“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”
โ Louis L’Amour.
This year’s #100dayproject is all about the doodle for me.
It’s my meditation, my therapy, my escape from the noise of my thoughts. For 100 days this year I’m sharing these little mark making experiments with time lapse videos and a bit of wordage about my process.
It’s that time of year again , Instagram is full to bursting of 100 day projects. I love the variety of ideas that populate this challenge. This is my third year of participating. ๏ปฟ
โComing back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.โ ~ Sir Terry Pratchett
It’s that time of year again, Instagram is full to bursting of 100 day projects. I love the variety of ideas that populate this challenge.
Previously…
In 2017 I missed the start date by a long way. I didn’t know this was an annual event, or anything much at all except it was a hashtag that intrigued me. I took the next 6 months to complete 100 daily pages of art journal.
In 2018 I was all amped up to go from day one. I decided on a hugely ambitious project. I even wrote myself a manifesto. For real!By day sixty-something I was utterly spangled and my group of 100-day-canvasses* are still ‘resting’ in a not quite complete stage.
*that’s 5 canvasses for the 100 days. Not 100 canvasses. I’m over ambitious, for sure, but not that much…
I’ll circle back round to them some day. When they’re ready.
Opting Out…
This year I had no plans to join the project.
I love watching everyone else’s projects in all their iterations play out and develop. I’m fascinated by the broad reach of the themes; the devotion and the grace; the patience and the determination. [Is this you? Leave a comment below with your IG handle so I can follow you too ๐ ]
My 2019 is a time of stepping away and of setting aside, I’ve been deliberately disengaging from social media, opting out and resisting. I’m doing my darnedest to play more offline than online to help de-frazzle my achy brain.
This year I planned watch and absorb instead.
Oh. Surprise!
So no-one was more surprised than I was to find myself getting all zinged up on April 2nd – day one of the project – when I determined the thing I wanted to do more than anything else was to join in again!
I made a commitment to myself already to make some sort of art every day in this little Moleskine book. It’s been with me over a year and I especially while I’m still a bit high on the fun of the sketchbook project book I just completed (more on that soon) this feels like a gift of accountability- momentum I just can’t ignore.
Will I last out for 100 days? I’ll post updates here as and when [ or you can check the daily doodles I add on Instagram ] for now I’m enjoying it, and that’s all that matters to me ๐
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When I’ve got just a few minutes to spare I go to my art journal, find a blank page or a space, and doodle.
These are the background layers that inspire what comes next.
This is how I fill the scraps of time while I’m waiting for paint to dry, or a file to upload, or just waiting for ideas to land.
There’s a real freedom in knowing it will get covered in sketches or collage, more doodles and scribbles. I don’t plan this, I don’t even choose the colors, I use whatever pens, paints and brushes are there on my desk.
Sometimes you just got to let art happen.
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I’ve been off line for a while, playing in the analogue world of paints and glue and little bits of torn up paper. Recharging & recombobulating. Playing with things like this.
I’ve been off line for a while, playing in the analogue world of paint and scribbles and little bits of torn up paper. Recharging & recombobulating. Playing with things like this.
This book lived on my desk through the first half of this year. Over the weeks and months it grew fat and messy with ‘while I’m waiting’ doodles, with mopped up paint spills, scraps of stuff, with the words and ideas that were orbiting my mind.
When it was all done, I made this quick flip thro vid:
ย And when I say quick, I know it’sย super quick.ย So here’s a more leisurely stroll through some of the pages, and some of the ideas that keep rolling back into my art.
Stories unfold from the words I’m listening to in audio books and podcasts, and the characters evolve from magazine pages, advertisements and found paper.
Lines of text set against rows or polkadots, knitted together with scribbly handwriting. Faces in the spaces.
Backgrounds from maps: borrow the contour lines, take them off wandering into new places.
Cut out shapes from scrap paper.
Add eyes and whiskers: see them come to life.
“Meow”
Writing down the words I heard and want to remember later.
I leave notes and messages for me-in-the-future scattered through my art.
“Thereโs a reason why we get the ideas we get.” (so itโs important to put them someplace safe until theyโre ready to use)
Then there’s the found poetry from song lyrics, Inertia blue zero freeze. (idk)
Dotted lines around the edges make me happy:ย as any small child will tell you, theyโre really fun to do. Especially in time to music.
Texture in sticky thick paint, like tree branches or arteries, reminds me art is alive and part of nature. And vice versa.
Messing about with perspective with angles and lines. Inventing new people. Anything’s possible in a book.
