One day this summer my mom gave me a set of notebooks, one of which had blank pages. Immediately I knew I’d use it as a little “day markers” journal, à la Candace Rose Rardon. A day marker is something from your day—perhaps a receipt, business card, envelope, ticket stub, scrap of paper, etc.—to mark that day, so it doesn’t just blend in with all the rest.
I’d simply glue the item down with a glue stick, and then write the date and any other details/notes I wanted to jot down.
Here are some pages from that journal:
When I moved to Flagstaff in September, I brought along this journal as well as a glue stick, pen, and small scissors. I kept these supplies all together in a zippered pouch, which I’d pull out at least once per set of off days to record some days. (The pages for this chunk of time in Flagstaff were heavily receipts-based, so it was a fun creative exercise to keep my eyes on the lookout for non-receipt ways to remember a day.)
It’s so fun to page through and relive those days! And this journal was a lot easier for me to crack open than my writing journal—there was never resistance.
That’s what has been so lovely about the practice, I think: how quickly you can start and finish a page (under five minutes). And secondly, it’s been helpful knowing that this journal is just for me and my personal records, so early on I gave myself permission to not make it look good. (Although I’m sharing pages today, this was never my intention when I began and worked in the journal.)
This journal is now falling apart (and bursting open wider than it was ever meant to), so I got a new sketchbook over the holidays (with spiral rings!). It sat untouched for over a week on my desk, until I finally decided I could use this bigger notebook in the same way: for “day marker” pages.
I’ve played in my new sketchbook for 11 days in a row so far! My initial goal is 30 days straight, though if that melds into a 100-Day Project, I certainly wouldn’t be opposed.
The right side of January 5 (above) was a sketch for #MomentSketchers, while the left side was another quick gluing of a receipt and shopping list, like in my first journal.
For a few days I’ve been drawing out what I did, or notable happenings.
I glued an envelope onto one of my latest pages. Inside I put the note and check I’d received in the mail for my first watercolor commission, as well as a print-out of the dog I’d drawn over with pencil with my Great Aunt Lois when working on said painting. I cut apart the yellow envelope and glued parts of it onto the page.
I’m really enjoying this type of daily journaling. It’s creative, easy, and fun, and looking at old pages takes me back to those moments in time.
Do you keep any sort of art journal? What does your practice look like?
Or, if you’ve never had an art journal before, does this look like something you want to try?
I wrote two poems this fall, and haven’t moved the pen in that direction since. So one day last week I searched for poetry-writing exercises/prompts and saved a bunch of links to a folder on my bookmarks bar. This way, I wouldn’t have that hurdle the next time I’d try to write.
Finally, the other day I acted on my “10 minutes of writing poetry” to-do list item. Sitting down with the intention to write a poem will likely leave you frozen, so I sat down with the intention to do one of the prompts, that’s it. To get myself in the habit of regularly writing freely in this little notebook (from an issue of Flow), which I’ve dubbed my poetry notebook. To condition myself to be okay with writing shit on the page, so that better stuff can come later.
Although I never intended to show these pages with anyone, today I’m going to share what happened that day—as a reminder to myself of how ideas are born and why sitting to write anything for 10 minutes, no matter how “bad” it sounds, can be helpful to one’s creativity.
One that I’ve used from The Crafty Poet is where you choose a profession or worker of some kind – plumber, accountant, hairdresser, contractor, lawyer, whatever – then brainstorm a list of words associated with this job. I find nouns and verbs work best. The prompt suggests adding in some contrasting terms, which will add tension and depth later. Your title or starting point is to be “The ________________ said you need” and then you write from there, using your word list. My poem “The Mortgage Broker Asks for My Net Income from the Previous Year” in my recent book came out of this exercise.
I chose “teacher” and began to make a list of nouns, verbs, and some contrasting terms, writing whatever came to mind first:
Then on the left-hand page I wrote:
The teacher said you need to study
But I know you must also play
I continued on a new line:
Playing will teach you to share
But then I was bombarded with a bunch of other thoughts about sharing, that you’ll create and entertain yourself, too, plus all the other benefits of play. I noticed there was no rhyme scheme going on here, and I didn’t know what I wanted to say. But instead of halting and trying to write some “good” lines, I let my stream of consciousness continue:
and create and entertain yourself.
