Category: From My Sketchbook

December 31, 2015

2015 in Review

As is my custom, I’m reviewing the past year and looking forward to my goals in 2016. I also want to wish anyone reading this a very happy and fulfilling New Year. Thank you for viewing my work.

Accomplishments:

I put my house plans on hold and decided instead to return to school, which was a really big and risky decision. So far I have completed all of the prerequisites I need for nursing school except for Human Growth and Development (I’m working on that now).
I took an intense four week CNA course and successfully passed my state exam to receive my CNA certification.
I made three illustrations of spinach for Sow True Seed Company. Read their blog post featuring me here.
I participated in Inktober, a pen and ink drawing challenge in the month of October.
I made some handmade Christmas presents—something I have wanted to do in past years but never got around to actually completing.

Challenges

Art making was put on the back burner for most of the year because I was working on school so intensely, which did not leave a lot of energy to focus on much of anything else.
I had a pretty bad injury to my face last January and have had ongoing dental and facial pain for most of the year. Chronic pain can certainly be very wearing.

Goals for 2016

I am participating in the Twitter Art Exhibit, which will take place in March.
For the rest of 2016 I am going to try to focus solely on my own projects and sketchbooks. I’d like to have new work to post to my blog once a week, if possible.
My general intention for 2016 is to start projects instead of just thinking about them. Nothing this year I did was perfect, but I am glad I was able to finish some things that I had the courage to start in the first place.

December 18, 2015

Sketchbook Roundup

Here is a compilation of my recent sketchbooks for your enjoyment. I’ve been really trying to keep a regular sketchbook habit as it is the single best thing I know of for stress relief and relaxation. Plus, I’ve been lucky to have a lot of fresh flowers in the house. Right now I’m really busy with Christmas prep and having a great time with it.

October 27, 2015

From the Garden: squash

These are some old sketches of squash from the garden and CSA.

October 9, 2015

Howth

These days I am not much of a traveling person, but I know some travelers and made this sketch from someone’s photo after a recent trip to Ireland. I used my Faber Castell PITT pens in assorted colors with the standard size S tips and the brush tips. My goal was to impart a feeling of texture which I think I achieved. In the past, I have traveled with companions who were much too fast paced for me, which took the enjoyment out of it. When I am able to travel again I am going to go strictly for painting, sketching and fine dining, not shopping or bus tours.

October 5, 2015

We had a bountiful pear harvest this year.

This season is the first one that yielded a significant number of pears from the pear trees (Bartletts, two of them). The first year, there was nothing and the trees had to be dug up and rotated as they were planted improperly. The second year, we got pears on one of the trees but someone stole them! This year, the trees were heavy-laden with pears. One of the trees had fewer, fatter pears. The other tree had more pears, but they were generally smaller. We canned most of them already, but we saved some of the baby pears for eating.

October 1, 2015

Lost and Found

This is a drawing I did in my sketchbook last July but I promptly forgot about it and never posted it. It was drawn from a snapshot taken at Dunn Pond circa 2010. This past year I haven’t taken my camera out a lot or gotten outside to draw much, so I am delving into my photo archives. This particular scene would be better presented in color as it is a scene of fall foliage in front of brilliant blue water.

Recently, I found an artist online who I used to follow for years but she somehow didn’t get transferred over to my newsreader when Google Reader was discontinued. I didn’t remember her name – all I knew was that she was of Filipino descent and she had an unusual title for her blog. After a lot of googling I found her again at Ces and Her Dishes and her real name is Cecelia Adorio. She creates elaborate and imaginative pen and ink drawings based on a wide range of subjects, mostly botany and wildlife. You can also find Cecelia on Behance and Instagram. I encourage you to also read her blog posts, and not just look at the pictures, as she is informative and she often gives me a chuckle.

August 13, 2015

A much needed rest

I took my last final exam yesterday and then breathed a sigh of relief. It is so good to have a small rest. I spent the day today working in my sketchbook. The artwork I have made over the past summer has been slim to none and I have been craving some time to sit around and draw. I have had a desire to make very imaginative drawings in my sketchbook and I am so excited to get into a more regular creative routine again.

Here are some things I have come across online recently that I found inspiring:

Nick Neddo forages in the woods of Vermont to find raw ingredients to make handmade art supplies. I would really like to learn to make my own ink and charcoal.
This article describes the philosophy of UltraRomance, a man who has designed his lifestyle to involve the least amount of work as possible so he can have more free time to ride his bike.
I really enjoyed this short film about Jake Weiddman, “master penman.” I have never heard of that title before, but this man truly takes pen and ink to a new level.
The Ten Things is an animated short (an excerpt from a longer film) that outlines some really inspiring philosophies about life.

July 17, 2015

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

I read this book a few months back and it has really stuck with me, which is rare for a nonfiction book. I am someone who has struggled for years with what Marie Kondo calls “rebound.” My relationship with organization is similar to what some people deal with when yo-yo dieting. I go on a massive cleaning spree and have things under control for about one week, but things quickly fall apart again. Over the past four years or so I have really improved, due to drastically reducing my living space and possessions accordingly. Even still, I continue to struggle, as I have not been able to stick to a long term solution. When my summer term is over, I am going to do a purge and fully implement her method. I will report back on my findings.

This is one of my favorite passages of the book:

If you have read this far, you have probably noticed that in my method your feelings are the standard for decision making. Many people may be puzzled by such vague criteria as “things that give you a thrill of pleasure” or “click point.” The majority of methods give clearly defined numerical goals, such as “Discard anything you haven’t used for two years,” “Seven jackets and ten blouses is the perfect amount,” “Get rid of one thing every time you buy something new.” But I believe this is one reason these methods result in rebound.

Even if these methods temporarily result in a tidy space, automatically following criteria proposed by others and based on their “know-how” will have no lasting effect – unless their criteria happens to match your own standards of what feels right. Only you can know what kind of environment makes you feel happy. The act of picking up and choosing objects is extremely personal. To avoid rebound, you need to create your own tidying method with your own standards. This is precisely why it is so important to identify how you feel about each item you own.

–Marie Kondo in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, pg 125-126.

July 3, 2015

A Pause

I’m at the halfway mark of my intense summer school schedule and I’m breathing a small sigh of relief. (On Monday I get started on my second dose of Chemistry.) I have taken to making small abstract sketches on graph paper in cerulean blue. I find it relaxing when I am feeling studied out.

Also, I have been trying to work out an issue with my images. I have noticed that my images have been appearing very fuzzy since I got my new computer with a high definition screen. I didn’t notice it before I got my new computer, but now I want to fix it so that my artwork will look great on Retina and high def screens, which everyone will have at some point. I tried out a new plugin for WordPress which generates these Retina images and I will have to do some more experimenting with it to figure it out completely.

May 24, 2015

The last long weekend

My last day of work was this past Wednesday and I’ve taken the past few days off before school starts to take care of some things around the house and to do the last of my pleasure reading until the fall, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley. This afternoon is probably the last of the family parties that I will be able to participate in until the Fourth of July.

In other news, Michael Nobbs has redesigned his website, Sustainably Creative, and has now made his podcasts freely available. I have followed Michael since I was part of the Everyday Matters Yahoo! Group and I really respect his ideas. He also has a really nice British accent and a generally soothing voice.

My tooth is also feeling quite a bit better—not perfect, but better.