These words were pinned to my wall of ideas, making space for new things, now they’re rehomed in the book. Keep things you love in sight, always.ย
Negative space: white paint dampensย the cacophony of color.
Opportunity is everywhere. It really is.
Case in point, I collect cards at art fairs, copying shapes, giving this gal a sister.ย
Copying faces, shapes and tricky things like hands.ย
Dropped in here and there amid all the noise and color takes the pressure off.
How they look isn’t important when they merge in with all this stuff.
Keep playing, keep making it up as you go along. That’s really all there is.
How much time do you spend weaving between polarities?
Along the wiggling line of progress,ย between way too much and barely enough.
It’s not just me, is it?
How much time do you spend weaving between polarities?
Along the wiggling line of progress,ย between way too much and barely enough.
It’s not just me, is it?
At the end of last year I committed to a daily drawing practice:every day I’d work on improving my observation, coordination, imagination. Every day I’d give myself at least 5 minutes or so of drawing, not much more.
Just enough to open the flow of ideas at the start of the morning, to build on the muscle memory of drawing, to break through the first layer of inertia.ย
I really wanted to practice the drawings I find difficult, but to begin I was happy with doodles to see what emerged.
I toldย folk about this BIG plan of mine, I wanted the accountability. (I might have told you too.)
Just like the morning pages practice, the regular journaling habits, the daily yoga and meditation time, and all those wholesome promises I make myself…
I wonder to myself: is it the making of the promises, in and of itself, that makes me rebel?
“Who am I to tell me what to do??”ย
In the attempt to outwit my own ridiculous self sabotaging mind games, I ended up bending, breaking and rewriting every aspect of the plan:
Daily? nope. Drawing? meh, kinda, more splashing around in the shallow end of my abilities.
But what did emerge instead was the beginning of someย compassion for myself.
What if sloshing watercolor about, writing seemingly meaningless words, letting patterns fall through my hand was enough?
What if I was still creating, still making, still bringing out ideas into the open. What if that was enough?
What if my obstinance and non compliance to my own self-set challenge wasn’t just the precursor to another ‘Fk this, I can’t do it’ and instead I just kept moving, kept making, kept playing.
And free from the berating inner monologue, occasional actual sketching would take place.
In the spaces in between, I can see, this is a part of my process I need to work through, not against, not in spite of, but with. With an understanding that only I can afford to myself.
So page by page, I’ll continue.ย Do you have a daily creative practice? I’d love to know what shape it takes.
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Since last summer when it arrived,ย I was chasing my tail with ideas for this project. Four days before the deadline I declared it finished and posted it off to its new home in Brooklyn Art Library.
Since last summer when it arrived,ย I was chasing my tail with ideas for this project. Three days before the deadline I declared it finished and posted it off to its new home in Brooklyn Art Library.
Look at that paper curl! I appear to have angered the book now.
Having decided to rebind the book in delicious watercolor paper I went off track from my plan and ended up making a bunch of pretty doodles in watercolor, that were fun to make but missed the point of what I wanted to make, and the rebound book sat on my desk for a while in a state of finished-but-no-finished.
Something didn’t feel right.
I couldn’t get myself to film a flip through until when I finally did the edit went all catawompus. I was standing in my own way to package it up to post, to take those last steps.
I kept coming back to the thought that if this is going into a collection that can be seen by anyone and possibly by no-one. In a library of + 36,000 books it should, nonetheless, be representative of what I am.
It should be more me.
A little over a week before the deadline to post it off I was awoken by vivid dreams telling me to begin again: Go back to my first idea. Do it now.
I got up that morning and tore out the fancy watercolor paper pages.
For reasons unknown to me up until then I’d kept those first pages. The original paper with holes where the paint seeped through, with scratchy ballpoint lines and un-erasable pencil lines underneath.
The “Wandering Doodle” as I called it, best seen like this, photoshopped together, it carries a line of wiggles and squiggles throughout the book.
The voice in my dream was saying IT’S A SKETCHBOOK. It’s meant to be sketchy. It’s meant to be about ideas, not nice paintings.ย
I needed to work around the worn through holes, paint over and collage around the layers of ideas. I needed to fill the book with the thoughts and words and shapes that were torrenting around in my head. That’s the point of a sketchbook. That’s what sketching is.
I spent that weekend sat on the floor of my studio, surrounded with collage cuttings and clippings, paints, pens and inks.
I doodled my little heart out.
I sewed in sequins andย crocheted page edges.