You’ll visit worlds never before seen
and
After writing “and,” my mind focused on “never before seen,” and flashed (you’ll see I never even finished the phrase) to the idea of a never-before-seen movie, a premiere. Almost instantaneously, my mind brought up the contrasting idea of painting a never-before-seen picture.
And then as if a water hydrant had cracked open, all of a sudden my pen began to spurt out a list of contrasting things to do, x or y, consume or create: scroll through memes or invent your own using a template, or even creating your own meme. To stare wistfully at a friend’s photo album from a trip to Costa Rica, or take a walk and marvel at nature’s beauties: a squirrel, a bird, a stone, a leaf.
After I had jotted those down, I turned to a fresh page and wrote this list:
Just like that, I now had the idea to write a poem that compares and contrasts different options of things to do—one which is an act of consumption and the other of creation. Its ideas of creation would hopefully inspire and prompt people to use their creativity immediately after reading.
Later I’ll go back to this list and start to make phrases, seeing what sort of structure the poem might take on.
But what’s important here is that it all began with an unrelated prompt about teaching, and allowing the pen to move. By not censoring myself and letting my pen write whatever words were coming to mind, I ended up drawing connections and now I have several ideas of possible poems to pursue!
I started with nothing, and in less than ten minutes I had ideas.
This is how it begins!
Just move the pen. This is how ideas are born.
Write anything and connections will be made, the mind will turn the soil, and with consistent practice shining down, over time, creations will bloom.
Like many of you, I consider the end of the year to be a natural opportunity to look back and realign—not some sort of finite ending to an “old” me. So I’ve been reflecting, looking back on the year, flipping through old bullet journals, thinking about what needs to be illuminated and eliminated, and even turning over some oracle cards.
A Look Back at 2017
To start, here’s an overview of where I began the year and some of the themes that kept coming up throughout.
Setting the scene, at the end of December I published my atheist coming out story, which is the first time I’d written publicly about all of those events. It was fueled by the push to tell the truth and be more vulnerable in my creations.
Then in January I was invited by Violeta Nedkova (after meeting her on Twitter in December, and later Skyping) to be an “Honorary Rebel” for her Creative Rebel Academy (site is no longer live, but the academy launched at the end of January and was three months long). Honestly, this outside validation really gave me an energy/creativity boost—to know that this woman saw me as a “creative rebel” who could help guide the community. Before I left for Madrid at the end of January, I created lots while I was still at home (my notecard story “Never Again,”Self-Permission Cards, postcard binder books, the flag patches sewing project, my first #MomentSketchers sketch). As soon as an idea came—boom, I just made it and shared it, without giving myself any time to overthink.
Then, bringing a sketchbook along on my travels helped me to slow down even more and appreciate the magic of human connection. I met several locals and experienced small, joyful moments thanks to sketching out in public or at my hostels. I listened to the Couragemakers Podcast a lot during these months, as well.
All of this led towards a gut feeling to say “yes” in April when Meg invited me to be interviewed on the Couragemakers Podcast and when I saw the call for artist submissions from my town’s newspaper for their public art project “Trains on Main.” Even though both felt a bit scary, they were exciting stretches that I knew deep down I had to try.
Also, both of these events ended up being great ways to reflect and incorporate lessons I’d learned so far that year. The podcast required me to respond on the spot—something I’m not used to doing as a writer, but which provided insightful moments when I went back and listened (and re-listened!) to the episode—and the train allowed me to bring together and express (and share publicly!) many of the thoughts I’d been having as of late about human connection, social media, vulnerability, and unplugging.
The rest of the summer allowed for calm days reading lots from the library and growing my first garden. Highlights were volunteering as counselor at Camp Quest—something that’s been on my “life list” for years and years, and which was incredibly fun and fulfilling—and giving a talk about the Camino de Santiago at my local library. Camp Quest is incredibly accepting of all people from all backgrounds/lifestyles/dietary choices/sexualities/interests/etc., thus it was liberating to be around people who were so bravely themselves.
