Keep your old work. You did it. There are virtues and there are faults in it for your to study. You can learn more from yourself than you can from anyone else. -Robert Henri in The Art Spirit
I found my old, old sketchbook the other day when I was cleaning out through boxes of stuff. This is the sketchbook that I had from 1997 through 1999. It is really shocking to me how I thought that certain things were good when I made them, but now when I look at them I am more embarrassed than anything else! Even my handwriting is so different. I remember drawing this picture from a little resin charm that was attached to a pair of pants from American Eagle Outfitters. I was really pleased with it at the time and even now I like the drawing because it is so bold and colorful. Do you ever go back and review your older work? Do you show it to other people?
Something to check out:
I really liked this “mini podcast” from Michael Nobbs about how to avoid “ideas exhaustion,” or rather, when you can’t get anything done because of all the ideas floating into your head. I can really relate to this! Also he has a new microMagazine Getting Your Important Work Done, which is a email newsletter you can sign up for that goes out every two weeks. It is very interesting, and has helpful tips and links.
This month I’m posting my Virtual Paintout submission a bit later than I normally do. In fact, I almost skipped participating altogether because of a lot of other things I had going on this particular month with various classes and commitments. I’m glad I did it though, and I had fun making this drawing.
It was pouring rain last weekend and I made this drawing while listening to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio. I missed doing something in colored pencil, so I decided to change it up a bit this time around. My elbow was killing me the next day though. Next time I decide to do anything in colored pencil, I am going to pace myself and spend a few days working on it.
I have this little bowl, a cheap Christmas Tree Shops special, gifted to me by one of my sisters. It’s has a misshapen appearance with the oddest curves and bumps and uneven glazing. I have had numerous opportunities to get rid of this bowl (and I almost did a few months ago when cleaning out my room) but I always keep it around because I love to make sketches of it. I also have an unfinished wooden egg that I first put in the bowl because I didn’t know what to do with it. After a number of years however, the bowl has become its permanent home. Does anybody else have any objects like this, that you are attached to but probably should throw out?
It makes me a little sad that most of my glimpses of nature are marred by things like bridges.
I haven’t gotten out(side) much for the past couple of months and I’m really craving it. This winter actually wasn’t that bad for New England compared to the snow that the Mid Atlantic states got, but I still hated it just as much. I sense that spring is coming though. Today it was in the 40′s and this weekend is supposed to be nice too. If it is decent out tomorrow I am going to get outside and do some nature sketching.
I made this picture using Google Street View. It is the bridge that connects Hinsdale, NH to Brattleboro, VT. I made it a little more colorful than it actually is.
I’ve been making New Year’s resolutions for a long time now and never really lived up to them. This year I feel that for the first time I might actually be able to accomplish some of my goals. I’ve arranged to be home on Fridays now, so that I can spend more time on art. My idea is not to use it as an extra day off, but a working day, so to speak. Most often, my excuse has been that I was too tired when I got home to take up a big project, and I ended up not making much progress. I’m thinking that I will take myself more seriously in any case, which will be a positive thing.
I’ve also been thinking about my system of working, which is to start something and then finish it completely before beginning something else. It’s odd because I really don’t do much else in life this way. Even when I was in school, I used to skip around to random questions when taking exams for instance. I think that a better way to work might be to have different projects going on at once, all at different stages of completion, so that I can skip around a little more. I remember Robert Genn wrote about this at one point in one of his twice weekly letters. He said that at the end of the day, you should stop at an easy point in the work, so that you can begin the next day with a sense of momentum from the onset. I’m thinking of trying something like this and I’ll let you know how it goes.
I’ve been working on my submission for the January Virtual Paintout, which is a challenge where there is a certain location declared every month and then everyone makes artworks based on a scene that they find in Google Street View. This month’s location is Corsica and I’m having fun with it. I might actually go back and do the other month’s challenges even though they have ended.
This is the Connecticut River as seen from the French King Bridge, in Franklin County Massachusetts.
Of all the goals I set for myself in 2009, I can honestly say that I only met one of them, which was to work in a series. For me, 2009 was all about getting back on my feet and reclaiming my life after 2008, which I officially labeled The Worst Year of My Life. That said, I think 2009 was one of my most successful years EVER because I grew a lot as a person. I feel like such a completely different girl than I was just one year ago and I think my family or anyone else who really knows me well would say the same.
There are tons of things that I want to get done in 2010 and I have a mental as well as physical list of all of them. However, I know that I tend to be too ambitious when setting my goals so I am going to make things very simple for 2010. My first art goal is to Put in More Hours and my second goal is to Get Rid of Stuff (or Purge and Purify). The first goal is obvious, but the reason why I am designating Get Rid of Stuff as an art goal is because I have noticed that the clutter in my physical environment is severely hampering my art making activities. Besides the extra work of having to clear out all the junk before I even start on a project, all the clutter around me is causing an anxious emotional state in me which is mentally exhausting. If I am even moderately successful with these two goals (which I know I will be), I will be very happy come this time next year.
I hope everybody has as good of a year as I’m going to have!
I hope everybody had a happy Christmas. Even though I was incredibly stressed out before Christmas, I ended up having a great time with everyone. I spent the past three days with family just talking, eating and not doing anything in my regular routine. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I was so stressed out about to be honest. I am lucky that I have a great family who is loving and supportive and not really materialistic at all. I will have to remember this for next year when I’m tempted to get stressed out again.
Now I have a quiet day to myself to relax a bit. I am going to do some sketching and some cooking for the upcoming week. I’m also going to work on my year end review and my 2010 art goals, which I’m still debating right now.
A note on the image: I drew this from a photo that I took in October while I was visiting Cape Cod with my boyfriend. I was there in the middle of a Nor’easter and it was raining almost the whole time, otherwise I would have sat on the beach to draw.
I’ve spent the past two months agonizing over a perceived health problem. Now that my doctor could not find anything wrong with me, I’m almost completely convinced that it is mind-body in nature, and not a real illness after all. Unlike my previous hand issue, it was really starting to affect my art productivity not because I was unable to draw, but because my mind was so occupied that I lost my motivation and because I was wasting so much time reading Web MD-type articles online. For the past few days I have been really testing myself by not reading any such articles and I’ve been able to do a few sketches. So far I have been feeling better as well! I love personal victories.
I like being around bodies of water, and found myself around a very nice one in Vermont this past weekend. It was really the perfect time for me. I was a passenger on a very scenic drive, I did a lot of sketching, and I spent time with my relatives. I took many photos and I have enough landscape material to last me a few months.
I also did something which I deserve to get a lot of flack for from one of my fellow art sympathizer friends. I started a new sketchbook after scolding him severely for not finishing his own sketchbooks. Unlike him though, I have a history of finishing my sketchbooks in a fairly timely manner, and I know he will forgive me.
Pink Rose Sketch, colored pencil in sketchbook, 5/4/09
I haven’t had the time to do a lot of art projects since coming back from vacation. In fact, I only just finished unpacking my suitcase today. Here are some small sketches I made from things that I happened to have in the house: fruit baskets and bouquets. With this last sketch of the roses, I finished another sketchbook — a small achievement.
