I’ve happily just come across your publication and this one was my first read, which I really enjoyed, thank you. I’m pretty new to drawing and am also exploring paint (watercolour, gouache). I have one of those Art Toolkit palettes too, they’re fab! I have come to love the concept of blind contour drawing and feel for me it’s more than a way to practice drawing, it’s an end in itself. I’ve been doing something similar in my smallest sketchbook, doing a blind contour on one page then adding a little colour in paint to it, and finishing up with a paint doodle on the opposite page using the same colour/s. It feels like it’s becoming a habit and could carry me along when I’m stuck with what to do next.
I'm arriving late to your newsletter but I love your work and I'm happy to have found it (via your Happy New Year! email update).
A number of years ago when I was in a different job and often frustrated with my inability to practice my writing craft as much as I needed to, I started a practice of writing at least one good sentence a day in my journal. That ultimately led to my first book, which ultimately enabled me to quit my square job and devote my life to writing. So I am a big fan of the magic that can come from a small, dedicated, daily practice that doesn't necessarily have to begin as a Big Deal.
I went back to see the sentence I wrote the day you posted this newsletter and this is it:
2023_0111: Taking lunch in the Ninepipe Cafeteria where, cold as it is, the only others passing-by to eyeball the newcomer and perhaps offer a snarky observation or two are the magpies and the crows.
I should tell you the "Ninepipe Cafeteria" isn't a cafeteria at all. I was on a lunch break and I just set up the camp chair I keep in my truck to eat my lunch beside a frozen pond under some scraggly willows and cottonwoods in the Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge, which is on the CSKT Reservation in Western Montana.
Like this combination of drawing and the color swatch. I have started one this year with color and a few words but doing it in the evening as a reflection of the day.
I write morning pages nearly every morning. It's a practice I've been doing since I was in my twenties. There is something about it that opens the creative channels - my artist brain trusts that I'll show up consistently at the page, rather than sporadically. I love the combinations you did here with the color swatches and drawing - would make great gift cards :)
I’ve happily just come across your publication and this one was my first read, which I really enjoyed, thank you. I’m pretty new to drawing and am also exploring paint (watercolour, gouache). I have one of those Art Toolkit palettes too, they’re fab! I have come to love the concept of blind contour drawing and feel for me it’s more than a way to practice drawing, it’s an end in itself. I’ve been doing something similar in my smallest sketchbook, doing a blind contour on one page then adding a little colour in paint to it, and finishing up with a paint doodle on the opposite page using the same colour/s. It feels like it’s becoming a habit and could carry me along when I’m stuck with what to do next.
I'm arriving late to your newsletter but I love your work and I'm happy to have found it (via your Happy New Year! email update).
A number of years ago when I was in a different job and often frustrated with my inability to practice my writing craft as much as I needed to, I started a practice of writing at least one good sentence a day in my journal. That ultimately led to my first book, which ultimately enabled me to quit my square job and devote my life to writing. So I am a big fan of the magic that can come from a small, dedicated, daily practice that doesn't necessarily have to begin as a Big Deal.
I went back to see the sentence I wrote the day you posted this newsletter and this is it:
2023_0111: Taking lunch in the Ninepipe Cafeteria where, cold as it is, the only others passing-by to eyeball the newcomer and perhaps offer a snarky observation or two are the magpies and the crows.
I should tell you the "Ninepipe Cafeteria" isn't a cafeteria at all. I was on a lunch break and I just set up the camp chair I keep in my truck to eat my lunch beside a frozen pond under some scraggly willows and cottonwoods in the Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge, which is on the CSKT Reservation in Western Montana.
Like this combination of drawing and the color swatch. I have started one this year with color and a few words but doing it in the evening as a reflection of the day.
I write morning pages nearly every morning. It's a practice I've been doing since I was in my twenties. There is something about it that opens the creative channels - my artist brain trusts that I'll show up consistently at the page, rather than sporadically. I love the combinations you did here with the color swatches and drawing - would make great gift cards :)