Journal — Creative Excavation

My digital journal experiment continues. I have to say, I think this kind of visual summary of my week will be useful as a way to reflect and move through my practice.

It’s been a creative week. Emotionally (and creatively) I was all over the place—but I think I landed somewhere. Or at least somewhere else. I’ll never really get over losing my dog—Rufus was a part of the family—but this is how it is when losing someone you love. Loss is real—and life goes on. Eventually the happy memories will linger longer than the pain.

I now find myself working in FIVE sketchbooks...pictured above.

Two for general practice (first two on left):

🔷A multi media spiral bound pad for random sketching.

🔷a smaller sketchbook dedicated to more formal drawing practice.

and three for different projects (last three):

🔷the light green "daily" sketchbook where I’m building up a growing collection of “anything goes” drawings—more sketching from imagination and emotions or trying out new things.

🔷the thin bright green "book of art tools" I'm slowly creating.

🔷and now I've just made the small blue handmade art journal inspired by the online class, The Seeded Notebook taught by Henrik Drescher and offered by Carla Sonheim Presents.

I judge myself sometimes for working in multiple books—but the truth is, each one fulfills a function and as I work from one to the other, my practice moves forward. It’s time, I realized this week, to stop the self judgement. I cycle through the books, mixing practice and play, skill building and self expression. This is MY process.

The last book found me, I think. Lately, I’ve been feeling a deep need to break out into more free self expression (no surprise in this week’s horoscope!)— I want to incorporate more intuitive mark making and collage. So the other day I was admiring an artist on Instagram, Nullsie, for that very thing—her free expression (I love her work!)—and she linked to Drescher’s “Seeded Notebook” course. Such a good idea! I was instantly smitten, signed up the class, and over just a couple of days I made my own notebook.

The whole book is "seeded" with random collage and I will spend many happy hours filling in the pages with intuitive expression... just what I need!

It feels right.