Progress, patterns and planning........

Hello and welcome to September.

How was your summer? Good I hope. Mine consisted of juggling decorating my new studio (see my last post) and getting my much anticipated layout table, storage and benches (see photos below), the school holidays and all the logistics that entails plus a beautiful (and sunny!) holiday to the Isle of Skye which was magical in every way. In short - busy!

But even during these months, I managed to carve out some mindful time to doodle, create and explore patterns, shapes and colours in my working sketchbook, a safe place to develop ideas and simply try new things, as any artist will tell you. It has been a wonderful experience to ‘show up’ to my sketchbook without any intention other than to sit quietly and draw what comes into my mind.

I chose a few random items of media to explore, only swapping them around occasionally to make sure I got a real feel for them. I can’t recommend highly enough how important this practice is - even if you only grab 5 minutes in your day to get something down. It engages you in a space that is not connected with the fast moving outside world and reminds you why you like to create so much. And its actually quite addictive - you might surprise yourself how many pages you get done in one sitting!

I will continue to fill up this sketchbook over the coming months, but here are a few photos of some of my sketchbook pages……

Finally, as I sit in my studio feeling a little overwhelmed as to where to begin (the possibilities are all too mind-blowing), I take a deep breath and jot down things I’d like to try over the coming months - maybe larger prints and collages now that I have the opportunity. Whatever the result, I’m looking forward to it all……