Making something happen

So, as I told you, I am babysitting a lot. Taking care of little kids is time-consuming, so for now I am not getting much done on the artistic front. That's OK, but  yesterday I felt like I had to sit down and do something. I got my sketchbook out and while Marco slept I drew a pine cone.

They are one of my favorite motifs and they are kind of hard to draw. When I was in Seattle a couple weeks ago I bought two new permanent drawing pens. One has a brush tip and one a fine tip. I used both here. I have not done much drawing in a long time and I felt really rusty. I need to do more of this. I know there are fabric artists, especially, who feel no need to draw, but I strongly believe drawing is the basis for everything. Discipline. Drawing trains your eye and teaches you about composition, proportion, value, line—well, like I said, it is everything. It is a fine thing to make beautiful drawings, but even if your drawing looks like a monkey did it, drawing is building skill and your observational powers.

There is a new online project starting the first of the year called the Sketchbook Project. It is a blog with a group of artists who will be posting challenge ideas and posting their sketchbook entries. I think I'm going to follow along. I need a little push to do more drawing. I looked at the blog and got a little scared when I saw a video about materials, including sparkly paints and glitter and glue and sequin waste and fluffy stuff. Not me. I hope it is mostly about drawing.