I rebound the old pages along with drawings I made decades ago. I poured in words that floated through from podcasts and song lyrics as I went.
If you’d like to see a full flip through of these pages, hop onto my email list here for an exclusive preview next week.
Stories that emerge from pictures are in my mind today. Not the literal ones, but the ones that appear without words.
The stories that emerge from pictures are what’s forefront in my mind today. Not the illustrations of literal stories, I’m thinking about the ones that appear without words.
Untold, but there to be found.ย Waiting to be noticed, to be overheard.
Idling in my sketchbooks.
I keep seeing the same metaphors in what I draw and what Iย photograph: it’s all about perspective, the angle, the view.
Softened edges, a change of light.
Stop for a minute and just watch…
Where do you most notice the unspoken stories in the world around you?
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I had a really clear idea what I wanted to do with this book from (almost) the outset last year – a rambling whirl of doodles, a stream of consciousness running through the pages.
The Sketchbook Project
It’s beenย a while since I checked in with you guys on this project, I’ve had to overcome a few obstacles along the way.
I had a really clear idea what I wanted to do with this book from (almost) the outset last year – a rambling whirl of doodles, a stream of consciousness running through the pages. Then I got ill, and the heavy duty pain medication I had in hospital inspired me with a really clear visual I wanted to recreate. As best I could, two-dimensionally on paper.
I began the line work back during Inktober, and looking back I remember at the time being aware of just how thin and flimsy the paper is in the book. I mean, super thin. It would hold up well to gentle care but I’m heavy handed and (because it’s all I had to hand and impatience is my biggest motivator in all I do) I used ballpoint pen. So my pages were already crinkling from the indentation of the lines.
That’s cool – it adds character – it’s my ‘style’ – go with it, I thought.
Then the holidays, then life, then I finally began.
this paper soaks up watercolor like a sponge.
Oh. My. Days!
You do NOT wanna use watercolors on this paper. Of course if I hadn’t been so hung up on the combination of:
This Sketchbook Project + These Colors + These Paints = Exactly What I Want To Do
then perhaps I wouldn’t have been temporarily blind the reality of:
This Medium + This Paper = A Certain Soggy Mess.
Soaked right through to the other side ๐ฆ
Damnit!
Ok, I’m an adaptable kinda person, I pride myself on being able to change direction, to adjust and adapt.
Acrylics, I thought. Acrylics are the answer. They will sit on top of the paper and give it a bit more substance as well.
Look at that paper curl! It seems Iย have angered the book now.
Nope. Not only is it a streaky mess, but the pages are actually curling up in disgust.
What do they want from me? light, delicate pencil? Do they know me AT ALL??
I heard a distant memory jangling about in the back of my mind – are there rules on what media we’re to use?ย – checking the website: sure, acrylics & gesso are discouraged because the pages get sticky and … yes, yes, I know all this…
So, my first plan of watercolor was back on the table – because, when I read on – we are allowed to rebind the book.ย ย I can use actual watercolor paper!ย ย
Now that time was getting squeezed, that forever-away-distant deadline was getting closer…ย I decided that keeping it simple was the best way forward. The elaborate plans I had to begin are on hold for a separate project later in the year, meanwhile I’m back with what I know best for the pages of this book: the idea that is fuelling my creativity and has done for a long while now: an adventure in 12 colors!
After all, it’s my thing, right?
My pages are complete and ready for binding, I’ll show the finished book as soon as I get some good light for photos – then it’ll be winging it’s way off to Brooklyn Art Library
If you want to be first to see what I’m making, and get exclusive discounts on these things,ย clickety-hop aboard my email list right here.
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle & a kitten until the spring arrives.
All through this month I’ve been prompted and nudged along by Inktober, seeing daily reminders to keep inkdrawing from the good folks of the youtubes & the instagrams. They kept me company as developed this stream of consciousness doodle runningย through my sketchbook-project-sketchbook, leading from one page to the next…
Y’know about the Sketchbook Project, right?ย (If not, and you’re intrigued, I wrote a little about it here.)
All through this month I’ve been prompted and nudged along by Inktober,seeing daily reminders to keep inkdrawing from the good folks of the youtubes & the instagrams. They kept me company as developed this stream of consciousness doodle runningย through my sketchbook-project-sketchbook, leading from one page to the next, a little like this (also like this)
(the shadows and hiccups in continuity show the folds in the book or the turn of the page… this is just 3 pages, it would be too wide to show it all like this, you get the idea tho’)
And now it’s ready to begin coloring. Which I plan to do throughout November.
