Indispensable: New Doodle Art and Flash Essay 😃

I don’t often publish musings or unpublished essays in my blog, so I thought it’d be fun to sit down, write one, and share it tonight. Ta-da. 💐

Indispensable 

I’ve begun to sort through clothes and such for donation a half an hour here and there, a half bag at a time, low-key and gradual. 

I’m very grateful to have more than I need. It’s meaningful to inventory and also to pare back and then pare back again. To make room and space. To share. As I’m sorting, I imagine the new uses and happiness the items will bring others as I fold and accumulate things in the donation bags as well as the money it’ll bring the thrift store and their charities. A few things had a random pull or hole or stain and went into the circular file/garbage.  I also have found some sweaters and dresses I forgot all about and haven’t worn in a few years, so they feel new to me and ready for another season of enjoyment. I call the latter “shopping in my own closet,” and it’s a great way to save money and time.

The process of sorting is, much like the rest of life, figuring out what is essential—what lights us up inside—and what we’re tired of and ready to change or switch out for a while.

I’ve also been reading a new book about sketching and so my mind is in the mood for seeing older or ordinary things with fresh eyes, like the beautiful shape of the dish-liquid bottle. Suddenly, walking into the room, I saw the bottle outline anew and took a half-hour break to break out my new watercolor pencils that I’ve had in my tote bag of art supplies for almost three months but not used before now. I’ve used dish soap since I was a kid and literally never thought about the shape of the bottle until drawing this sketch.  My hand-drawn bottle shape turned out a bit different (read: uneven) than the uniformly graceful curve of the original bottle, but there’s authenticity in that, so instead of scrapping it, I ran with it.

Also, the word “indispensable” is one that makes me sweat before I write or type it, because I’ve misspelled it for years. I looked it up about five times before doodling it with the marker and misspelled it when I first typed this paragraph. It’s a tricky word, with several different vowels and the –able ending instead of the –ible. My brain wants to insist it’s an –ible. I have to slow down or doublecheck. Much like the process of sorting, it has something to show me, something worthwhile I get to learn again and again at my own pace and little by little, like most worthwhile things.

So, I almost chose another word for my sketch, but then I pushed through it (and checked it a few more times, just in case), using the word after all. Sometimes, it’s worth persevering, and other times, not so much and it’s okay to sort it out and do something else. You’ll know as you go; do what works best for you in your art and in your life.    

To 2023! 🎉

I bought this fanciful party horn at a greeting-card store and have lost track of when.

Doodle by yours truly. Mechanical pencil, Paper Mate Flair Medium and Arteza Bold 1.0 mm pens, and sketchbook paper. Digital filter used in larger version seen below.

It doesn’t have a year on it and the store is now out of business. It has golden paper that shimmers and a fluffy frill of ebony feathers that I think gets prettier with time.

It’s a little crooked (in real life and in my drawing) but holds a lot of hope and cheer.

Each time this calendar year we get to start over, to reset, to look ahead in art and in life, and that feels fitting and good. Thanks for all of your camaraderie and support.

Here we go, 2023! To all that we’ll create and experience in the year ahead!

"Take a Break" Word-Art Doodle ✍️

I haven’t shared one of my doodles in a while, and this rushed season seemed like the perfect time to post this one.

Whether it’s a fifteen-minute tea or coffee break; an hour with a book; a week off from work; or an afternoon of baking, or streaming movies, or catching a nap, or writing, I hope you also put a thing (or ten) on pause to savor a little break. You deserve it!

Here’s my initial doodle (using pencil and fine-line black pen) from my sketch pad. Yep, I also used crayons on this one. You’ll notice some pencil marks here and there that I didn’t erase well enough (oopsy!) and that the curve of my T and my second line’s k got some extra ink that was inadvertent. Handmade things are perfectly imperfect this way. 😁

Then, I scanned the initial doodle, cropped it, and experimented with adding filters for the background and the doodle itself.