Throughout August I worked with Meg Kissack (highly recommend!) via her “Get Shit Done” encouragement/accountability experience to create this very site. That project is another which allowed for much reflection—looking back at who I’ve been and trying to articulate who I was at that moment in the present. (And that was just my About Me page!)
Although that project kept me creating and excitedly working towards something, my lowest point of the year fell during that month as well. I felt ready to move on to somewhere/something new (out-of-state seasonal work is what I was looking for), but was overwhelmed by the options. There was a period of days where I hardly left my room and would spend hours in the evening doing internet searches of jobs and potential places to live, feeling lonely and mildly depressed.
It was ACE which got me out of that rut, and within less than two weeks’ time I went from feeling sad, lost, and hopeless in my bed at my parents’ home to living in Flagstaff, AZ with an exciting new community/friends and work life. The people/environment at ACE has only helped me to become more of myself, and even more openly. I’ve been learning how important it is to play and laugh, as well as how good it feels to unplug and hang out in nature.
Aside from the mild depression in August, other challenges this year were losing two prior-good friends (by “breaking up with them” in my mind, to change expectations so I wouldn’t be disappointed at our distance) and mourning that loss of friendship; losing (to suicide) a cousin in May; and being disconnected from a family member.
For over half of the year this family member needed distance from all of us, which was more difficult than I let myself feel. It kind of all exploded out earlier this month when we finally saw each other; I’d been distracting myself from feeling too sad about all of it while in ACE, but the feelings were there, underneath. And now we’re reconnecting, though it’s been prompted by significant health issues with their partner (I actually just pushed my return flight to AZ back two weeks so I can help be caretaker), so there’s a lot still being worked through at this rocky point in time.
Overall, I’ve really improved listening to my hut (hut = heart + gut, à la Alexandra Franzen) and am settling into myself. I look inwards for wisdom/answers/direction rather than doubting myself or turning to outside resources/”experts.” I’m much more comfortable and confident being my true self in a society which doesn’t necessarily share my values/lifestyle/choices. I can see the growth towards my compass directions and I’m excited to continue moving in these ways!
I tracked my computer/internet usage with RescueTime during the year, which you can see in the year’s Resolutions Checkpoint posts on the old blog. My lowest-usage months were the three months I was backpacking in Europe and the three months since I joined ACE. (We work for 8-9 days at a time, camping, so I’m completely off of phone/computer during those times). I was hardly ever on my laptop during our off days, too—as evidenced by the silent blog over here—but it feels really good to be blogging again these past few weeks, so I’ll make an effort to continue doing so even when I’m back on the 8-on/6-off hitch schedule.
Twitter Hiatus
Twitter is a platform I’ve enjoyed for many years. Since getting a smartphone, I’ve never had the Twitter app—I only use it on my laptop from a browser. That means to tweet a picture, for example, I’d have to email the photo to myself from my phone, open it on the computer, download it there, and then upload it to Twitter from my computer. It sounds cumbersome, but that’s basically the point. I was much more intentional about sharing photos because there were a few extra hurdles.
Since it’s not on my phone, and since my laptop basically lived in a bin under the bunkbeds once I moved to Flagstaff, I was rarely on Twitter this fall. In October, someone tweeted at me that they’d read my post about leaving Facebook and had been thinking about leaving Twitter. I encouraged her to just do a two-week hiatus and see how she felt. She emailed three weeks later in November saying that she hadn’t been back on, and eventually deactivated her account. I let this soak in and about a week later I thought, why don’t I go on a Twitter hiatus, too? I’d hardly been using the platform lately, and I knew it was a distraction for the mind. I was curious what it would feel like to not have that distraction, plus I’d become more and more aware of how I’m spending my life minutes.
So, I signed out of my account that day, November 24, and haven’t logged back in since! Although Twitter has been excellent for connecting with new friends/opportunities online in the past (i.e. Meg Kissack/Couragemakers! Violeta Nedkova/Creative Rebel Academy!), asking quick questions, receiving poetry prompts, or sending bits of encouragement, I’m going to remain logged out of Twitter as we enter the new year and see how it goes.
