Sketch Daily
I’ve been doing something for nine days with the intention of seeing if it stuck before blogging about it.
I’m going to sketch daily for a year.
Gah. Even typing it right there is scary to me. I’m not an artist.
It took the previous blog post to spur me into asking why I wasn’t.
I already knew from writing that doing the work is the only way you learn to do something better. But even that is a judgment, right? If I look at my work and ask myself, “Is this good?” or even “Is this better than the last one?” then I’m assigning value to what I’m doing.
And what I’m doing, drawing something every day, doesn’t need value attached to it. I’m doing it as a practice, as a meditation, as a way of really LOOKING at an object I’m sharing space with in the world. (I’m reading Lala’s copy of The Zen of Seeing, and it’s awesome.)
That’s why I’m putting up the sketches at Instagram (I’ve just joined, friend me there!). That part, the cataloguing, feels important to me. We’re so good at posting the pretty and the perfect. We like Pinterest for a reason. Pretty is attractive. We like the well lit, the well composed, the perfect. It’s good to open that up and post the real things, the attempts that don’t work as well as the ones that do.
If I don’t post anything, I can easily fail out of the challenge and no one will know (I like accountability). If I only post what I think is good or even just good enough, then I’m constantly judging my sketches. But if I just draw them and post every one, even the ridiculously ugly failures, then I’m only being accountable to my decision to do so, and I can be, if not exactly proud, then happy with each one.
That said, the only one I’m proud of so far is this one, so please indulge my posting it here, firmly judged and found acceptable:
And hey, speaking of doing things quickly and badly, I'm signed up for NaNoWriMo again this year (I'm going to start my 2016 release, and I'm SO excited about it)! Would you like to help me get to the Night of Writing Dangerously? Best night of the year! SO MUCH CANDY!
Here's the link to donate, if you'd like to. It's a great cause, all the money goes to the Young Writers Program, helping kids to be creative. Thanks for considering!
*UPDATE: MY FAIRY GODMOTHER did it again. My sister and I will be going to the Night of Writing Dangerously. I'm not sure if she knows how much it means to me that she donates this every year (and oh my goodness, if she stops, it will be TOTALLY OKAY. I don't need this. Don't take from your IRA to stuff me with candy!). But really, it makes me feel hugged and supported and loved, and more than that--it makes me feel special. It's nice to feel special. Most of the time I feel kinda tired and sometimes my feet ache. But my fairy godmother makes me feel like I have glitter running through my veins. Thank you, friend, whoever you are. I hug you SO hard.
