In this post I described how to use a journaling page, or a random word or thought to generate ideas for writing. I’ll take my same example from Part 2 and extend it into two different pieces of writing to illustrate how it works.
As noted before, this activity should be time constrained. Lynda Barry suggests a 10 minute interval for each piece of writing. She further suggests setting your timer for 8 minutes, and once that runs out set it for an additional 2 minutes to give you an opportunity to put some finishing touches on your writings that you generated in the first 8 minutes.
In both cases you are thinking of yourself in the first person. The first two words should be “I am”.
What will you have when you are done? You’ll have 10 minutes worth of writing that might stand on its own, it might be a springboard to something else, or it might be discarded–but you’ll still gain something from the process.
So here goes. Unedited. Follow me as I string together some words.
The First Writing (10 Minutes)
I’m standing in my kitchen fiddling with these watercolors that I haven’t touched in quite awhile. I used to paint every day. Now I’m interested in other stuff. But it’s true that if you do something every day that you get better at it. I look around my house and see paintings from 20 years ago, when I did paint every day. I like them. Maybe I can recapture that magic?
Another motivation is that several months ago I made a list of stuff that I wanted to learn. Or relearn. Or get better at. One of them is drawing and sketching. Urban sketching has a special attractiveness because our home is in an urban area. Walking distance to everything–grocery store, book store, library, liquor store, bike shop–the important stuff. Within a 20 minute walking radius I can be in the environment of an urban park, high rises, busy city streets, store fronts, sidewalks full of pedestrians, and so on. Sure, this is great photograph material (and I have quite a few) but urban sketching would be a different type of experience. Slow down. Take it in. Eliminate un necessary details. And so forth.
And how do you get better at urban sketching? By urban sketching. Just take a few minutes and look on Youtube for urban sketching tutorials. You’ll have so much to choose from that you won’t know where to start. Or, you can do what I did. Just start.
There’s really two ways to start. Take a couple of lessons. Or venture out into the World and Practice. I’m deciding to do both. But first to take a couple of lessons.
I have no idea where this journey will lead, if anywhere. But it’s a journey, more specifically a creative journey. And that in itself makes it worthwhile. Because like any journey, it’s the journey itself that is the experience that we remember. It’s not like we wake up one day and say to ourselves “Self–now you are an urban sketcher”. Nope. Doesn’t work like that. Not for urban sketching, or anything else that we want o approach some level of mastery at. Ya gotta do the work. Put in your time. Practice. Whether it’s urban sketching or single variable differential equations.
Second Writing (10 Minutes)
I’m standing in my kitchen, making Art. What exactly is Art? It’s self expression. What if no one else likes it? Doesn’t matter. It’s for you. What if you don’t like it? Do it again.
The cool thing about watercolors is that you really don’t need any fancy equipment. A kids set from Michaels, a cheap brush, and some paper is really all that you need. And two other qualities really help. Patience. And trust. Patience because you probably won’t get the ideas that are in your head out onto the paper. Maybe you’ll be hampered by your drawing. Maybe the colors don’t mix the way that you intended. Maybe it just looks stupid. That’s all ok.
Trust is also an important part of watercolors. Try it. Wet an area of your drawing with water. Drop in some paint from your brush and see what happens. The painting literally paints itself. Drop in another color near by. See how they mix. They will probably mix in a way that you could not have anticipated, nor replicated–even if you tried. Trust the process.
That’s really a euphemism for all Art. Trust the process. You will end up where you are destined to go. Even if you don’t know exactly where it is. Go, and the paint will follow. It’s a good model for Art. or for Life. Comedian Elayne Booster once had a skit that was a play on the popular 80’s book “Do What You Love and The Money will Follow”. Same idea here.
It’s the same with watercolors. Start simple. 3 primary colors is all that you need. All other colors are derived from these primaries in some way. Or–use the 3 colors as is to give continuity to your sketch. Velasquez (spelled correctly?) used a non traditional array of colors in his paintings which came to be know as the Velasquez palette. Maybe you can have a palette named for you?
I’m really not sure what point I’m trying to make here. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. But my 10 minute total time commitment is running out so I guess that I am finished.