Currently Browsing: Why Draw?
Why Drawing Matters
Drawing matters for a number of reasons. Last week I had a note from a past student who had recently lost her mother. The student had stopped drawing for months. Grief disrupts life in a thousand ways. When I was writing to her I was thinking about my own maternal loss this year, the death […]
Limited Choices Lead to Successful Projects
After my post last week about doing creative projects many people wrote in to tell me that they were inspired to start a project. One accomplished artist wrote in to ask advice: Just looking for advice. After listening to the podcast on projects I’ve decided to take up the challenge. Over the years I’ve […]
Everyone Needs a Side Project
A few weeks ago my friend Danny Gregory called me up to discuss my thoughts about projects. Most readers know my Daily Dots—daily drawings of my Alaskan Malamute bitch Dottie made the last 4 and a half years of her life. But friends and students know that I’m always engaged in whatever the latest project […]
In Context—Sketching while Sick
My hiatus has been a bit of a bust. Instead of catching up on my ongoing projects and starting a new one that I really wanted to jump into, I came down with a respiratory bug. I sketch even when I’m ill. Many may think that’s a waste of time and paper when you’re coughing […]
Blast from the Past: Sketch in Any Moment
I was clearing out the flat file while under the weather and not fit for much. I found today’s sketch and scanned it. Readers know that from July 1, 1998 through January 26, 2003 I drew a sketch of my Alaskan Malamute Bitch Dottie every day. I sometimes forget that besides filling 43 volumes of […]
More Changes for CR
It has been a long weekend of change. Friday we got a call from the care facility that CR would need to move into the memory ward. We had expected this day would come, but it still seems like it happened very fast. His short term memory disappeared a couple years ago. Both Dick and […]
Richard Doesn’t Have a Clue
Yesterday was Father’s Day and like many fortunate people who have parents who are not only still living but living nearby we spent the afternoon with Dick’s dad CR. We brought treats and sat and talked. Later we struggled to get him into clean, fresh clothing. CR has lost the ability to stand for even […]
Project Friday: How To Deal with Crappy Days in Your Visual Journal
Here’s a question I’m asked frequently: How do you deal with crappy days in your journal? Not long ago a student explained to me that when she kept a written journal she would often write about the stress and frustration in that journal, but then never look back at it. She felt that her visual […]
In Context: At the Allergist’s
Sometimes it’s the line or angle or shape of a subject that attracts us. We need to get it down as quickly as possible because we don’t know when the subject will leave. (My first subject was called away before I could do any development.) Sometimes it’s the volume or brilliance of something contrasted against […]
Letting Things Go, Even in the Pursuit of Goals: The Little Journal That Got Away
Note: This post was originally scheduled to run at the end of December 2017. Due to technical issues with the blog I’m just getting to it now. If you read my blog you’ll know that I keep track of the number of pages that I create each year. I do this because it is a […]