daily-ish notes…

  • on kudos.

    Having support from other people, positive words of encouragement, or other kinds of thumbs up for your efforts is nice, but you can’t rely on it.

    Sometimes people get jealous of the things you are able to achieve, or are envious that you are able to achieve something they cannot.

    Sometimes people just aren’t in the mood, frame of mind or emotional space to validate something that is important to you creatively.

    Sometimes they don’t see what you see, the effort, incremental improvement, or the pride in success of some new concept or technique.

    You’re not always gonna get kudos, and you need to be okay with that and just keep going.

  • in support of practice paper.

    Maybe it seems obvious, but when I first started watercolour and was dealing with the cost of supplies, I overlooked adding practice paper to my kit.

    Y’know. Practice paper: a book or pad of okay paper on which you can doodle, experiment, goof around, try out techniques, swatch colours, et cetera, et cetera.

    It took me almost a year before I bit the bullet and bought a coil book of mid-level watercolour paper and devoted it to whatever… low expectation, scrap, mucking about stuff.

    The freedom to try something and not have it committed to your expensive supplies, or neatly bound books that seem like collections of your best efforts, just half-baked ideas tossed onto the page or muddled about, it frees up your practice for all sorts of learning opportunities.

    Yesterday’s sketch was based on an idea for a technique that I had, but also didn’t want to commit to fully for a moleskine urban sketch book I’ve been working on. I trialed the method in my practice book, liked it, and then refined it for the second, final painting.

    Seems obvious… but sometimes the obvious just isn’t.

  • to march fo(u)rth.

    March forth and never give up.

    March forth through not just the easy tasks, the obvious solutions or the simple actions, but through the difficult, challenging and complex.

    March forth against the adversity presented by your self doubt.

    March forth and do the crazy thing that no one else is doing.

    March forth, but rest when you need to and take a break, pausing to catch your breath and look around.

    March forth with strength and determination, heart and soul, mind and thoughtfulness, humanity and compassion in all that you create.

    March forth even when you’d rather sit still.

    March forth and on and be you.

  • on defining purpose.

    For over five months I ran this website as a simple collection of a few medium-length blog posts. Then, about three weeks ago, I decided to add a bunch of new features: this daily blog, a gallery of my sketches, and some space for creative writing. It went from very simple, to moderately complex, and got me thinking about what else I could put here.

    Sometime you have a purpose for something when you start out and it is very clear and obvious. Other times you create a space for purpose to fill into. I thought I’d started with a clear purpose, but it has started to seem like there was some space that was calling out to be filled.

    I don’t think either approach is right or wrong, good or bad, up or down.

    I think it’s merely important that you are able to recognize where purpose comes from, and when it enters into the narrative of your efforts to create something interesting.

  • for finding inspiration, part one.

    How do we find something to draw? I still struggle to think like a painter when I’m so used to thinking like a photographer. I look for scenes or composition, and I need to more often look for objects or shapes or colours or something that can’t even be captured through a lens.

    Look in nature for things that have colour and shape and form: mushrooms, pinecones, flowers, leaves, bark, small animals, stones or insects.

    Look in the city for objects with geometry and tones and function: signage, boxes, bikes, bins, trash, doors, valves, food, or the feeling of a texture on the side of a building.

    Look around home for stuff that feels familiar and you think you know: shoes, cans of soup, brushes, books, boxes, tools, toys or bits of technology.

    Inspiration is everywhere.