From my sketchbook

I was thinking the other day as I was working in my sketchbook, how I love working with the white space of the paper. But my recent entries are completely filled. I find myself actually painting and drawing around shapes so that little white is evident. Not sure yet to what this shift alludes, but for now I'm content with it.

We did see Finding Vivian Maier this weekend. Have you seen it? I completely recommend it. We both really liked it. I have a book of her work but the movie brings some personal bits about her life to light that I found surprising. She called herself a mystery woman, and I think she still is in a way, despite all the evidence she left behind. I have admired her work since John Maloof started the blog several years ago and put up a few images. Her eye is so intriguing to me.

On a side note, as I'm typing this, my studio door is open and the wrens have returned to nest in the bird house by the balcony. Their song is piercing, I love hearing it. I missed them last year, for whatever reason they didn't choose the little bird house. Though in 2012 they had two broods. I am excited they're back.

Today's sketchbook

A lot of odds and ends needed to be tied up today, taxes, paperwork, bio writing, decision making, emails, all with a bit of studio cleaning thrown in. If I didn't have my sketchbook, I'd feel much less human. This is my page from today.

I haven't mentioned it here yet, but I made a zine! Making work that is small and personable has always been interesting to me. So putting together this zine from my watercolor and sketchbook drawings was a lot of fun. It's available in my shop, which you can access by simply clicking the image below. Or, if you are local, you can pick one up at Wonder Fair. Also, over the weekend I conversed with the USPS, changed some of my packaging supplies, and found a way to make International shipping costs more affordable on most items. Yay! 

February's sketchbook

Above are selected pages from my sketchbook work in February. Looking at them on a structural level, ​I see bright colors mixed with subtle or tempered hues, pattern explorations, imprints of light and shadow, and a contrast between controlled markings and those that seem to abandon control. Yet to me those physical descriptions also relay the concepts.

Some of the written entries in my sketchbook I included in my "thirteen" posts (2.5.13 & 2.22.13). Below are a few other excerpts, that may make sense only to me, but perhaps they reflect the confluence of tangible and abstract ideas.

"Time becomes defined by would have beens and..."

"Richter said something like, "he likes work he doesn't understand, or doesn't like work he understands. I agree."

"Pre-language."

"In the dark I wait. Light. Desert. Water."

January's sketchbook

To be honest, in recent years I haven't been devoted to keeping a sketchbook. Is that a confession? Perhaps it sounds that way because of the perception that artists are to carry a sketchbook the same way people these days are glued to their smartphones. At least, that's what we were taught in school. No, I have always worked out ideas on individual pieces of paper, as I talk about here. But this year I started the practice of either writing, drawing, or painting daily, or almost daily, in a sketchbook. It's something I have always wanted to do, but I haven't committed myself. So far, it's going pretty well. Here's a look at a few pages from January.

So what about you, do you keep a sketchbook, or journal?

Sketchbook

Pages from recent workings in my sketchbook. Late afternoon, the December sun sliding down into night.