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Sunday at the Albuquerque Rail Yards Market.
Kuretake Watercolor, Sakura Micron Pen |
How has your summer been? For me it went a little too fast. Thankfully here in Albuquerque it's still sunny and warm, but there is definitely a tinge of autumn in the air. Which means it's time to buckle down with a "back-to-school" attitude and get back to my main WIP, Ghazal. I also want to get back into a dedicated sketching schedule that fits in with all my other projects.Two things that are currently helping me get there are my writer's group summer art journal project and my outings with Urban Sketchers. Starting with my writer's group, because we've been meeting at the Albuquerque Museum we've been able to stay inspired by all the amazing art exhibited throughout the halls and galleries. Several weeks ago we had the idea to set out individually to find a painting or installation that could be the basis of some of our art journal pages.
For me it was coming across an entire room devoted to the travel sketches of New Mexico-based architect, Antoine Predock. The extensive collection ended with an intricate proposal for a southern branch of the Palace Museum in Taiwan (unfortunately never realized), but I was so taken with the loose and easy style that led up to this final, intricate fantasy that I had to go visit the exhibition three more times over the next month. Predock's example and implied advice to scribble, go for color blocks and bold lines, and to follow what you feel about a place and its landmarks, rather than what you're "supposed to see" was exactly what I've been trying to achieve on my own for the last couple of years.
I kept all of that in mind last Sunday when I went with Urban Sketchers to the Albuquerque Rail Yards Market for two hours of morning sketching: |
Albuquerque Rail Yards--abandoned but not forgotten!
Kuretake Watercolor and Sakura Micron Pen |
The more I go out with the group the better I'm becoming at relaxing and losing my self-consciousness. I care more about the experience than the results, and consequently I'm drawing more than I ever have before. I love it! |
Kuretake Watercolor, Fine-line Sharpie,
Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pens |
I then wondered how this approach could work with writing and I found it fit perfectly. For instance:
- Go BOLD. Don't hold back; don't edit, mince your words, or fear critique and censure. Let go and let the words flow.
- Similar to a "gesture drawing," capturing the essence of a subject rather than the details, try gesture writing. First thoughts, first attempts, first drafts contain a lot of energy--energy that can transform your voice and writing into something only you could write.
- Write hundreds and hundreds of pages. I was impressed at how many sketches Predock had made, many of them simply a few lines in the center of the page, but each was so strong and effective. His examples reminded me to not skimp on materials, ideas, or any step that will express where I completely want to go.
Good ideas for some good writing time! Enjoy the season.Tip of the Day: Thinking of editing your work? Whatever you do, please don't kill the sketch. Whether you're sketching towards creating a more polished painting, or freewriting dozens of vignettes and character studies for your novel, screenplay, or short story collection, don't go crazy with the polishing. Yes, weed out awkward phrases, lines, and repetitions, but stay true to what made you fall in love with your ideas in the first place. Stay loose.
Writing a series of poems based on my trip to Taiwan last year wasn't on my 2016 to-do list. It really wasn't, but now that it's appeared, I can happily say I've battled through and my first draft is well and truly finished. Yay!
That said, it wasn't an easy journey, especially when I reached a place several weeks ago where I was well and truly stuck: right smack dab in the middle. I was uninspired, tired, and beginning to worry that the whole project was a major distraction and a waste of time.
Reaching the middle of any project rarely feels like a victory. Instead, all I can usually think of is how much more work I have to do to finish. So when I found myself in the middle of A Taiwan Sketchbook (my working title) rather than writing the second draft of my new novel, Ghazal, I suddenly realized how long it had taken me to get to where I was, and how much more effort I had to put into the project before I could type THE END. Just thinking about all those hours of work ahead of me sent me to the couch and a headache.While I was lying there, feeling both guilty and utterly defeated, I thought of all the stages of my project that had brought me to where I was, starting with my GRAND IDEA:- The excitement of STARTING. It was so much fun. I love starting new projects. All that anticipation, planning, preparing new notebooks and buying new pens. Nothing better!
- Once all my tools were in place, the next stage centered around starting new rituals, new schedules, new dedication--writing every day, staying on track, marking my progress on a calendar.
- And then . . . I had to skip a day. An appointment, having to stay late at work, no food in the house . . .
- So I had to put in double-duty the next time I sat down to write to make up for lost time.
- Which meant: this is starting to feel like WORK. Where'd the fun go?
- Before I knew it, I was in the MIDDLE of a project and it all seemed like chaos and hell and something that would take me the rest of my life to complete, if I ever survived to tell the tale.
The thing about all this, however, is it's happened to me so often it's nothing new. I know in advance that there will always come a day in my writing when resistance looms large, quitting sounds wonderful, and I'd rather be reading or painting. I've been on that same couch with the same headache so many times before, and yet, guess what? I've always started writing again. Here's how you can too:- Give up--yes! At least for the moment. Stay on the couch, read, watch a movie, take a break. If you really have reached the middle of your work, you deserve a little time off!
