Monday morning art practice routine. I start each week in my journal with a list of creative intentions for the upcoming week and reflection on the former week’s list. I’ve been doing this for years as a way to navigate my art practice, giving direction and personal accountability. Now, I’m bringing this little practice to the blog. I hope my personal accountability system gets you thinking about how you’d like to approach your art practice, too.
Read MoreI have to tell you, I’ve started blogs before, but I failed to sustain them. I don’t want that to happen again.
So I’ve been thinking . What will it take to DO this over the long term? It’s really important to get super clear about what I want—for you and me—out of this blog, and why.
Read More
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
The other day I was listening to the Creative Pep Talk podcast while sketching, and Andy said something that had me feeling like I was staring into my optometrist’s eye machine. Suddenly, with a few turns of the eye wheel—click, click, click— my vision cleared. (and yes, I had to look up the name for that machine—it’s called a phoropter—and I had to draw it in my daily sketchbook.)
“Do you ever just wish that someone would take a sincere interest about what's going on inside of you, your thoughts, your feelings? Do you ever just wish somebody would really. give you the time and space to articulate all of that stuff, everything about who you are and what you're about and what you struggle with and what you believe and what you feel and what it's like to experience life through your lens?
“…I can almost certainly say that you do, not just because you're a human and I think it's definitely a human desire to be known, but I think for artists, that's not just a desire, it's more like a desperation it's like, please somebody!”
******
Another thing happened that day that gave me pause. In conversation with my hiking buddy, Bill, I was explaining that I didn’t have time to devote too many hours in a morning for exercise and his response was, “What else you got to do?”
I’m not employed so I guess that’s a reasonable question. On the other hand, it just made me sad. No shade on Bill—I’m pretty sure everyone I know and love has either expressed to me outright or silently wondered the same thing.
If I don’t work. At a job. It’s all just slack time, right?
I could say a lot more about the state of our late capitalist culture that conditions us to believe that the only time of value is time spent working (and the only people of value are those who work), but for now I will simply explain that the reason I felt sad is that even the people closest to me really don’t know the value of what I do with my time.
And I have to be honest with myself—the reason they don’t know is because I haven’t told them. Not really.
******
I am not a professional artist—someone, that is, who makes art for money.
And yet, I am not purely a hobbyist who ONLY creates for myself. I KNOW I have something for others…I just can’t be sure about what that something is to give.
I guess if pushed, I’d explain that I dive into creative flow, problem solve, experiment, discover, learn and make.
I follow my heart without fully understanding its impulses. All I know is that there is a larger force at work here. This deep desire to create exists for a reason.
And so I draw and paint and write in my journals and sketch in my sketchbooks. I scribble, mark and spatter away…I share some on instagram and here on my website… patiently waiting to understand why. And for what purpose.
****
So now maybe I have provided some glimpse '“through my lens”. But there’s one more thing I need to share about me. Something else, even bigger, that clicked, clicked, clicked into place recently.
As much as I love to draw and paint and write—I equally love to learn.
I’ve always been this way. I’m curious. About how things work and how people function. How life works! What is the nature of reality? I want to know why. I want to know ’how to’. I want to know what else.
Art making is a wonderful way to feed my love of learning—because I get to learn how to create and how to use materials, but even more I get to learn about myself.
Besides the joy to be found in the creative moment, learning is the greatest benefit to being an artist.
Reading and taking classes is the other wonderful way I feed my love of learning. I especially love blogs (which are WAY more popular and interesting than most people realize). We are truly beyond blessed in this day and age to have access to all the interesting people and amazing minds in the world, people with real expertise and knowledge and insight and experience.
And like all of us, podcasts and books (television, video and film) attract my brainwaves too. Basically, I am moved by other people’s art and this is a huge way I learn.
And yet. I have to admit that I am hugely frustrated.
I take so much in! I learn and learn and learn. But what do I do with all these treasures? What I learn in my art. What I find In nature. What I read and feel and think about.
I myself benefit so much from what I find. I encounter ideas and shift perspective. I make changes, take action. I create every day, which brings so much insight and joy (challenges and confusion).
How can I share these gifts? By creating and expressing what I learn, of course.
Make Art.
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!
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.
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
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.
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:
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:
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.
If nothing else, 2020, the year of pause, gave me clarity about what is important and what I want to focus on creatively and personally. I posted my first picture for 2021 on instagram today. It kind of feels like a send off as I enter into the new year with clear intention and three passions:
Mixed media artist Kelly Rae said recently on her blog:
“When I create, I’m at peace. I feel brave. I feel healing on all levels. I feel connected with Spirit, and to my own light. From that place, so much is born. Joy! Abundance! Community! Purpose!”