I’ll give you a moment if you fell off your chair at the news I’ve not added any color yet …………… ok?ย ………….before I tell you that the coloring won’t begin straight away either.
For three reasons:
This sketchbook is the foundation to a new project I’m developing for launch in 2018. “TWELVTY EXTRA” – a companion course to “TWELVTY – a year full of color” (which you can read all about here). ย I’ve got a clear idea of exactly how I’m gonna color my doodle, which colors, even which paints…
As I was nearing the end of my last massive’normous art escapadeย I planned to reward myself with a little treat in the form of a set of Daniel Smith’s Watercolors. (These aren’t any old watercolors, these are proper fancypants watercolors. The purchase of which wasย preceded by a full on 2 week dither while they languished in my online shopping cart.) And now the delivery has been delayed!
But I’m saving this book for these colors!
(this is the biggie) I’m cultivating a bit of self control. Instead of running full pelt at my life and my art with wild abandon and all colors flying aimlessly, I’m experimenting with something new (to me). “Planning.“ …….Interesting, huh?
Now I’ve eked out all the enjoyment, focus and concentration I can from the black and white and inking stage, and I’d like to report back: I kinda like this new strategy. It’s still got an edge of impetuous childlike impatience as a driving force, but my inner adult is developing her voice, taking moments of authority, even making some of the decisions.
How will this play out? check back over the next month and I’ll show you how it’s going.ย Or hop aboard my email list for updates direct to your emailbox every month.
I’ll send you a copy of my (newly updated) eBook ‘a year full of color’ as well as exclusive discounts for my ecourses.ย
Your email is utterly safe with me. I’ll sing it to sleep and bring it tea when it wakes up.
TWELVTY 2018 launches for pre-registration in November!
In no particular order, these are the realisations that accompanied this project. These were observations I heard over and over again in my thoughts, page after page…ย
“Life imitates art” but art imitates life too.
(I read that as ‘art irritates life’ just now. Also true)ย
100 daily drawings taught me a lot more about drawing, more than I realised I didn’t know. Drawing techniques, practicalities, possibilities, and all that comes along with steady daily practice.
But there seemed to be bigger lessons showing up as well.
These were observations I heard over and over again in my thoughts, page after page.ย Of course many of these revelations aren’t really about drawing. They are about everything.
In no particular order, these are the top 100 realisations that accompanied this project.
It’s been an exercise in letting go of expectations, of ideal outcomes, and the accompanying paralysis of progress.
I’m learning to let go of ‘finished looking’ ย – being finished – being a ‘piece of art’ (whatever that might be).
Letting go of what other folks think, a neediness for approval or validation.
Letting go of the rules. This is my book: my rules.ย Rule 1: there are no rules.
โDrawing every dayโ isnโt even a rule.
Drawing for 100 days doesn’t mean 100 consecutive days. ย Don’t make up excuses to stop. Pick up and start again. Keep doing this.ย Just get to 100.ย
The photo is only a guide, a suggestion, a jumping off point. This isnโt an exercise in copying. A drawing can’t be wrong.
It doesnโt have to have the same colors, same shape, same perspective.
It doesnโt have to be the same every day – the same time, the same ‘style’, the same anything. Just another day, another page, another drawing.ย Keep exploring the other-ness
Some days have a flow to them – some days have an awkwardness – some days are fuelled by imagination – some days are an uphill slog.
Some are bits of all of these and flit and flicker between.
Some pages have words – information – data – facts – important-to-remembers.
Some page’s words and rememberings are from another day and donโt make sense any more. And thatโs okay.
Some days are unfinished. They will stay that way. I donโt have to go back. (there is no real ‘finished’).
Some days get lost and forgotten.
Some days are just made for catch ups.
Some catch ups are liberating – rejuvenating – expansive – explosions of imagination.
Some catch ups are uncomfortable and riddled with angst.
Some catch ups are a cold hard slog and bring up all the WHY???s
Sometimes it feels like a trajectory that cannot fail.
Sometimes it feels like losing footing – in slow motion – in the dark.
Sometimes it feels like treading water – waiting – waiting – waitingโฆ.
Sometimes it feels like falling – sinking – drowning.
Some drawings take on their own life with unseen meaning.
Some drawings take on their own life with an energy that didnโt come from me.
Some drawings have their own momentum – I watch them take shape with the curiosity of an outside observer.
Some drawings just don’t care. I could learn the most from these.
Some drawings have to be inched out slowly.
Some drawings surprise me by the reactions they evoke from others.
