A fun and unexpected side effect of watching the lovely Creative Sparks on the ecourse producing beautiful artwork has been a reigniting of my own desire to try some new things and play in my sketchbook.
The course begins with some very simple exercises, specially designed to bypass common issues like fear and self doubt when you’re tentatively rediscovering your artist self after a long drought. {I’m a poet and I know it.}
Seeing what’s been emerging from the classroom has been sparking my own ideas left right and centre. I hadn’t known this would be a side effect and am interested to learn yet another new thing about this ecourse malarkey.
These are some of the results of recent evenings spent on the sofa with ink and water soluble coloured pencils. The words are all sections of poems I’ve written. Scrawling words across the page like this is one of my favourite things to do.
large flower BC {before colouring}
large flower AC {after colouring}
It’s been a great reminder of the way that sketchbooks keep your eye in and allow you to experiment, play, and produce little things that please you with ease and in a short space of time.
None of it has to mean anything, but you never know what might be sparked {I can’t seem to stop using that word}, and in the meantime, I love leafing through and looking at them all.
“none of it has to mean anything” — I think this is probably a BIG key for many — to just have fun as you go even if it’s messy…a sketchbook is for you, not the world. Now to get mine out and remind myself as I go!
Yes, it’s not easy to get past that one Sherry! But so worth it when we can.
It is wonderful we creative sparks are giving something back (albeit unconsciously). The gift you are giving us is spectacular! By the way – I LOVE that flower 🙂
You have no idea what you are all giving me Jo! On many levels. I’m just so glad it’s mutual. 🙂
Your gifts are endless, Tara and I’m so glad of the gift of our meeting and friendship — I have gained so much, I can only imagine what your students are experiencing! The spark is probably a raging fire!
That top page is beautiful. I love the contrast between the two sides, and the raggedyness (is that really a word?) of the feather.
It sounds like the course is doing you a power of good. Congratulations.
Thank you so much Nigel! Raggedyness sounds like a word to me. 🙂