Instagram
I think one reason it was probably so simple to leave Twitter in November was because I’d recently joined Instagram in September. My prime motivation for joining the platform was to interact with the #MomentSketchers community. While in ACE I was happy with my usage—but being home in December with wi-fi all day has me checking the app like crazy. Ah! I have notifications turned off, of course, but being so accessible (it’s three swipes to the right, hidden in an “Other” folder) has me checking multiple times a day. There’s simply no need to do so!
One idea which would help me reduce logins is if I could delete the app from my phone and only use Instagram from my laptop, as I did with Twitter. However, you cannot post to Instagram from a desktop web browser (why!?), so the only way to post is through the phone app. (I’ve looked at a few workarounds but haven’t found a way to post from the website, yet. I use Opera, by the way. If anyone’s found an Opera workaround, I’m all ears!)
Aside from number of log-ins, I like how I’m using the app. I’m choosey about who I follow because I want to control what I see in my feed. It’s primarily sketches and art journal pages. I’m not really interested to be distracted with other people’s day-to-day lives, so I don’t put those in my stream. Following on Instagram is nothing personal to me, it’s simply the content I wish to be consuming when I’m there.
The “Discover” area (which I’ve recently discovered, hah) has been fun, because there are cool calligraphy/painting videos which get me excited to create. So, I’m still working on this one. I know usage will be fine again once I’m back in ACE, but I won’t be living on an 8/6 schedule forever. I will experiment with different ideas to figure out how I can use the platform more mindfully.
Quick Lists: What Went Well / What I Released
These next two sections are mostly for myself for future reference, so I’m leaving out lots of explanation.
What Went Well in 2017
The Writing Sit in June — I took on a 30-day challenge of “sitting” each day for 30 minutes in front of my computer to write. I could write in my journal with a pen if I didn’t feel like working on a post, but I had to show up and do my time. This worked well!
PT
Camp Quest
Playing, being outside, and unplugging in ACE
Growing a garden – (Actually starting it when I could have easily not)
Trains on Main
Couragemakers Podcast
Waunakee Tribune interview
Travel sketching while in Europe / Moment Sketching
Yup, we’re not even to last year’s resolutions yet—but here they are! My three resolutions of the year were originally (1) leap, (2) stretch/yoga/pilates, and (3) unplug/be outside, as well as to continue living my values, creating, and meditating. Here’s where I stand on each of those:
Leap
A refresher for those unfamiliar with the term, the idea of “leaps” came from Tara Mohr’s book “Playing Big.” A leap is a decision + action that puts you in contact with those you want to reach/influence (aka involves sharing; is not solitary). It’s a simple action that can be described in a short phrase and completed within 1-2 weeks. It gets your adrenaline flowing and has a question at its center (something you can learn by doing). It gets you playing bigger now, not when you feel “ready.”
My leaps were:
April: Put up flyers at university in Montpellier (and made video advertising the editing service)
April: Submitted a proposal to be an artist for the Trains on Main public art project in town
May: Was a guest on Meg’s Couragemakers podcast
July: Contacted my local library about speaking and gave a presentation about my experiences on the Camino a month later
August: Applied to ACE/AmeriCorps
August: Launched this site
It didn’t feel at all like “The Year of Leaps” I’d originally intended to have (as I mentioned earlier, it was more like the year of becoming myself and trusting my inner wisdom), but I might not have done half of these if the idea of leaps hadn’t been on my radar. So I’m happy with the small leaps I did make, even though I wasn’t ever at or near any “max” capacity of comfort zone pushing, if that makes sense.
Stretch/yoga/pilates
This one has been on my resolutions list (either main three or in the “tidbits” section) for several years now, and I finally made it a priority this year! Writing a reflection on 12 years post-spinal fusion in June definitely brought the topic to the front of my mind. So much so, that I made an appointment with a PT (especially since I was on BadgerCare). The appointment was successful—I asked questions and learned, I got specific exercises/stretches to do, and I did them nearly daily for the next two months. (Here’s where I recorded the start of this journey to have photo evidence for progress shots and whatnot.)
