You will often hear artists expounding the virtues of drawing and sketching. However, if you have a day job, you’re a mum/dad or if it is simply a hobby to be squeezed into your free time, you want to spend your spare moments painting. If you don’t enjoy sketching for its own sake, it tends to be like decorating. Who wants to do the prep and sanding down?!
Have you thought of journaling? This is such a fun way to enjoy your hobby.
I have a holiday journal that travels with me everywhere. It is s sensible size (A4) that fits into a bag with a long strap to go over my body if I am out walking. It is just large enough for my journal, a travel set of paints, a water brush and a bit of money for a coffee. Should I want to sit and scribble, my hands are free and I don’t have to worry about it being safe from thieving fingers with it effectively strapped to me.
It goes everywhere. I am lucky enough to travel quite extensively with my artwork. When I am any distance from home and I know I can’t get back that evening, I like to take a bit of extra time the next day to explore and hopefully add something to the journal. I don’t just paint a scenic view, I enjoy adding things to help my memory recall the experience. So, maybe the road I took, or a road signpost. If I have been listening to music, or have a current “ear worm”, I write the song down. Maybe I will paint the cake or dessert I ate in a café, or the beautiful crockery that held my coffee. A squirrel that ran across my feet in the community gardens. This book is my living photo memory album!
When I go back to browse through it, I can almost hear the music and smell the candy floss on the pier.
This year, I joined in with the Nature Journaling Week. This is an initiative based in Australia, runs for a week, and involves artists and nature lovers across the world, both amateurs and professionals. Every day there was a theme with prompts, worksheets and live videos on the internet. I really enjoyed being focused on a specific subject, it made me LOOK! The following day, I avidly devoured all the different offerings form others on the Facebook Page. The diversity of wildlife from across the world was stunning, and of course, the way in which other people presented it was also a revelation.
When we sit down to paint a picture, we often feel the pressure to produce a masterpiece maybe for sale or exhibition. Sketchbooks can often feel like homework or prep.
So, throw it all out of the window and do something that is fun and just for YOU! A journal takes all of that feeling of expectation away, you are simply creating something for your own enjoyment. I bet you can’t just open it and start on a new page! Every time you open the book, you will look back at what you have done before you start the new page… and you will smile! You will smile as you recall that lovely afternoon that you sat in the sunshine and enjoyed the smell of the crushed grass and felt the wind in your hair…
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