Reflections, Revelations and Resolutions

Finding My Daily Practice

January was a time of reflection for me. I guess it is with most people, trying to figure out resolutions and ways to make the new year the best that it can be. Looking back at 2018, I am so proud of myself for writing and publishing a book and for tackling the world of social media and marketing. (I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go.) What I didn't do was draw and sketch enough. I didn't create enough new work or get excited about anything except my book. It took over, I’m a little OCD that way. 

Last week I had a migraine on and off and couldn't bring myself to do the things I needed to do, such as cleaning my email, finishing my taxes and paying the bills, etc. It wasn’t a terrible one so instead of just doing nothing I changed into comfy clothes, made my favorite tea, put on a yoga sounds playlist and I went to sit at my studio desk. I pulled out all kinds of supplies, and I spent the next three hours drawing, sketching and painting. It was fantastic, the time went so fast and was very relaxing. I almost forgot what that felt like this past year.

I made my goal for 2019 to remember that feeling and make it a daily practice, like taking my vitamins. I tend to get stuck when I look at a blank piece of paper and can't think of what to make each day. So many ideas flood my brain at once and I end up doing nothing. To try and remedy this, I decided I am going to create five different sketchbooks, one for each day the week and each with a different theme. I got this idea from following other artists who post images from their "various" sketchbooks. For example, one might be quick line and shape drawings, one watercolor backgrounds, collage, old book revival pages, general doodling, etc. I love the idea of having more than one focus sketchbook as well as the idea of a specific day for each; boom, the decision is made for me. I can still change my mind, change the order or create something different that day if the urge hits me.

My past behavior of focusing on my one “holy” sketchbook, never worked for me. But if I can make this a daily practice and commit to picking up a different sketchbook each day and spending twenty minutes doing a page or two, I can be creative and not get stuck or bored doing the same thing every day. In a way, it would be like keeping an artistic day planner. 

A revelation I had while reflecting on 2018 is that I found that I have become a creative “watcher” more than a “maker”. I spend a lot of time on social media viewing other artist's work and techniques. I get super inspired and collect ideas for future projects. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, on the contrary, the internet allows me to see the visual world from all around the globe. But if not careful, it becomes a time suck and then I find myself not creating at all. Maybe I am saturated with so much that I see, that it is just too distracting. I am hoping that in 2019 I can ground myself in a daily creative practice that nourishes my soul and finds my spark again.

Creative Writing vs. Stating the Facts

Trying to Teach My Son the Difference

I recently found this piece of writing I did over ten years ago. My son was writing an English assignment for school about this amazing sunset we witnessed on a drive. His story went something along the lines of, “It was the coolest sunset I ever saw with lots of bright colors and big clouds.” (It was longer than a sentence, but you get the point.) I told him he should try to be more creative and rework it using adjectives and feelings to describe it so that someone else could imagine seeing it. He responded, “No I’m good, I like it, it’s finished.”, so I wrote this to show him what I was talking about.

"It may have been a night in January, but it didn’t feel like it one bit. We were driving down to Princeton to attend a drum circle with our son. It was a crystal clear night and the temperature was unseasonably warm. The evening’s sky became the most beautiful canvas of color and texture I had ever seen. The old masters would have been in awe. The colors of the sky were indescribable. As the sun started to go down glowing swirls of bright cream and ivory streamed through the low dark clouds. The colors began changing to soft shades of pink and orange that looked like the colors of a slightly unripe peach and the amazing clouds added large and small fluffy white forms. The linear white streaks criss-crossing the sky from airplanes looked as if the pilots had been playing tic-tac-toe. 

As the soft winds became a little stronger, the clouds started moving more intensely and the large cotton candy like puffs now had underbellies of vibrant pinks, lavenders and blues. What made the sky even more incredible was seeing it through the landscape as the sun went down. As it became darker the trees became silhouettes of thick and thin spider web meshes along the horizon. The sky turned into an electric highway of lava-like rivers streaming into and around the clouds and the colors reflected off large office building windows resembling mirrors of fire. The whole sky was so bright and vivid, even I as an artist and painter myself, could not imagine ever reproducing them on a canvas and no photograph could do them justice. 

As the sunset ended and the colors began to fade into the horizon, they transformed into electric blues and violets ranging from cerulean to ultramarine. And then, just like that, it was gone. If you walked outside at that moment, you would have had no idea what you missed, there were no traces of it left in the sky. 

I’ve seen many sunsets before in my lifetime, the ones where the actual sun going down along the horizon was the focal point. Tonight I never saw the sun at all, but the colors above us created by that molten ball of fire in the universe were the most beautiful I had ever seen in my life."

When my son finished reading my version, he was like, “Wow Mom that was awesome. It really explained what we saw in the sky.” Then as he walked upstairs he turned and said to me, “Thanks, but I’m going to leave mine alone, it’s fine.”