During that time I also bought a set of adapted yoga videos, made specifically for people with spinal fusions. These are excellent and I’m still using them today, however they require wi-fi so I haven’t used them on hitch nor much at the apartments in Flagstaff (we had several weeks without internet off and on throughout my first two months). My stretching also fell from my focus these past three months in Arizona, but I’ll turn it around.
Unplug, be outside
I was outside a lot this year—thanks to my personal sabbatical (choosing to be unemployed) and then serving on ACE’s conservation corps in the fall. We’ve already touched on social media usage above, so that’s all I’ll say about unplugging. Yay!
Continue Living My Values, Creating, Meditating
These were three other tidbits I’d thrown in with last year’s resolutions.
Living my values — I kept my personal compass at the top of my mind throughout the year and recorded small moments when I used it to take action in an everyday situation. I’m planning to put together some sort of booklet/PDF with a collection of these stories and examples, to show how the compass guided my daily actions this year.
Creating — I’m happy with the role that Creating has played in my year, and feel the energy only mounting to create more in 2018.
Meditating — Looking back at my Calm app, the first part of the year I was meditating about half of the month, then I was on a roll for every day in May, June, and nearly all of July. It’s September (my move to AZ) when things dropped way down to 3 days, 8 days in October, 4 days in November, and back up to 15 days being home most of December. Part of the reason is that there’s no wi-fi out on hitch, though I could have always done a silent 10-minute meditation, or used an offline meditation. I’ll work on this in 2018!
Looking Ahead to 2018
What Needs to be Illuminated* in 2018
*Hat tip to Havi Brooks at The Fluent Self for this wording/question.
I did a quick mind map in my journal of what I wanted to see more of this year (though I prefer the term I saw Havi use in a blog post a few days after: “illuminated”), and here’s what I wrote that day:
Lindy hop / dance
Regular writing (read: Natalie Goldberg, Julia Cameron, get a journal I like)
Outdoors
Kids/Teaching?
Morning meditation
Mindful Instagram usage
Writing poetry
Big creations quarterly
Sketching (Weekly? X portraits?)
Music (ukulele, guitar, singing, songwriting?)
Creating (zine, turn off wi-fi)
Leaps (postcard painting, lead a workshop)
[Side note: Seeing it here above, I just realized I haven’t shared yet that I bought a ukulele two weeks ago! A gift to myself—yeah!]
Oracle Card Reading
Then, back in December I was hanging out with my friends Emily and Liz, and we all ended up working on lists of 18 things we want to do in 2018. When we got stuck, Emily suggested we use her deck of these Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards. How fun! I’d learned the month before that a friend’s mother reads tarot cards, plus I knew Violeta Nedkova offered a tarot card reading as one of her services—so anyway, the idea had been on my mind for months and I was excited to have an easy opening to play with them!
So the three of us took turns using the cards to guide questions, and eventually we each made a map of the year (one card for each month, plus an overarching card). Here’s my year:
My guiding card for 2018 was “Sensitivity,” which you can read more about here. (There are longer descriptions in a booklet that comes along with the deck.)
My first thought upon flipping that card over was my increasing awareness about the amount of waste we produce, so I took it as an affirmation that continuing to learn about the zero-waste lifestyle would be a great focus for the year.
It was uncanny, though, because not two days later my friend Cathleen sent me an email which included the phrase “You truly are becoming an aware and sensitive being…” Aha! Sensitive! There it is! I thought.
For fun I later asked the cards what I’ll do after ACE, come April, and I got these gems:
Receptivity, True Love, Unconditional Love, Endings and Beginnings
In sum, if you’ve ever been curious to try oracle cards, I really enjoyed this particular deck. All of the possible cards are positive traits, but it’s interesting how seeing a word or phrase (when asking a question or thinking about a situation) can help you view things through a new lens and perhaps leave you with new connections/insights.
