process and may even turn into a completely new shape – but that’s because I need these shapes to be true to their feelings. Tracing to be true to shape without having each line capture the right feeling wouldn’t work, and wouldn’t be enjoyable for me to color.
Today’s book: More Flowers For Crayons And Wide Tipped Markers
Colored with: Faber Castell Polychromos Pencils.