Laurelines

End of February sketches

Quickly posting a few journal pages... there are more, but I'm back from the weekend and have lots to do before I leave for Berlin on Wednesday.

Wow, I've been using lots of warm colors in my palette for the past few months. That amaryllis project and the blooming of bulbs I ordered last fall for it have caused this shift.. and I love it! I have, in the past, gravitated towards cool colors. Nice to immerse myself in reds, oranges, red-violets!

 

February miscellany!

Lots of sketches to share today!  My journal pages continue to keep me focused and happy, truth be told.

More in the car drawings. I started these last year and now have more to add to that series:

In ten days, I'm off to Berlin to visit my daughter---can't wait to see her AND that wonderful city!

Journal in February

Interesting (for me, anyway) to see how different subjects written and thought about elicit different drawing styles. I'll continue to document the process of clearing out my mother's house over the next weeks. In this way, I can feel as though I'm keeping something of the details of her daily life, her house. It helps.

The illustrated journal as lifeline

One of the unintended consequences of keeping this blog (six years old this month!) is that I stopped keeping a regular journal. For various reasons, I've started up again and am including imagery of a personal kind in it. I'm not making illustrations of my daily life, such as you find in my brilliant friend Kate Johnson's work---and in the journals of most of my fellow contributors who will appear in her upcoming book, Artist's Journal Workshop. I'm making images that spontaneously occur to me while writing, or I'm jotting down thumbnail compositions or making color notes. And, unlike in years past and with my sketchbooks, I'm putting everything, art and life, in one place. 

Oh, how lifesaving this writing and drawing is. I can pull myself back from the cliffs of panic and depression, I can get clearheaded and centered. I can keep track of ideas that flash like comets through my brain and fix them on paper. For the past few years, those meteoric thoughts too often evaporated as if they had never been.

And I can share with you some of these words and images from my journal, when, as now, my other work is in process, or is interrupted by business and family concerns.  

Yes, I know we all know this about journal keeping, that it is a lifeline for its creators. There's nothing new here.  But sometimes I forget basic things--- and stumble upon them again with the enthusiasm of a learning-to-waddle one year old. 

The only downside of this particular journal is its relatively large size for such a thing--- 9" x 11". There's no slipping this book in a small bag or unobtrusively sketching in it in public. Still, it's what I need right now. I hope you will find these occasional glimpses interesting.

<