18 Things I Want to Do in 2018
Here’s the list I came up with after finishing this exercise:
Publish a PDF of my IBS story
Put together a poetry collection
Use social media/phone intentionally — develop framework and evaluate monthly
Explore counseling / life coaching (as possible paths)
And with the “illumination”/”18 things” lists as warm-ups, I’ve narrowed down the focus (somewhat) for the year (or rather, until I reevaluate and realign!):
Zero-Waste Lifestyle
I do want to continue learning about the zero-waste lifestyle and slowly implement changes to reduce the amount of waste I’m producing each day. I’ll do my best to learn in public, so others might have the chance to learn / make small changes as well.
Yoga/Pilates/Hamstring Stretching
As I touched on before, I had a hard time keeping this one into focus with my 8-days-on/6-days-off hitch schedule, but I’ll be back to Arizona soon for three more months of it, so I need to come up with a plan to make stretching/yoga more frequent than it has been this fall.
Making the Magazine Playground Art Journal in August was fun, but I didn’t bring it along with me to Flagstaff. The other day I purchased Amy Maricle’s “Starting Your Art Journal” ebook and have been playing around while I’m still at home (and thus have many more materials available—I only bring my tiny watercolor journal to Flagstaff, for sketches). As I wrote about earlier, I’ve also been curating my Instagram feed to show many art journals. So anyway, I’m interested in developing a regular art journaling practice this year!
Create One Bigger “Thing” Quarterly
Somewhere on her blog I saw Candace write about using this quarterly framework (to make her free “Travel Sketching 101” and “Art Journaling 101” resources, for example), and it really resonated with me. So the goal then is to create four bigger works this year, one every three months.
The first one I want to make is a PDF about my decade-long journey with IBS (now that it’s over). It felt good to capture my atheist-coming-out journey and my spinal fusion story last year, so I want to get this one written before it becomes any more distant. I’d plan to share the PDF freely from this site, in case it should help a fellow IBS-sufferer. (AprilUpdate: I did it! The PDF is here!)
I’ve mentioned two other “bigger things” in this post: a poetry collection and a collection of stories about navigating the year with my personal compass. So those are on my horizon as well! I’ll have to develop a writing habit on my off days in Flagstaff, to chip away at it bit by bit (like when I finally finished that Korean food guide in 2016).
Bits and Pieces
Lastly, a few bits I want to capture here, to revisit on my monthly resolution checkpoints:
Continue to use compass/values to guide everyday moments and monthly reflections
Write in poetry notebooks weekly — If I ever want to publish a collection, I need to have poems to pick from first! I’ll ease myself in with some poetry exercises to get myself regularly playing with words and phrases. (It’s hard to even open the notebook if your endeavor is to write a good poem!)
Monthly/weekly screen sabbaticals — It was either Emily or Liz who mentioned this idea while we were thinking about the new year. I love it! Maybe I’ll have a “social media/screen time” section of each monthly checkpoint, to make sure I’m periodically evaluating and visiting the topic.
100-day project — I really liked doing my 100 Days of Mind Mapping project the end of 2016/start of 2017. I learned so much from it! So I’d like to do another 100-day project this year. (Ideas?)
Past Years’ Resolutions
Finally, if anyone’s curious, here are my year-end reflections and New Year’s resolutions over the past five years:
I reread those posts before I put this one together, and as always, I gained some new insight by looking back that far. I had dubbed 2015 the “Year of Creating,” for example, but I feel like 2017 is when I really created.
In 2014, one of my three resolutions was “I have been struggling with a digestive disorder for over nine years, and this is the year I’ll conquer it.” Again in 2015, a resolution was “Eat a whole foods, plant-based diet; improve digestion.” At the start of 2016, I reflected “Unfortunately I can’t really say that my digestion improved at all during the past year. I should give it more focus this year, but have lost that hopeful “this is the year!” I had back in 2014. And again in 2015.” And yet, eight months later was when it all started to turn around. And 2017 was my year without IBS issues. (Yeah!) This is also the year I went from a primarily plants-based diet to a primarily vegan diet (I’d been eating dairy-free for years, but cut out meat/eggs at the end of July. I still eat honey and do not like to give myself the label “vegan,” though. This is a post for another day, though.)