New Month, New Projects Popping ⏲️

Hello, September!

I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately: how we organize it, how we anticipate or dread it, how we save it through the things we make and the things we share, how it is ever-malleable—both jet-speed propulsion and gelatin slow and everything in-between.

So, I made this thematic pen-and-ink drawing. Writing the interconnected and interrupted “ticks” was relaxing. There’s something very meditative about making something by hand, even something imperfect, as this doodle most certainly is. 😁

Also, my new class about writing historical fiction and time-travel stories, Leaping Worlds, is accepting registrations and will start Friday, September 30th. Can’t wait! Clicky above for more deets. I’d love to work with you and a friend. 📝

New Month, New Word-Art Drawings ✒️

I have a penchant for doodling everyday things. Things people kind of hurry past. Things that are utilitarian but that are integral and, well, handy.

I bought these scissors before Christmas a few years ago at a discount store; they were around $3. I stood before the display for way too long, comparing and contrasting the red-and-white chevron pairs to the green-and-white chevron pairs. In the end, green won out by a slim margin. Like my ‘90s film cameras, they have a nice heft to them and are neither too clunky nor too crowded in my grip. I most often use them for cutting the little shipping label before sending away my film to be developed. Now and again, I pull them from the drawer and find a little something that just has to be trimmed for the satisfaction of using them.

I picked this daisy dress online during the first months of Covid, during quarantine. I noticed it because I wanted the happiest possible design I could find. It’s a Kelly green with white daisies with yellow centers. The last time I had a dress with daisies on it, I was 22 and getting ready to walk across a graduation platform. That dress was black-and-white checked and mostly covered with my graduation gown. This dress I put on during days when it’s gray as a crayon and raining. Or days when I want a spring in my step. Or just days where the green pops out at me as I stand before my closet. Green has always felt a color of calm strength, renewal, and hope to me. There needs to be very little reason for a daisy pattern. This is the first time I’ve drawn a hanger or the drape of this dress. I got the proportions of the sleeves a little too long, but the daisy chain on my joy’s -y was a spark of last-minute inspiration and great fun.

For more versions of these drawings, check out my Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/writepath99/ .

Words and Doodles: A Multimedia Experiment 🌞

A little something I’m giving a whirl recently. I’ve long wanted to scan some of my sketches and make new ones that incorporated word art and simple doodles. It’s good to shake it up and try new ways of approaching ideas in art, and the process of putting pen to paper to color in is very meditative and relaxing. Here’s a recent one I made and scanned this week.

To me, next means: not perfect, but moving forward nonetheless. Next is a place of hope and discovery. Next is a no-pressure zone; it’s taking what you have and seeing what good you can make of it.

I made the first letter lowercase to show how shaky and tentative some first efforts can be, and then as we gain our strength and clarify our vision, the rest of the letters (and steps) get easier and surer. I also left the slightly askew bottom bar on the X and the slightly shorter bar across the right of the T as I’d first penciled them before tracing with my felt pen. Plus, it’s drawn by a human hand, so there’s a kind of nice authenticity to these quirks.

Next also means a contentment in each moment, because bigger things are on the horizon. The cherry blossoms matched nicely with that thought and were super relaxing to draw—I could feel myself get into a writer-like zone where time felt slowed with each blossom, petal, and branch.

Truthfully, I know I’m not at all the best or even a good sketcher. I have a long way to grow. I have a horrible time drawing figures of animals and people who look like themselves (I’m not great at drawing anything to scale), although I like drawing a caricature of myself waving on cards and in signed copies of my books sometimes. Flowers, I can sometimes do, and I’m going to give people a whirl again, maybe as silhouettes or stick outlines or in my own way, because why not? These are for the joy of making them and, perhaps, sharing some, too.

After scanning and uploading this word art, I headed off to my software to begin the computerized portion of the project. So many hues, filters, and options to be had! I’ll include a few of the transformed file options below, too.