- When you feel rested, start back at the beginning when you got those nice writing supplies. Organize what you have already accomplished into new folders and binders; brainstorm and create lists of what you need to do to finish.
- Forget about order and following an outline. Write the scenes or portions of your work you want to write, don't worry about transitions or a table of contents.
- Concentrate on your ending first. Write your last scene (or poem, or paragraph depending on what it is you're working on) and craft the rest of your story to fit your conclusion or theme.
- Calculate how much time it took you to reach the middle. Now assign that same amount of time, plus an extra few weeks or so for emergencies, and give yourself a deadline. Write it down on a calendar.
- Work fast. Remember this is first draft stuff. Just get there--it doesn't matter how!
If you've tried all this, though, and do discover that your heart truly isn't in a project, give yourself permission to stop, maybe even quit. Don't toss any of your work, but simply put it away and move on to something new. And if you find yourself missing the project at a later date, but you're not sure how to re-start it, evaluate what it was that kept you from continuing. Was it your choice of genre, voice, or style? Were you being too ambitious and trying to add too many (and superfluous) elements to your story-line? Were you trying to please readers rather than yourself? Spend a few days journaling about your situation and then see if things are really as bad as you thought they were. With any luck and a lot of determination you should be able to find some valuable solutions.
Tip of the Day: Stuck in the middle of your WIP? Brainstorm! Create a list of 100 new "what-if's" and scenes. See which ones can inject fresh energy into your manuscript. And always keep in mind, once you've passed "the middle," it's all downhill from there!
This month my writer's group is trying something new: art journaling together. It isn't the first time we've "changed the rules" and jumped into fresh territory, but adding artwork to our writing is a bit of a departure for us.
To start things off, we agreed to each choose a special sketchbook or journal to work in. In keeping with many of my "how wrong can this go" attempts to get things right, I chose a sketchbook that came with impossible-to-remove stickers on both the front and back covers. After an hour of attempting to remove them, I ended up with a thousand little bits of paper still clinging on like limpets, as well as some deep gouges and tears in the cardboard. Solution? Start my art journal with some cover collage!Lemonade out of lemons, right?
Despite my somewhat rough start to the project, I think it's going well. We've had two art journal-based meetings so far; chosen themes for our journals (I've only changed mine twice); written down our intentions for our journaling practice, and started filling pages.
Regardless of whether we're working on journaling, short stories, or poetry, our group meets every two weeks, usually in a bookstore or museum cafe, and the one thing we've always done is have fun. The second objective that has kept our group strong and lively is that we concentrate on writing together rather than critiquing. It's made a difference to a) not have "homework assignments" between meetings; b) be able to support each other's creativity without playing editor, imposing our opinions where they don't really belong, and/or stifling a work at any stage of the draft-process.
Writing together has had all sorts of benefits, new manuscripts being the least of them. More than anything we've learned to:
- Write on demand regardless of where we are, how we're feeling, or how lousy we think our work is at any given time.
- Be fearless. After we write, we read aloud. Although we've always provided the option to not read if something feels too personal or too raw for sharing, I've never known any one of us to use that option.
- Ink. In every color of the rainbow. We write by hand when we get together, and the results have never been anything less than impressive. (Hear that, writer's group? You are fantastic writers!!)
Some of the other ways we've kept the inspiration high has been to:- Write flash fiction or poetry using word and picture prompts cut from magazines. Sometimes we'll all use the same picture, e.g., a strange setting, an evocative character, or an unusual object. At other times we'll combine them, or have a little package of our own (passed out during the meeting) containing two or three individual images. I never cease to be amazed at how different our stories are, or how publication-ready the writing is.
- Go for timed writing. We give ourselves anywhere between thirty to forty-five minutes to write. Once the time is up, it's pens down.
- Take field trips. We haven't had as many of these as I would like (note to group: take more trips!), but the trips we have taken have been unforgettable. I'm especially thinking of the time we all went up to Santa Fe and back by train.
- Bring pot-luck brunch and meet at someone's house. Yum.
- Treat ourselves to a restaurant lunch. No clean-up involved. We had pizza last time. Super yum.
- Watch a how-to video together. Great for discussion (and eating. We combined the video with another pot-luck.).
- White elephant parties. We got so good at this we've had to give them up, but essentially what we did was bring unwanted items from home, play a silly game to hand them around, and anything we didn't want was collected and taken to the thrift store the next day. Now that we're all beautifully de-cluttered, we've decided to keep our homes as junk-free as possible meaning the parties are over, but they were entertaining while they lasted.