Here’s one more: In 2015 I wanted to “Develop a daily stretching routine/habit.” In 2016, part of my “Tidbits” section was “See doctors in France about my IBS and back” and “Develop daily stretching/yoga habit.” But it wasn’t until 2017 when I finally saw a PT and began developing a daily stretching/yoga habit. Maybe there’s a two-year lag on these focuses or something!
Regardless, by bringing these desires into focus, I am slowly making my way towards them, as evidenced in the past five years of year-end reflections.
And so, once again, I’m adjusting the focus at this time of year, while taking stock of all of the growth I’ve experienced over the past twelve months.
Okay, dear friends, the space below is all yours—and I would love to hear from you!
Do you do any sort of reflection at the end of the year? If so, what does your reflection look like? And what did you notice this year?
What would you like to illuminate/eliminate in 2018?
Have any recommendations to help with my resolutions?
And anything else you’d like to share/comment on/question, the space below is always available.
Five years back I was doing a “year in photos” post (2012 // 2013) in addition to my year in books. Since 2017 was my first full year of sketching, I thought I’d bring them all together and look back on the year through the lens of my sketchbook rather than my camera.
January
Above is my first sketch with Moment Sketchers, watching “Parenthood” on Netflix while sick in bed.
While waiting for my flight to Madrid in O’hare, backpack and personal compass in hand, I decided to do my first “out in public” sketch of the trip right there at the gate. I went to a nearby coffee shop and asked for a paper cup, then filled it up at a drinking fountain. I ended up using this very cup for water while painting throughout the following three months!
One day during my week-long Madrid visit I had a lunch and “blue wine” by myself at this restaurant, sketching the whole time I was there and finishing the painting later at the apartment.
This is a card I painted for a friend at Puerta de Alcalá—one of my favorite landmarks in Madrid. It’ll be fun to go back in the future and sketch it again, now that I have a full year under my belt.
I want to point out that above (and below too, actually—hah!) is an example of one of the sketches in my journal that I strongly dislike—it’s just displeasing for me to look at. That said, I enjoyed the afternoon I sat out on the balcony sketching this scene, which is why I’m sketching in the first place. To slow down and appreciate my surroundings and their corresponding moments, while slowly developing a new skill. Later on I’ll point out a few that I’m particularly pleased/proud of how they turned out, though the intention is always to enjoy the time spent playing with my watercolors.
Above is another sketch I really don’t like to look at—but I can still remember that afternoon and the wander walking which brought me to this grassy side of the river. Plus, it’s the action of painting “messes” like these that moved me an inch further along towards “better looking” sketches. The only way out is through. To get better at something, you have to practice where you are now and keep going, even if your results aren’t pleasing to your eye. The act of sketching this scene still gave me experience looking at something and attempting to capture it in pen and watercolor. And it’s the accumulation of such experiences which helped me to paint some sketches I’m particularly proud of later on in the year.
Inspired by paintings in a watercolor journal I’d seen in a gift shop, I tried a new style in the sketch above, skipping the pencil and pen.
The above sketch is one I’m particularly fond of—both because I’m pleased with the result, and also because while sketching it I met a street poet who then introduced me to some of his friends at a nearby café: Urbana Cafe.
One of my first days back—another Moment Sketchers weekend—allowed me to sketch at Parc du Peyrou, the very first place I’d sketched the day I bought my watercolors the previous fall. How fun to look back and compare!
April
This little sketch above is meaningful to me because it represents an inner shift that had taken place over the past few months, putting my creative pursuits first. That day Damien had to work on his motorcycle (or something), so I decided to take a walk in the nearby garrigue and paint. Later on I reflected that when we’d been together the previous year, I never went on a walk by myself to the beautiful nearby garrigue when we were at his parents’ home. Yet here we were with only a week together this visit, and I was happy spending my afternoon there painting and he was happy to bricoler. Often it’s going back to familiar places (home) and unconsciously breaking from old routines which shows me just how much things have changed underneath the surface.
