TIME & SPACE

I finally finally was able to sit down, at the dining room table, in an empty house, with a couple of hours to myself, and pull out my art stuff. And instead of enjoying the experience.. I put way too much pressure on myself. sigh.

It's amazing really.. how expectation changes everything.  It's unfortunate. I have to find a way to not care about the end result. Because that's when it's amazing, ya know? I don't know how you do that.

I can't even remember the last time I had a brush in my hand, but it's been a while.. honestly, I think it was nearly a year ago.. that weekend I realized I wasn't so great at creating with an audience. But I've been feeling so inspired lately, talking a lot of talk, and I wanted to see if I could still sit down and make something I was proud of.

I didn't. Not right away. I pulled out my ink pots, my pen and ink nibs.. an array of brushes and ten pieces of sketchbook paper, and told myself "you have to put something on all of them."

And then I just sat there.

I started pushing an ink wash around some of the pages, and quickly fell into an old habit of just throwing stuff down on paper.. about four sheets in, I felt pretty discouraged, because the ink was bleeding, my paper was tearing, and nothing was coming to life for me.

And then I realized my small window of time was getting away from me, and gave myself a pep talk.

"Draw something. A thing. An actual thing that is recognizable by people. Use your materials in the right order. Let your layers DRY. Stop rushing yourself. Stop with these expectations. Do something because you want to to do it. You don't have to show anyone if it doesn't work out."

So. I chose to draw a feather. And, I studied a few photos.
And after a few attempts and different techniques, I actually love them.

All of that to say, I've missed this. And I'm not throwing in the towel just yet. :) xo

pssst. the feather on the right is already up in the shop!