This week in my art practice

My art practice has a weekly rhythm. I begin by making a list of creative intentions on Mondays in my journal. I whittle away at the list all week. Then the next Monday, after review of the previous week I create a new list and on it goes.

Now, I’m taking this ritual online by sharing my list and process on the blog each week.

ALSO, because someone MIGHT ask why I’m doing any of this at all, (and that someone is usually me when I lose a sense of creative direction (often)), I’m including my why for each item. Just a reminder to myself more than anything, but also, maybe something on my list will resonate with yours.

My creative intentions list for this week—May 17-23

1. Daily sketches in my sketchbook

   I’ve had an ongoing daily sketchbook practice for some time now, but recently August Wren inspired me to turn that practice into a daily quick and imperfect drawing in a dedicated daily drawing sketchbook.

   Why?

   • to explore ideas

   • to practice drawing

   • to warm up for the day

   • to have a book—many books, eventually—filled with daily imperfect drawings. Art objects in themselves.
     

2. Finish the last square in the illustrated nine panel grid for Ira Marck’s Skillshare class, Illustration & Creative Expression: Simple Exercises to Unlock Creativity

   I have an annual subscription to the Skillshare learning platform and last week, I completed eight out of nine panesfor this class and I want to finish this piece before I move on to a new class and project.

   Why?

   I chose this class because I want to learn how to simplify and abstractify images to convey ideas. I think that’s the direction I want to take my own images.

   I want to finish before starting another class to avoid old habits of beginning but not completing things.
   

3. Post images/captions for pieces I want to share on Instagram, especially for the final #FillaTinyJournal challenge

   I am trying to consistently post my art or posts about my art 3-5 times a week on Instagram. I also joined a laid back instagram group challenge to make and fill a small art journal and we are heading into the ninth and last week.

   Why?

   • I like adding my art to my instagram art gallery (profile)

   • I like others to see what I’m working on

   • I want to connect with and engage with other creatives and artists and instagram is one (flawed but useful) way to do that.

4. Learn and practice drawings with copic markers

   Last week I rediscovered copic markers and they’re super fun to work with! I love how they layer. But I have much to learn, both how to use them and how to create successful drawings with them—so this is my why and has become the next skill at the top of my learning list.

   I’ll check in with YouTube and study copic artist’s work—and I’ll take at least one Skillshare class.
   

5. Finalize the idea for the next art project,now that the the Tiny Journal challenge is over

   Why?

   So I think there are three things I do in my art practice. I practice - in my sketchbook. I learn new skills and develop my craft. And I make things. This year, I’m trying to focus on one learning thing and one project at a time. I’m ready for the next project.

6. Share on the blog. Write. Edit. Publish.

   My blog has been languishing for quite some time, but not the desire to share. If anything, the quiet voice inside is getting louder: SHARE more of what you do. Not just what you make (as I’ve been doing and will continue to do on Instagram), but what you’re thinking about and what inspires you. So after more than enough time thinking about it, it’s begun. I begin.

   Why?

   I don’t really know why I need to blog. All I know is that if I don’t get my thoughts and emotions out I will be the one to languish. I NEED to share—and maybe someone needs what I have to share. I don’t know, but I do need to trust that this feeling comes from some place far beyond my little body and brain. It is in fact spiritual guidance in the form of one big intuitive SHOVE.

   Okay, already! I will. I am.

   (More about blogs and blogging later in the week).

Pandemic Drawings - 2020

In a so many ways—personally and collectively—2020 has been crazy, sucky year, but what got me through? Basically three things: hiking and streamed workouts in my living room, reading—and especially my art practice. I sat down almost every day at my art table. I filled almost five journals with words and pictures and created more than a few drawings and paintings that filled me with joy—and make me happy still.

I thought it would be fun to bring together my very favorites of the year so here goes!

As the year began…

Pre lockdown, January found me fully engaged in my second art class at the Community College San Francisco, Intermediate Drawing, with the oh so talented and inspiring teacher, Diane Olivier. I had just completed Basic Drawing in the fall, and as my first experience ever taking art classes, I loved it!

graphite, 18X23” drawing paper - my hallway

graphite, 18X23” drawing paper - a favorite scarf

Pastel, 12”X16” - my first try with pastel and then the class shut down

The lockdown hit us here in March and before I knew it, my drawing class was gone, not to mention all the other things that came to a sudden halt.

Spring was a blur…

Like so many of us, it took me a while to adjust and I can see now that creatively, I pretty much came to a halt too. I did not work on drawings at all. Instead I turned to my writing journal with all the unsettled and fearful feelings, filling one and half books between March and July. Interestingly, I also created several visual journal spreads in this time period that I now see as SO expressive of what I was going through. I am so glad I have these pages now! Here are a few:

March 2020 Visual journal

april 2020 visual journal

may 2020 visual journal

june visual journal 2020

By summer I was on new ground…

If my art practice is any indication, it took me to about June/July to fully adjust and adapt to the new normal. From the beginning, I kept to a pretty tight workout schedule, shifting to streamed exercise classes in my living room and three or more days a week hiking the redwoods. Dennis and I found a comfortable daily routine around the house, 24/7. We started doing takeout dinners once a week, instituted Friday movie night and we began to venture out into outdoor spaces with other humans.

My daily art practice shifted. While before, I had instituted a pretty firm commitment to myself to “create something even if for 15 minutes”, which meant I was fitting it in between other priorities that filled my days—now I took it to the next level.

With all this uninterrupted time gifted to me, the commitment became in 2020 to spend several hours per day on my art practice. To finally work as if it was my actual work—to commit, I now see, to myself.