I’m also proud of the above Pooh watercolor painting, made at the request of Damien’s mother for the nursery she runs out of her home. It was a moment where I could feel I was stretching myself by saying “yes”—stepping into uncharted territories: huge canvas, characters I hadn’t drawn before, knowing it would be on display—but saying “yes” was notably easier this time. (By this point I’d said “yes” to Giovanni in Florence when she’d asked me to paint her, sketched in public every place I’d visited, and continued to nurture a growth mindset when it came to painting. All of this came into play when I stepped up to the challenge and viewed Damien’s mother’s request as an invitation to try something on the border of my comfort zone.)
The very day she asked me about it, Damien and I took the tram into Montpellier to buy a big sheet of watercolor paper at an art shop and I ended up finishing the whole thing by nightfall. To go from “I’m not sure if I can do this” to “I did this!” in such a short timeframe—thanks to taking action—was quite powerful.
May
Once back in Wisconsin at the end of April, much of my time was spent working on the Trains on Main public art project, but May’s Moment Sketchers weekend got me out painting at a nearby park.
June
As you can see, it took the June Moment Sketchers weekend to break my month-long non-sketching streak. Thank you, Moment Sketchers community! Above you can see part of my garden, which was a defining element of my summer.
On a trip to Wausau to visit my great aunt Lois, she pulled out her chalks one night and gave my sister and I an art lesson. (Lois is an amazing oil painter and all-around artist.) Above is the fox I drew—another creation I’m proud of!
July
Painting my friend Chad’s niece (above) is when I created my 100 Portraits project—though again, it was a collection of moments (painting myself way back in January, saying “yes” to Giovanni’s portrait, etc.) which got the idea into my mind and propelled me to begin.
August
I made the above painting while putting together this site, specifically my Values page. It was quite impromptu—I just had the itch and put brush to paper—so I’m glad that I simply began creating before I had time to overthink anything, and I’m also pleased with the creation.
Here we go, above is another sketch I’m particularly not fond of, but once again, it brings to mind memories of sitting in the sun that day, soaking up live music, and browsing the art stands.
I worked on this desert sketch at a bar while friends gathered there to watch a football game. I don’t like football but I wanted to socialize, so this was a no-brainer for me. Especially after bringing my tiny watercolor kit everywhere with me since January, I didn’t think twice about painting during the game.
October
The two portraits above, Orion and Charlie, are two I’m quite pleased with. They both turned out better than I expected (based on my past work and what each of these looked like at different points throughout the process), so that’s always a good feeling!
November
This Grand Canyon sketch fell on the “quick” side for me, since I started it in my tent one night (headlight on) with watercolors working from a picture, rather than sitting on site for 3-4 hours and beginning first with pencil and pen as I usually do. So I was surprised to receive comments on Instagram from the Moment Sketchers community with such high praise for this one. It’s interesting how your view of something as the creator can be quite different from how others view it; I’m open to it all.
December
I love this girl so much, but after I shared the portrait some family joked that she looked like an old woman. She’s 19 years old! (And cute!) I wondered aloud for a moment if I should take it off Instagram, not wanting to hurt her feelings or something with a less-than-stellar portrait.
But then my growth mindset regained control. (Phew.)
Painting this one was excellent practice. I learned to take more time getting the locations of facial features correct in pencil before jumping to pen (notably the eyes—they should be lower) and I enjoyed feeling gratitude towards Hanna Rose while painting her. And although I’m not over the moon with the final result, it’s loads better than I thought it would be (again, based on what it looked like during some earlier in-progress moments), so I’m proud of what I transformed it into. Finally, this is portrait #12/100! The twelfth watercolor portrait I’ve ever painted. Ever! So looking at it from that perspective, I have no reason to be anything but proud of this!
As if to prove that point (that the practice is helping), I was really satisfied with my next portrait of Colin.
At a dinner party in December, a friend asked if I would do a watercolor of his dog—my first commissioned piece, if you will. This was my first attempt, but I’m in the process of painting a second. My great aunt Lois helped me see that the right eye is in the wrong place, which is what throws it off. We spent the night before New Year’s Eve sketching this dog in pencil at her kitchen table, so that’ll be one of my first paintings of the new year.
Sketching has certainly been an integral part of this year, and I’m looking forward to painting even more in 2018!
What was integral to your year? Have you done any sketching/creating lately?