Yes.
I have been on a creative journey that began a decade ago when I gingerly stepped into visual self expression with art mediums I’d never used before. This interest soon flared into this full blown passion for color and line and form—and all things art supplies. And then before I knew it I had an art studio where I taught art journaling and mixed media.. and then this passon again transformed into a drawing obsession—art that will take the rest of my life to explore.
I am most fortunate to live and spend time in mountains and beaches. I have done so all my life. As I witness the growing effects of the climate crisis both in my own California and around the globe, and study the science of what’s to come if we don’t alter our disconnected, industrial war on the planet, I commit to change.
I step into my deep love for nature, our planet and all living beings and I will share what I love and learn about what we can all do to protect this most sacred world.
When I talk about nature and art, I can’t help but refer to spirit. Because, of course, they are all connected. In nature and in our own creative impulse, we get closer to understanding and connecting to the mysteries of the universe. To the love and connection that binds us in innumerable ways to the earth, to each other—and to ourselves.
More and more I try to be conscious and present to not just the material forms, but the spiritual web inside and out, within, between and among us. This is also my work—our work. The work of our lifetimes.
And so I step into the portal.
Let’s hold hands and go together.
Hello! Welcome to my weekly habit of sharing.
I’ve been sending out a weekly newsletter now for over four months. I started just after lockdown began in March, each week sharing good and true works on the internet about almost anything that strikes me as important. There’s been plenty about the pandemic, given its primacy in all of our minds, with a host of reliable sources of information that consult science and actual experts. (Beats all the unreliable and expert-light-drama-heavy “news” you might be consuming on that topic ).
There’s also been lots of articles on social issues from people who think deeply and do their research. Some of them long form, I know (but I hope my readers know it’s worth their time to invest in long form reading because the good writers took time to apply their expertise, unlike most of what you find on social media). And now and then I throw in fun things that lighten my world and hope lighten yours as well—especially in these dark times. If you missed any, you can find all past newsletters here.
For the next couple of weeks I’m going out of town so you won’t be hearing from me. After that? I’m not sure if I’ll continue with this newsletter project.. Maybe this format has run its course for me—and for you. Maybe I’ll set out on a habit of sharing project 2.0. I’m not sure right now, but do feel free to share your thoughts by email if you’d like—and I’ll definitely let you know when I return.
In the meantime, this week I have a few SUPER special pieces I hope you won’t miss. I guess I’m super emotional these days—you’ll see why!
And then following those, you’ll find a few more links for your reading pleasure—I wouldn’t miss those either because like all my links they’re super informative and enlightening!
FIRST, another video from Tomfoolery. Why does this make me cry?
AND THEN—this is an amazing treat! The New York Times has been running a weekly series called The Diary Project. Each week, different artists write and draw about the pandemic. This one by one of my favorite graphic novelists, Eleanor Davis, also makes me cry.
(I highly recommend reading all of the pieces in the project (I did). Iif you like to read or draw, I’d especially recommend Lynda Barry’s Documenting the Small Things that are Easily Lost and Ebony Flowers’ My Last Encounter with Pandemic Parenting as a couple of my other favorites. I want to be these artists when I grow up.)
Finally, if you missed it – give yourself the gift of listening to watching Obama’s eulogy for John Lewis. Also made me cry—for John, yes (he was an amazing human and hero who led an incredible life) but most definitely for us.
Okay – and now for other things you shouldn’t miss either—but I don’t think you’ll shed tears for most of them:
Finally, the World Health Organization is listening to the scientists. Covid-19 is definitely spread by aerosols. What, it took an open letter from 239 scientists to warrant official acknowledgement? WE already knew because we listened to the scientists much earlier than now (see newsletters). Wear your masks!
Doctors prescribing walks in nature. When will we silly western humans figure out that we NEED Nature. Hopefully not before it’s gone.
This was lovely: a lesson about life—and learning to swim. (His link to swim lessons is also really good).
5 Steps to Becoming …Insanely Successful…or Whatever. Mark Manson is one of my favorite irreverant and wisewriters—who has way too much fun and uses A LOT of cuss words. His links in this article are ALL great too.
This former teacher has moved her classroom to the farm—maybe that’s where all the kids should be going!
This is how to get the Great Reset right – so true.
Peace and joy—
Denise
P.S. If you know others who would enjoy this newsletter, please share this email. All are welcome to subscribe.
Where I spill my heART and share my obsessions: art journaling, mixed media, and my creative life.