Slow Start

Slow Beginnings

I have had a somewhat slow week. As in getting started on my artistic project as life is getting in the way at the moment. Although that is never going to be a good excuse to oneself. As we know, time is the one thing that cannot be extended, saved or replaced. I think that this is really bound up with procrastination. Which is something I excel at.

But I am now viewing this blog as more of an accountability partner. A conscious kicker. Where I can really think things out and also record. Using it also as a means to build the action muscle is important to me. The fact I can sit down and write this once a week will in theory help me get to the point where I can sit down and create the things I want to. Yes, it is all talk, but the principle of small change certainly applies to me.

I am building and experimenting with this blog. Like the art I want to create. It is all one of the same thing. But tinkering is important to the brain and helps unlock ideas. I also enjoy the process of learning new skills. However bare this starts out, it will grow to a more polished and confident home for my ideas and thoughts.

I started my doodle streak with the idea I wanted to see if I could do a week in one go. This lead on to slightly longer than three years straight. And also got me into doing Inktober. But, it hasn’t translated into creating physical art. There is a certain element of the complexity of something new. But I know that once I get started, I should be able to keep on going.

Inktober pretty much came and went. I have, on the times I have done it, chosen a theme. And this year I chose one, but I didn’t really feel it. I had some plans to turn it into a booklet/zine. But the pull wasn’t strong enough. I have managed to get the doodling on a run though. Nearly 100 days into it, I now feel old if I don’t. I have also let go of the fact it needs to be continuous. Generally I try not to let it be more than a couple of days break, if I do have one. But so far I have stuck with it.

Having many project ideas, way too many, is a bit of a curse! So the goal is to concentrate on one thing only. It feels like that there is just not enough time for all these ideas. It is a somewhat sobering thought. And as one gets older that time somewhat narrows. But I think that art is one of those things that can be carried out long after many other hobbies and pastimes have become impossible.

So, with all this in mind I have to set the goal, for myself, that I will have sat down and created one piece of physical art in the coming week.

Some Things I am Looking At

In the vane of time taken I just watched an interesting video by Just Alex, where he is grown some acorns out to hopefully mature trees. This chimes completely what I have been thinking about and just writing. In these days of AI and digital lives I think it’s even more important to ground ourselves in Nature and community. And this sums that up for me.

Countryfile (UK TV Show around farming and environment) had a piece on someone who had after retirement had taken up painting. If that is when they started, then the results are amazing. But his love on the landscape was obvious, and captured so well. You can find the episode Here

Until next week…