From My Sketchbook

I have a love/hate relationship with my sketchbooks. It goes way back to high school when sketchbooks were a requirement for almost every art class, and to me that meant a whole little spiral book full of completed drawings. It didn't matter that the teacher told me something different, that it was a place to try things, to store ideas. I still am like that sometimes, though I am better about just sitting wherever I happen to be and drawing people, trees, or whatever is at hand and letting the lines look exploratory and imprecise. But it is hard for me. I want the drawing to look reasonable. I don't want people to come look while I'm working, and someone almost always wants to look. I work rather slowly, so people always move before I finish. Whine, whine. It has helped me to think of my sketchbook as more of a visual journal. Being free to write words in connection with images has freed me from thinking each sketch must be perfect. So now my little books are also filled with random thoughts, poems, recipes, and notes from classes I sometimes take. Rather like this blog.

Last summer I wanted to work on pen and ink drawings, something I don't do very often. I worked from my own photos. Here are my legs and feet in sandals.