Currently Browsing: Journal Practice 303 articles
Drawing to Improve Your Mood
Recovering from the iliac vein dissection has been difficult. It’s placed limits on my mobility and energy. I’ve had to change how I think about exercise. My heart is broken that I can’t cycle any more. One morning I wrote this caption on the next page in my journal, after a painful effort of exertion. […]
What I Did in the Pandemic: Journaling of Course
Roz: I used to go out and overlisten…can’t think of the word…eavesdrop. Dick: Yeah, “overlisten”: You made up a new word for overhearing. [Above: an actual conversation recorded on an index page.] Returning readers will know that there were some digital glitches just when the Pandemic got started. My Drobo died and had to rebuild […]
Working in a Grid
Last fall I started doing a series of talks and posts for my Patreon subscribers about working with grids. There are tons of reasons you might want to do this but the main reason is to keep your momentum going when you find you don’t have a lot of time to make art. Even if […]
Trying Out Dagger Brushes (Part Two of I haven’t a Clue How Many Posts)
Now and then I get a desire to test something new. Sometimes I hear about a new product, or a friend mentions something to me. Sometimes I go to the store and see something and wonder what it would be like to use that tool or medium. Other times, like recently, I unpack brushes that […]
Don’t Be Limited
I couldn’t leave a week during which I discussed the use of space on a page, without including this portrait from the end of last year. I’m the queen of running off the page. Not planning sufficiently. This means in my haste I often miss the thing that engaged me most—the base of […]
Still Not a Waste
To continue my thoughts from Monday’s post I just had to share this page spread from one of my journals. Typically in this type of book (a commercially bound, lined journal bought in a bookshop and made for notes not illustration) I’m pushing the boundaries of what I can get away with using my usual […]
Not a Waste of Space
The questions I get most from visual journaling students surround the issue of the use of space on a page or spread. There are a lot of factors that feed the questions, swirl around in the mind and stopping action. I like to remind students that the more they journal the more these questions will […]
Euclid, Geometry, and the Practice of Art
Here’s a quotation from an article I was reading in the New Yorker Magazine recently. Beyond geometry the writer, James Somers, reminds us something about the practice of anything. And the many paths to something—whether it’s geometry, coding, art, or…
End of Year Evaluations: Setting Goals and Projects
Something I talk to my students about a lot, whether it’s in a drawing class like “Drawing Practice” or now on my Patreon site is the importance of setting goals and projects that support those goals. It all begins with an honest evaluation of where your skills and your goals are right now. I was […]