10 Ways to Sketch More

Sketching is good for the soul

At least it's been good for my soul lately. So it makes sense to sketch more.

Pablo Picasso said,

"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls."

So let's wash some dust off and get more art into our lives.

Draw/paint/sketch/photograph something that inspires you

Be inspired by the ordinary, by the light on the patio after a rain, or by something you already love in the corner of your world.

I love that my phone is my camera and always with me. I love taking pictures of the ordinary and elevating it to art by finding an interesting composition, color, angle,  or close-up. Then I sketch it. Right then or later from the photo.

Inspiration is anything that makes me say "that's cool" or "that's interesting", or "I'll bet nobody has really looked closely at that." Maybe you like flowers, cats, architecture, lemons or cars. Draw it. You'll see it in a new way and love it more.

Let go

In another life I used to paint and craft, but other priorities took over for a time. I so missed being creative. I didn't realize how much until I started in again. So, I recently let go of a few things...a long to-do list that was never done, house-cleaning expectations, home cooking (not my thing), too much media, others' ideas of how I should spend my time and the need for perfection...to take up the pen and paint again.

Let go of anything that doesn't feed your soul. (And, no, sleep doesn't count...get your sleep.)

Start small

I bought a cheap sketchbook and a travel set of paints and a water brush and began to work the dustiness away, by doing small sketches. Use what materials you have, try different pens and pencils and paints. Do several small studies. And embrace wonkiness, and imperfections and learn from them.

Share with friends

Begin sharing with social media friends on Instagram or Flickr or Facebook. Your friends will say encouraging things or "like" it and that will give you a boost. Share the good...

... the bad and the ugly. It keeps you humble and learning.

Sign up for an online class

I signed up for an Alisa Burke online class, Flower Power, last spring to do something simple and unintimidating. She explores so many different styles and is full of never-ending creativity. Her classes are reasonably priced to get started with.

I know that my motivation comes from a class-type setting where lessons and assignments give me something to look forward to and goals to meet. 

I love learning about the other class members from all over the world, and from seeing their styles, and trying to emulate them.

Find inspiration in unusual places

These reading notes from a (rather dry) book on the golden ratio, The Story of PHI, just had to have a sketched illustration. I love math, and combining it with art made sense to me.  I definitely looked very closely at this sunflower as I was drawing it, and even counted the spirals of seeds. Yes, 34 going one way and 55 the other.

Draw something you love already, but might not be related to art.

Make something you'll see everyday

Stretch beyond the paper. Make a craft. Use different paints. Paint big. Paint on wood or fabric. Bloom where you are planted.

Get away from home

When you travel you get a bump in creativity. Neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer, in his book, Imagine, says "when you escape from the place you spend all your time, the mind is suddenly made aware of all those ideas previously suppressed. You start thinking about obscure possibilities." My mind is definitely in a good place on vacation.

So this makes sense now too..."a relaxed state of mind allows us to look inward toward a stream of remote associations in our right brain...insights come in the shower, when we are in a positive mood, when we are not looking for an insight." 

But really it's just that "Life is better at the beach". --Kitschy sign from the beach bum store

There's nothing to do but sit and listen to the waves and the wind, and enjoy the sun. (Ah, letting go of that to-do list again.) Get away to a new place and sketch what you see.

Experiment with a different technique

White sharpies are thing? Yes! This is just a piece of cardboard with drippy sloppy colors (let dry), and then a crazy white doodle on top. Batik-like. Just for the fun of it.

My birdhouse gourd (that has yet to become a birdhouse) was a last minute purchase from the farm market. It's done with acrylics base paint, then black paint and Sharpie used to make the look of lace.

Commit to sketching often

It wasn't until a friend encouraged me to #sketchmore during the month of November in support of her NaNoWriMo goals, that I realized how much I could get done, how it's helped me improve, and how good it really is for my soul. Do something every day.

Bonus tip: Do what you like

Be yourself. Enjoy your own style. Don't care what others think. Choose a quote from one of these philosophers to remind yourself...

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. --Oscar Wilde

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are. --Kurt Cobain

Where is your will to be weird? --Jim Norrison

Just be yourself, there is no one better. --Taylor Swift

This one is my favorite because I'm my own worst critic.

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. --Vincent Van Gogh

So silence the inner critic, dust the daily life off, see how it feels. Good for the soul?

I love murals: Garden of Delight

The Garden of Delight can be found at 203 S. Sartain Street, in Philadelphia.

An empty lot full of chunks of concrete became a community garden and work of art, transforming the entire neighborhood.

Artist David Quinn, "I love watercolor painting and wanted this have a flowing fantasy-like effect."

Brush strokes close-up

Both garden plots and mural were inspiring.

I love the idea of neighbors in a big city, getting together to grow food,
enjoy gardening and create a spot of beauty in their city.

"Murals are nourishing to the neighborhood."

And, oh by the way, the city doesn't want you diving in their pools. ;-)

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Speaking of yarn art...see nature's version

See Spiders That Decorate Their Own Webs, on The Ark in Space. [If you or your kids love animals, you'll love this site. Don't miss the Cats are evil post. :-]

Now that is the original yarn bombing!

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Photo by CharlesLam

. . . about art and nourishment

Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor and photographer, living in Scotland, who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. His art involves the use of natural and found objects to create both temporary and permanent sculptures which draw out the character of their environment. [1]

In the documentary Rivers and Tides he speaks of a sacredness in all rocks and trees, of walking around for several hours looking at all the stones on the other side of the river near his home place, of knowing that there is a stone, a strong stone with an incredible shape, that he's been avoiding and and on finally examining the stone says, "I have to do it, I have to work with it."

"There is something that drives me to make certain works on occasion even though in my mind I'm telling me, 'no don't do that, it's too much trouble. No, don't lie in the rain in the street just now' and the next thing I know I'm lying in the rain in the street [making a "shadow" of himself where he lies.] There is something inside me saying this is something I have to do."

For me, this is powerful and comforting: knowing an artist who does what he "has to do", what is inside him; knowing someone who is doing what they love, feeling impelled to work, to create, regardless of other considerations (weather, their surroundings, what others think and so forth.)

He goes on to say, "There is balance between the ephemeral and permanent. The ephemeral work is done with the sense of not knowing what I will make or where I will make it. It's intuitive and it changes as the day progresses. And that has a sense of discovery and that's how I learn, that's the nourishment, that's the breathing in of my art, the lifeblood of my art. I need that. Then every so often I make the permanent work and that draws on what I've understood from the ephemeral."

Art is shared nourishment. What nourishes the artist ultimately nourishes us.

I recently saw Andy Goldsworthy's installation "Roofs" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. It is a series of domes of stone, one piece of slate set on another in a circle, around and around forming a roof ending with a hole left open in the top. The domes of stone are mostly outside in the courtyard, but in a few places they are inside impinging on the glass wall of the gallery.

I wondered if they were receding out of or advancing into the atrium, so convinced was I that the shapes were whole units. Could they be roofs of an ancient people existing long before and somehow preserved in place as the gallery was built around them? What made the artist decide on this installation? What about the space inspired the thought to build 9 domes, 5 and half feet tall and 27 feet in diameter? Is there greater meaning to be derived from them? And so my thoughts spin on, nourished by his art.

Now, when I need a meditative moment in my day, I dwell on that one artist somewhere in the world contemplating a stone, a leaf, a petal, a twig, an icicle...impelled to do what he has to do. Just the knowing that he is there. This is restorative, stabilizing, calming, comforting, nourishing.