Stopping at the trail marker of my art journey to look back for a moment at the month behind. Then looking into the distance for the next month. Rehydrate—and then keep going.

Contents of This Post:

What I made

What I learned

What surprised me

Intentions for February

WHAT I MADE

I’m surprised by how much I actually created this month, honestly. I had no time for art while at The Hoffman Institute for 10 days, and it feels like I veered wildly from my January intentions, especially from all the imaginative drawing and daily/urban sketching I hoped to do.

However, I really enjoyed making characters on sticker paper in Carla Sonheim’s Yearlong class 2022.

Also, I’m glad I decided to start two year-long projects: Read with Me and 52 Cards project. They’re both easy enough to fold into my life because I am always reading anyway— and the book for January was wonderful—and oh, the theme cards! I love them so far! It’s just a joy to reflect on my week and make just one card that expresses a theme.

In addition to classes and projects, I really do want to adopt a daily sketching/“urban” sketching practice—it will get me outside and I might meet other urban sketching artists (an art goal this year) and of course it’s just good drawing practice. But when I was honest with myself I saw that I wasn’t that excited about doing traditional “urban” sketches.

But then I found some classes on Skillshare and I discovered that there is an “urban sketching” style and approach that does interest me—and so I did begin with my first four urban sketch drawings—from photo references. I’ll get outside soon—but I think this will a great launch into a whole new urban sketching adventure!

What I learned

Well, first of all, Hoffman cannot go undiscussed. I attended the Hoffman Institute January 8-14th and while this personal transformation experience isn’t exactly an art thing—art and life are inseparable. In fact, what I learned at Hoffman this month immediately started showing up in my theme cards.

At its essence, the Hoffman process helped me let go of the past and see how to fully live in the present moment. It’s really that simple—and that difficult to explain without describing the process itself, which I’m not going to do here.

But the bottom line is that I feel more connected with my true Self (Follow the Leader), more able to discern what is authentic (Inside Voice), and I have a set of practices that I can bring into my life that will help me to continue to deepen my experience of life and to face challenges with awareness (Connected). And yes, this is a spiritual journey of a lifetime—but then, Everything is Spiritual.

So anyway, that’s the big life learning for the month. Creatively, I also learned quite a bit:

• Drawing in black and white requires full understanding of contrast. My first four theme cards are all in black and white, and it was sometimes very challenging to get the contrast right. I don’t know when I’ll start using color over the 52 cards, but for now, black and white is a good teacher.

• Creating sticker characters reminded me that you can’t spend too much time experimenting with ideas. The more you experiment, the more new things that come.

• Writing about a book—even if it’s not a formal review—still takes a considerable chunk of time and attention, but it’s worth it! I remembered why I love reading so much when I wrote about the first book, The Humans.

• Urban sketching can be done in a lot of different styles—I think I had the idea that realistic drawing was the only kind of urban sketching. It’s not.

• I’m still not wrong that I need drawing practice and skill building for any kind of urban sketching. No matter the style, you need to understand perspective, proportion, color, a sense of space—AND how to put express your own emotions in the subject. I have a lot to learn (yay!)

What surprised me

Everything this month? Hoffman blew my mind (and heart). Journaling was so powerful all month and reminded me how important a tool it is in my life. I CAN invent cute characters. I CAN create an expressive card each week. I CAN draw houses—and someday soon I hope to draw them in my style. Oh man, the possibilities are endlless!

And so, as we leave January behind, I begin the next month with revised intentions. I’ll be back at the end of the month to tell you how it went.

Intentions for February

• Continue journaling/sketching/listing/notetaking in my Everything Journal — it’s the best tool!

• Get back to more imaginative drawing in my art journal

• Practice urban sketching all month

• Take part in Carla Sonheim’s annual class

• Complete a card a week for the 52 Cards Project

• Read The Sentence by Louise Erdrich for my Read with Me project, and

• Write a blog post about it

• Share and connect with other artists online and off