I kinda do, but my progress moves like a caterpillar – that scrunching-stretching motion, so while it averages out as daily, it might not always be technically daily.
This is the thing: – I’m acknowledging this now instead of berating myself. I’m learning my rhythms and working within them. I’m letting the process be the lesson.
2016: A work in progress/process
Since the start of this year I’ve been adding to this book of ‘daily’ doodles. Mostly every day I complete a 1″square. The days when I don’t, I return to, always within a day or two, and as I doodle I reflect back on that day. Sometimes there’s a word or a shape or a scrap of something to glue into the square. Everyday is similar, yet every day is unique.
The pace of this project is slow but steady, marching through time at 1 inch per day. And already since the start of the year it’s a past the first page.
And the book is teaching me lessons already: Page one’s squares were measured and neatly spaced. Page two’s are are more in keeping with my style: eye-balled, uneven, bit wonky in places.
After the first few weeks I’ve wandered off from just doodle/painting to include collaged bits – fragments of that day’s doings. It intrigues me how different the mood of each day looks. It intrigues me to see how the coming weeks and months will look, and the lessons they will bring.
3 weeks into this year, I’m learning to adapt to this new structure that’s unfolding.
I live by metaphors, they are the framework of all my understanding. The skeleton on which I hang my beliefs and theories.
Since January 1st 2016 I’ve filled one of these 1″ squares each day. They are in a book with enough pages to carry this daily practice over a few years. Will I do that? I hope to. The project is entitledSelf Love 365and everyone who shares their daily squares has a unique interpretation. I love to see how our days are represented and recorded.
I’m looking at my first 3 weeks of squares and seeing a good degree of haphazardness, conflicting colours, but a bigger pattern is beginning to emerge.
When I drew out the grid I left a little gap between each square – it allowed one week to fit tidily across the width of the page that way, every day has a margin of breathing space. Except I’m scrappy and resistant to constraint by edges. Some days expand and overflow, some are linked by doodled extras.
To begin, I had trouble connecting the project to self love. Now I’m starting to understand. Here are some aspects of kindness I’m extending to myself:
Scrappy and overflowing are character traits not flaws. Vital in the Yin/ Yang of conformity.
The few minutes I set aside each day are a meditation, a discipline, a habit. Sometimes it’s easier than others to find the minutes, some days I want to doodle on ahead, but I keep rolling along, one square a day.
If I can see patterns develop over 3 weeks, undoubtedly I’ll get more insights over the coming months. This is a gift to me in the future.
Hustling for extra meaning isn’t necessary. It might emerge on its own, it might not. Patience!
It’s a whole book of unfolding metaphors for me to carry on defining my sense of how things are.
The pictures are fuzzy. They mirror the way I’m fumbling my way into the new year and this new project.
I’m finding my feet.
How do I interpret Self Love?
I’m defining it to myself: until recently I wasn’t aware of it even being a thing in my world. It’s new and a little confusing, I’m taking it on as a project: here in this book, here in my life.
So far, this is what it looks like….
day 1
Starting out with a literal expression of the theme. First thoughts… It turns out 1″ square is both larger and smaller than I expected it to be. I can squish more into the space than expected, also it’s also more squinty to look at and to photograph than I expected.
day 2
I went to see Star Wars this day. It was fab. (Apropos to nothing at all.)
day 3
What’s this? – like a tunnel into the future? IDK. I’m still consumed in confusion from the holidays. It’s still a blur. It’s been a Sunday for a very long time now.
day 4
This was the day I would have gone back to work if I hadn’t spent it flat out on the sofa, back home, recombobulating. I was watching a lot of YouTube. A lot of Kyle Cease. He’s reminding me to re-establish a daily meditation practice. I’m reading Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project. She’s reminding me the same.
In terms of the daily practice, I’m beginning to see how the squares can join up to become a bigger picture. I’m beginning to get a grip on things again. Thank fuck for that.
Last year’s book seemed to be full of eyes. (My word for the year was FOCUS, it that kept coming out.) Also my art often has eyes in. So here’s an image who is looking back at us.
day 7
Today I began another year long project. I’m feeling more comfortable with commitment than any time before in my life. (Strewth – I’m not becoming like an actual adult am I?) (NO)
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I hope the first week of the year has been gentle to you, dear friends. I look forward to reading your plans and adventures X
Toward the tail end of last year I fell upon #selflove365, a daily drawing practice, meditation, and focus. I chose the book I wanted to use, I drew a grid of 1 inch squares, and I waited for January to begin.
I’m not rushing or hustling the old year out, I’m not one to wish my days away, but I am dipping newest thoughts into next month already.
Next month – Next year – Next incarnation ofbeing me in this life.
While I’m indifferent to the big new years fuss that happens around midnight on 31 December, I do love the clean freshness of 1 January every time it comes round.
So much so, I don’t want to guzzle it all in one day, I want to savour it.
My routine, such that it’s becoming, begins toward the end of November and by Winter Solstice it’s up to full speed. Those last 10 days of the year represent the closing up of the old year. Loose ends neatly bundled, filed under the past.
As 2015’s page a week book winds up I’m already sewing the seeds for 2016’s year-sized art challenge.
To kick off I’m going to take on Belinda Fireman’s #selflove365 adventure of a daily 1″ square drawing.
I bought a concertina sketch book way back – I think with the intention to take it away on a trip – but either it didn’t go with me, or I didn’t find the time to fill the pages. Either way, it’s fresh and ripe and raw!
After the first few weeks I’ve wandered off from just doodle/painting to include collaged bits – fragments of that day’s doings. It intrigues me how different the mood of each day looks. It intrigues me to see how the coming weeks and months will look, and the lessons they will bring.
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