Getting Sketchy
As most of you know, I spend a great majority of my free time working on graphic/web design side jobs and projects. Because my day job is anything but creative, my side work has always been welcomed. It allowed me sort of keep the creative juices flowing. The only real downfall is that I am absolutely terrible at carving out a chunk of “me” time.
Eventually I got to the point that, when left with time to create something for me, I was stumped. Pen to paper… brush to canvas… nothing. In all honesty, it worried me that I may have lost the ability to think on my own in that way. Maybe I could only create something if I was given an outline or set of instructions.
This is part of why I was ecstatic to find out about the Sketchbook Project put together by the Art House Coop. The idea was simple enough. You signed up, they sent you a sketchbook, and you returned it filled with your artwork or what-have-you. They would then take that book, along with the other thousands that they received, show them off to the country via traveling art exhibit, and then bring it to the Brooklyn Art Library where it would forever remain.
So it served two purposes for me.
- Get me to create stuff. Just for the hell of it. Get the rust knocked off.
- Help me learn to stop hanging on to everything. I’m a pack rat, and this idea of making something that wasn’t a gift for someone… just for me to do something… then just tossing it in the mail with the high chance of never seeing it again… seemed hard to do but freeing at the same time.
And it worked. Since starting it, I have found myself doodling and sketching way more than I had been. The amateur photography stuff also stemmed from that, I think. And all-in-all, I’ve just found myself more inspired, which leaves me with a feeling that’s really hard to explain.
The official deadline to have the books back to them was earlier this month, and I met it. Sure I waited to the last final day, but I made it nonetheless. And although the amount of art I contributed was probably a pretty small amount in comparison to the rest submitted, it was a good amount for me. I have since thought about how much more I could have done to it, but the truth is that I restarted the book three or four times. It was a lot like trying to start up an old car that has sat a good while.
So anyway, if you happen to care to see my small, itty-bitty contribution to the project and you live anywhere near the cities that the sketchbooks will travel too, check me out.
