My response to the #OneWeek100People2018 challenge

Sketching / Urban sketching9 Comments

This week, my goal with the #OneWeek100People2018 challenge was one of practice, not perfection. This challenge was proposed by Liz Steele and Marc Taro Holmes. The idea is to sketch 100 people in a week. As I said last week that I was going to do the challenge, here are my efforts and thoughts about the challenge. In the past, I have always left people out of my sketches – often because I am more interested in the location rather than the people. Both Jerry and I have been known to get up at dawn in order to photograph/see a place without …

Morning Urban Sketching at the Arboretum

Journaling / Travel Journal / Urban sketching6 Comments

We have started our training for our next travel adventure. Yes we are planning another long walk across Spain but that is not the sort of training I meant. I have increased my urban sketching as I hope to keep more of a travel sketch journal this next trip. I usually manage a few sketches in my travel journal but this time around I am wanting to record the trip with even more sketches. Today we walked from our home to the National Arboretum, a trip of about 11km. The arboretum is set in a hilly part of Canberra and …

One Week 100 People challenge 2018

Sketching   7 Comments

Marc Taro Holmes of Citizen Sketcher and Liz Steel are running the One week 100 people challenge again this year. The idea is to sketch 100 people in 5 days between Mon 5 – Fri 9 March. With 100 people to sketch I know I will be aiming at doing quick gesture drawings so hopefully it will loosen up my people sketches. Marc Taro Holmes says “The goal is PRACTICE. Not perfection. Think of us as your gym trainers, Standing behind you yelling ‘Get out there! Keep your hands moving!’” Although the rules are open enough to allow all sorts …

Canberra Urban Sketchers visit to the Royal Australian Mint

Sketching / Urban sketching   / 3 Comments

Our local Urban Sketchers group got together this morning to do some sketching at the Royal Australian Mint. This was an informal sketch meet. As usual we all had a great day. I am pleased I remembered the bulldog clips as the wind was really blustery making sketching a bit of challenge. I have been experimenting with black and white ink drawings. This is because we will be traveling again in 6 weeks or so and I wanted to explore some pen and ink techniques. This is done with a Lamy pen loaded with De Atramentis Document Ink which is …

How to keep a journal

Journaling4 Comments

How to keep a journal Just about every self-development book and blog tells people to keep a journal, but not necessarily how to keep a journal. I’ll let you in on a secret – it is not particularly difficult to do and there are no rules to keeping a journal. You can write, draw, glue-in ephemera, take photos and paste printouts in your journal whatever you enjoy, is OK. If I had to think of ‘rules’, I would recommend you date the page and add your entries chronologically. However, I am sure somewhere in the world, there is someone journaling …

Playing in the margins with Stephan Schriber’s Gothic manuscript

Books and Book Binding / Design / Resources online   / 9 Comments

Stephan Schriber kept an interesting sketchbook, as he was a mediaeval monk living in the south-west of Germany, who produced illuminated manuscripts. Simply described, Stephan Schriber’s sketchbook – dating from 1494 – is a collection of decorations, patterns and illustrations, but if you stop and imagine how it might have been used to produce illuminated manuscripts, its role in the process becomes even more interesting. The manuscript is of course highly decorative. Often, when writers refer to ‘decoration’, they are trying to suggest that the work is not as important as a piece of Art with a capital ‘A’. ‘Decoration’ and …

Why Keep a Journal

Journaling25 Comments

Do you keep a journal? I have been squirrelling away my thoughts in one for almost 30 years. Today, I will share with you why I keep a journal. I encourage readers to take some time out every day – take some self-time and enjoy the process of writing. Journaling is a very worthwhile, practical and interesting thing for anyone to do. Journaling does not take too much time in any one day, but to gain benefit from the process you do need to be consistent. It is one of those activities that the more you do it the more …

How I got over the biggest creative block of my life by Sketching in Kuching and Cambodia

Creativity / Travel Journal / Urban sketching19 Comments

It’s been a while since I have written here and there is a reason for that. You see, I was stalled. In the past I have had phases of being stalled but not like this one. This was a full scale creative block I had, of course, heard of things like creative block or writers block but I had not realised these periods of time could last so long. Bear with me while I give you some background – make a cuppa, I will tell you the story and while also sharing some sketching eye candy with you. (Click on …