And then the drawing really began again…

Here are my very favorite drawings I made in basically the second half of 2020—after I finally settled in and realized the pandemic wasn’t going to end soon.

After I realized that maybe, just maybe, the universe was giving me the nudge I needed.

I got into drawing fairy tales for a bit. I want to do more. I like these two:

And then there were the art Challenges…

Art challenges prompt my way into creating. For a couple of months I created weekly drawings for the #transmundanetuesdays challenge hosted by Carson Ellis on Instagram. These are my favorites:

But the main drawing challenge of the year for me was #Inktober, a global event now on Instagram where participants draw one drawing with ink every month in October. I completed all 31 days this year (all posted on Instagram). I love these the best:

And then the year came to a close…finally!

By the time I finished Inktober I was exhausted!

Last Inktober drawing of the year

Challenges are SO GOOD for growth and output—and I really feel like I stretched into a creative place—but I needed a break after that.

I continued my daily art practice in November and December, but I didn’t share it instagram. We are ending the year in lockdown again, and in a way my creative work went underground again as it did at the beginning of lockdown.

However, this time I wasn’t processing the shock so much as leaning into greater determination to go into the next year and out of the pandemic (soon, soon!) more self- empowered.

What I didn’t quite realize at the time is that I was laying the groundwork, creatively, for larger projects that I am very excited to share in January, 2021.

But In the meantime, I can honestly say that 2020 was the suckiest of suck years in so many ways, but this year gave me the huge gift of much greater clarity and connection to my art. I know all of us are seeing the gifts that were presented to us in this year of pause, too. For me, I was given the gift of uninterrupted time to find my real work—and for that I will forever be grateful.

Studio Notes April 14, 2021

I’ve been thinking a lot about my art practice and why it’s so damn important to me to create. It seems to me that if I just get my head around my “why” I will have direction—and peace.

Because right now? No peace.

I am constantly questioning WHY I CREATE at all—and that “why” throws me into a brain spin working to answer that question—instead of making art.

I KNOW what my inner critic is up to (the more art you make the more you understand your inner self). She is scared to death of making art. Every time we begin a a new piece, she is afraid for me. Maybe this time I won’t be able to do it. SO…she keeps throwing this question at me to distract me from actually making art.

Why are you doing this at all?

And I take the bait. I don’t have an easy answer! I don’t know! Oh my gosh, why AM I creating art? And off I go…in my journal…in my studio staring down a blank page…tossing and turning, not sleeping, turning that question over and over in my head.

It kind of drives me crazy, but the good thing is that I don’t let her stop me—at least for long. I keep showing up to my art practice, a practice I’ve set up in my almost daily life. I don’t let my inner critic win—because, again, I KNOW this is fear talking and I KNOW it will recede once I start (every day, every new piece). And furthermore…when fear is finally quiet and I enter in that creative flow state, I KNOW there lies my answer.

But.

I really, really, REALLY want to stop asking—and spinning around—that question. I want to KNOW in my bones and in my heart, why I make art.

So this is what I know for sure (Oprah-like):

I know I enjoy making art. So much so that I have invested over the years in a lot of materials and a lot of learning—but mostly I’ve invested a lot of time. Because I LOVE it. I love to create.

But I keep asking—but why? Who am I doing it FOR? Most artists create work to share with the world—and in fact, some people define art as something someone created TO share with the world. And I think about the kinds of artists out there…novelists, musicians, fine artists…they make art for an audience.

Me? I draw and paint and collage, fill papers and sketchbooks and art journals with my art—for myself. I don’t (yet) have a physical space to share it with others like a book or a stage or a gallery wall. I do post some of my work on instagram just so my work sails past eyes other than my own…but yeah, I mostly create fro myself.

AND THAT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE ENOUGH.

Which freaks me out, because next comes all these internal judgements. If I create only for myself that makes me and selfish and self indulgent.

I KNOW BETTER.

These judgements are thoughts—limited beliefs—that I’ve adopted from family and culture: and It’s kind of a doubly whammy.

First, I am not enough, the belief goes; I am selfish, self indulgent. Art making is only worthwhile IF it is FOR someone else besides me . it’s like I believe that my experience is not worthy of having unless someone else experiences it. What?

And then, even if I believed I was enough, in our society we are not doing enough if we are not productively working within a clear business model—”contributing” as defined by a society that values creating capital. This is a belief we have all adopted from a culture that steeps us in it from practically our first breath.

Once I look at these judgement consciously, clearly my experience of my life is my experience, there is far more to life than narrow capitalist purpose, and I don’t need others to validate what I do or experience.

I am enough and it is enough to make art for myself.

Finally, not only do I know I enjoy making art and that I am worthy of enjoying it with no other reason needed—I also know that there is a paradox that lies at the center of all art making for all artists of all mediums…

Art making is for ourselves AND it is for others. Art making is a gift to ourselves. We learn and grow and connect with something much larger than ourselves when we create—and this is a gift to ourselves but it is also a gift we have to share with others. And once we have a gift to give, the desire grows to give it.

But the thing is, we HOPE that we can create something—, a piece of writing, a film, a clay bowl, a comic, a dance, a song, a canvas—hell, a symphony, a production, a space or an event or even one moment—that will move others in some way. Whether its beauty or truth, a laugh or an insight, an emotional breakthrough or a joyful good time.

But we only have that potential gift to give if we are moved ourselves. We have to enter into the experience of making and pull out that something to be expressed—from our own hearts.

I know the only way to to make art that might —might — impact others is to make it for myself.

So I’ve come full circle. I make art for myself…which I criticize myself for…but in fact the only way to make art for others IS to make art for myself.

And yes, I’m worth it.