I can't wait to see how our art journaling experiment works out. Although we are pretty much trying a free-form approach, we are also using this helpful list of 50 ideas I found at Blacksburg Belle for when we get stuck and need a small prompt (or a big shove). This motivational blog is loaded with lots of other excellent creative tips, so I highly recommend a visit. In the meantime, get out those glue sticks, write your hearts out, and keep the lemonade flowing.
Tip of the Day: Break out of the box. Even if you love your writer's group exactly the way it is, it never hurts to shake things up a bit. Meet somewhere new, read a book together, brainstorm some fresh possibilities. Drop a line a let me know how it's going.
If I wasn't participating in the #AtoZChallenge this year, I think my vision board for the month would be a nice, white, blank page--completely empty and as restful as white sheets on a freshly-made bed. But that would be totally boring for you, my dear readers, so for today's post I've tried to bring you something a little more colorful. And after assembling this mini-board full of travel and art supplies, I do feel re-inspired, re-charged, and re-energized to make it all the say to Z (only 4 more posts to go!).
Vision boards have always played a large part in my life and my journals, and I can testify to them always coming true. Always. Whatever I've collaged and focused upon has entered my life in one way or another, and often with much better results than I ever allowed for in my original vision.
Some of the boards I've made have included:
- Houses and cities I've wanted to live in. (Best example: When I was fourteen I made a collage for my Home Economics class describing how I wanted to live in London one day. Nine years later I was living and working there--and in a flat almost identical to the one I had collaged for my teacher!)
- Trips I have wanted to take.
- Work and teaching opportunities.
- Creative work: manuscripts, paintings, drawings, pottery and jewelry I've aspired to make.
- Getting published and selling my work.
Friends have told me that their vision boards have brought them all of the above and more, things such as improved relationships, better health and well-being, longed-for pets, and new jobs with better financial stability. Dream it, believe it, and write it down with some great images to accompany your inner vision . . . I can't think of a better use for an art journal!
Whether you choose to make a large or small-sized journal-page "board," keep in mind that it doesn't have to include your entire bucket list. In fact, sometimes it's more effective to create a single page or section of your journal for each individual goal or aspiration. The most important thing is to dream big. After all, the imagination has no limits, so why should you? Go for it!
Tip of the Day: If you don't mind the chance of letting other people see your dreams, the cover of your journal can be the perfect spot for your vision board. Not only will it make an otherwise dull cover brighter and more interesting, it will help you to visualize your forward path every time you see your journal.
The first time I ever saw a letter and it's accompanying envelope as part of a book was in the Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock. Bantock's work has been a big influence on my own, and many others, journal work, and little hidden notes throughout my journals has now become a mainstay.
Writing unsent letters can be a healing and cathartic experience--and you never have to worry about accidentally pressing the "send" button before you're ready! No regrets, no unintended hurt feelings, no misinterpretations. The only person reading your letters is you, even if you've addressed them to all sorts of people. For instance, you might like to write an unsent letter to:- The editor. The one who rejected you, and not very nicely.
- Mean-spirited book reviewers.
- Those kids in high school. You know the ones . . .
Feel better? Once you've got that out of the way, other letters can be written to:
- Your child-self, or who you were as a teen or young adult.
- Someone you've never met, but always have wanted to thank for inspiring you.
- Fictional characters in books or movies you've loved.
- Your future self.
- Anyone you still have an unresolved conflict with, but it's impossible or inappropriate to contact them.
- Write to your manuscript or any work-in-progress that is troubling or perplexing you.
Letters don't always have to go into envelopes, but it's fun to give them their own space, especially if you decorate the envelope in some way, or tuck other small items in along with the note. In the past I've included mini-photos and even a dollar bill! (I don't know why; it just felt "right.")
If you're concerned about maintaining the privacy of your unsent letters, two techniques that have worked for me are to:
- Write out the full letter on a journal page and then collage over the entire text. The letter is there, but completely hidden by images relevant to the letter's contents.
- Try "stacked journaling," a technique that turns your handwriting into an elaborate and abstract work of art that will be unreadable to anyone. Basically you simply write in one direction, then write again over the lines in another, and so on, back and forth. Use several different ink colors to really make the piece "pop."
Personally, I miss the days of sending actual, handwritten or typed letters to friends and family: choosing nice stationary (onion-skin for airmail, heavy cream linen for query letters); waiting for the mail to arrive; everyone being okay with weeks or even months between replies. All of that can be reproduced in my journals, and with an added bonus--I don't have to go to the post office!
Tip of the Day: Buy yourself a greeting card or two. Whenever I've gone to buy a birthday or other type of card it takes me forever to decide on which one--I want them all! I've solved my dilemma by buying a few extra for myself and using them throughout the year to write "surprise" notes in my journal.
Of all my journals, my travel journals have to be among my favorites. Every time I go through them I'm taken back in time and place and feel like I've just been on a mini-vacation.
