art journaling lately

a limited palette. a feather as a brush. painting with acorns. white and gold gel pens. my art journal as of late. a kind of meditation. letting it carry me where it will. payne's grey. astoriabraun, bordeaux. ink.

payne's grey is my spirit animal (or something)

i love payne's grey tusch and the main thing i like to sketch is naturey stuff. i watered down the ink and painted with a feather i found on the beach. bliss.

100 happy days :: day 28

we started off our morning with a little family doodle around the breakfast table. we each had a pen color and each of us had to add to it in turn. sabin drew a little animal and i drew rain clouds above it (i woke up in a contrary mood after not sleeping very well for several days). husband drew windows because he has windows on the brain. a rather good way to start the day.

sunday creativity

because i couldn't resist and it was still available 2 hours after the go-live and because i want to make a shawl--a lovely red shawl--when i finally do learn to knit.

mamba in laceweight 2-ply sophia (thank you, posh yarn for making such lovely things)


i'm reading this wonderful and very inspiring book. yesterday, i began following the exercises in it. the first one was to draw a mug, a chair, a table and a person. you should use pen. you shouldn't erase. it went pretty ok. the mug turned out best. i tried to draw husband as the person. it didn't look a thing like him, but it did look like a person. which was more than i expected, as i've always thought i couldn't really draw people. turns out i can draw people, i just can't draw them so they look like the person i'm drawing.

so today, i continued with the book. despite having a monster headache for most of the day (or maybe because of it), we went on an afternoon walk and i picked a small branch of pussy willow, which i brought home. then i sat quietly upstairs in my new space and drew it. i was quite pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out. so pleased, in fact, that i drew a few more versions of it in my art journal.

i've been struggling with the whole question of creativity and with being able to get down to it and make something, but this feels authentic and real this time and not like i'm imitating someone else's work or doing something that's not me. what a relief it is to feel that way! who imagined that i could come to that feeling through sketching? and why didn't i think of it before?