Some drawings surprise me by the feelings they evoke in me.
Some drawings overwhelm, some disappoint, some pass unjudged.
Some drawings have stories that let out secrets.
Some drawings are stories that hide more than they reveal.
Some stories are universal, everyone recognises a little bit of it in themselves.
Some stories are so deep they are unfathomable.
Some projects are way larger than the sum of their parts. This is certainly one of them.
Some projects are a stepping stone to a place I never knew existed before I started.
Some projects are meant to be finite. Done is done.
Some projects are meant to be repeated – reiterated – revisited.
Some projects are not supposed to be finished. They hangโฆ.
Some projects are so deeply enmeshed in a life, we are one and the same.
Some projects are fun to watch – to join – to play along.
Some projects never escape the confines of my mind, jammed up in the mechanism of the mental rotadex.
Sometimes the purpose will shift and change midway through. Over and over. The act of shifting becomes the purpose.
Sometimes the purpose won’t show itself until long after it’s over.
Sometimes the purpose is only clear to others.
Sometimes the purpose is only clear to me – and that’s all that matters.
Sometimes the purpose is unique to everyone who witnesses it.
Sometimes the purpose is unique to the season – or to the day.
Sometimes the way it seems, is the way it is. Sometimes it’s not been close.
Sometimes the way it seems is only a clue. It’s a seed, or a plan, or part of a bigger pattern.
The more I look for patterns the more I see them.
Patterns can be visual, patterns can be habitual, patterns repeat.
Patterns within patterns fascinate me most.
It’s ok to get stuck in one color for a while, the other colors will wait.
It’s ok to use all the colors – or none of them – or not care which.
It’ll never be finished, so keep moving forwards.ย
It’ll never be perfect, don’t ask it to be.
This might not answer the questions you thought it would.
This might not answer any questions. It might lead to more questions…
This might have no meaning at all – right now – or ever. And thatโs okay too.
If a meaning wants to show itself to you, it will find a way.
Whatever is underneath, showing through, is part of what is now. Let all the elements become parts of the whole. Allow the merge.
Describe the drawing in words – ย this is where the metaphors hide.
Describe the drawing out loud, ย it’s subtly different.
Shift the emphasis foreground to background, positive to negative space. Dance in between them.
Choose which details to use, which details to ignore, and which to make up.
Choose the image from within the image.
Find the art inside the photo.
Notice how some images repeat, return and revisit.
Notice how some characters keep showing up.
Notice how some characterโs expressions are the same: the face that asks: you still trying to draw me?
Notice how color schemes repeat.
Notice the themes of facing pages match unconsciously.
Notice how time concertinas in and out when you count the days.
Notice how the seemingly simple is really complex. And how the complex can be divided into manageable size bites.
How complexity presents a challenge, then the victory, the good enough level of mastery.
Balancing good enough against keep trying.
Knowing when to stop, knowing when to keep going.
How itโs all a freaking metaphor (and thatโs all of these too).
The bravery to pursue a doomed drawing, to trust it to turn around and turn out good, or just okay.
The bravery to post a picture I didnโt like, and the ones I did.
The bravery of sending these out into the wilds of the internet. It can be cold out there.
The revelation that others might like what I didnโt, see a beauty I canโt.
The revelation of turning the page, not looking back for a few weeks. How whatโs on the page โgets betterโ when itโs left to rest.
The revelation of drawings I hated, that hold no strong feelings now. And drawings I loved.
How much a background wash or splot of paint makes adds to a drawing.
How much a patch of color shifts a mood.
How much the character of the drawing is from the colors.
How much a drawing style develops over time, but canโt be seen from such close quarters or day to day.
How much a drawing style develops through simple repetition.
How much simple repetition is the key to it all. How much simple repetition is the key to it all. How much simple repetition is the key to it all. ๐
How ideas will hide and evade when called for, then descend en masse when itโs too late (and how it’s never really too late).
How some ways of making are so ingrained I donโt know there are other ways.
How chasing the other ways is part of the learning.
How finding other ways leads to new kinds of learning.
There are always going to be new ways of learning!
The journey is a spiral. The path isnโt re-trodden, next loop around looks familiar, but the view has altered.
The journey keeps going. Keeps going.
The mixed emotions at the end of a project, the end of an adventure, the intangible closure.
Catch more of my musing and artings in my monthly-ish newsletter delivered right to your inbox: clickety-hop aboard my email list right here.
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle & a kitten until the spring arrives.ย ย
You might remember my first ‘best laid’ plans
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