Some of my tips for art journaling on the road include:
- Travel light. Choose a sketchbook that fits into your purse, carry-on, or back pack so you can have it with you at all times.
- Whatever your medium, take a sketchbook with heavier, rather than lighter paper. You might start out thinking you don't like watercolor, but then end up buying a set somewhere during your travels. Be prepared for new choices.
- Pens and pencils: I'm a big fan of water-soluble pencils. You only need between 6 and 12 to have a wide range of colors. Throw in a waterbrush, a black ballpoint or roller pen, a mechanical pencil, and you're ready to go!
- Before you leave home, pre-tone some of your sketchbook pages. Laying down a light watercolor wash or a background of soft pastel can save a lot of time when you reach your destination. It will also help to give your sketches a more finished look.
- A large-size, heavy-weight plastic zip-lock type of pouch or folder is a must-have for collecting museum brochures, ticket stubs, menus, flyers . . . you know, stuff! Bring along a glue-stick as well if you'd like to paste anything into your journal on site, although it's often easier to collage once you get home.
- A small viewfinder. I used to think I could get away with not having one, but now I think it's indispensable. For me, at least, seeing a new mountain vista or city-scape for the first time can be overwhelming. A viewfinder helps me to break down the scene into sketch-size pieces. It's also a helpful tool for isolating detail I might want to make a special note of.
Whatever type of sketchbook and materials you choose, keep in mind that you don't have to travel to an exotic or expensive locale to start a travel journal of your own. How about looking at your hometown through the eyes of a tourist? Take a journal to local museums, galleries, parks, and restaurants and record what you find. Pretend you're seeing it all for the very first time--perhaps you are, especially if you visit places you may not have considered worth seeing before. Off you go!
Tip of the Day: Another kind of travel journal you can make, and without leaving home, is to create a journal based on a location you've always dreamed of visiting, but haven't got there yet. Find images online, in travel magazines, and from friends' personal hordes and photos. Bon voyage!
Raise your hand if you remember making a carved-potato stamp in grade school? Big piece of newsprint, runny tempura paint? Having the best time ever?
Those potatoes have stuck in my mind for a long time. One Christmas we used cut-up sponges instead and made our own gift wrap. My parents probably wondered what their tax dollars were being spent on, but craft projects were always my favorite part of the school day.
Today I still play with stamping, only I usually go for fancy store-bought ones, as well as real, live postage stamps. I like to collect both kinds when I travel: on today's art journal page I used a postage stamp from Taiwan, a good old 1-cent USA stamp, and one I cut out of a travel magazine. I also used a couple of rubber stamps, placing the butterfly on yet another of my practice apricot sketches similar to the one I pasted onto "A is for Art Journal." (This example shown here was drawn on a piece of fabric interfacing--a very interesting experiment and highly recommended.)
But going back to rubber stamps, the one problem is that they're pricey. I always buy them when they're on sale, which saves a lot of money, but there's other ways to stick to a budget:
- Avoid the art supply stores and shop instead at dollar and discount stores. Sometimes they have fantastic deals and selections.
- Carve your own stamps from rubber and plastic erasers (including the ones at the tip of a pencil) with an X-acto knife.
- Carve old wine corks.
- Cut out shapes from thick or corrugated cardboard.
- You can make all sorts of designs from dried modelling and paper clays.
- Don't forget those potatoes! Other root vegetables can work too (I promise this isn't an April Fool's joke).
- Sponges.
- Household items: hairbrushes, toothbrushes, embossed wallpaper scraps. Use your imagination.
- Lino-blocks.
Many of these techniques, especially the potatoes and cardboard, will probably have a one-time, one-project use, but that's okay. It's easy to get bored with your stamp collections (one of the reasons I don't like to pay too much for them) and after several butterflies and seahorses you're soon longing for a kitten- or parrot stamp.
The only other thing you'll need for stamping besides shape and design is some color. Ink pads for stamps come in so many shades and styles today it's difficult to choose; some provide a faded "vintage" look, others have a gilded, metallic appearance. Just like making your own stamps, however, you don't always need a commercial stamp pad. Watercolor, washable felt tip pens, acrylic and other paints work just as well if not better depending on your project.
So the next time you receive a card, letter, or package with an attractive stamp adhered--save it. I like to keep a little bit of the actual envelope's torn pages "framing" the stamp, as well as the entire postal imprint--almost as good as a free rubber stamp, especially if its from overseas!
Tip of the Day: Of all my stamps, the one that means the most to me and that I'll never get bored with is my personal stone seal I ordered from Taiwan: Happy Little Cat. If you'd like something similar, I recommend the company I went through: Asian Brush Art. They also have lovely pre-carved Chinese character stamps that you can purchase to enhance your work with balance and a happy thought for the day.
