Sketchbook Tuesday - more flowers and other thoughts

I was without internet for a few days, so I didn't get around to posting again last week. And here it is, another Tuesday, and another watercolor sketch of flowers from my handmade sketch journal.  Thank you to everyone who commented and contributed to the discussion on my last post about how you approach keeping a sketchbook. It seems many are like me, preferring to keep everything in one place, the messy, quick sketches and notes right along with more finished sketches. The idea of keeping a separate sketchbook or books, for various intentions really appeals to me. But in reality I doubt that, at this point in time anyway, that method of organization would make me happy. What I have been doing as a sort of compromise is to create my sketchbooks with my own style of organization. Along with the signatures of Canson Edition paper for my sketches I include a signature in the front and back with plain copy paper. It is there that I put my jumbled notes to myself, record passages from my reading, and even have photocopied calendars pasted in. This helps me keep it all in one place. And like Jennifer Rose commented, I would feel so lost without my sketchbook!


I had jotted down a line from Robert Genn's newsletter last week, "Less commitment widens opportunity." This is something I have been thinking about lately. Letting go of self-imposed "commitments" in order to be open to whatever form inspiration shows up in. I'm a list-maker, and a goal-setter by nature yet I am finding that lately my life either isn't allowing for that or simply that it's time for another approach. Leo Babauta of Zen Habits talks a lot about goals and why they aren't as important as we think. That without goals we can be more open to possibilities we may not have foreseen. So I am changing my thinking from being goal oriented to project based. With a goal, you are looking at the desired end result before you even begin. With a project you are setting up a starting point which allows the work to take you where ever your interest leads. That's how it is with my journals. If I separated out intentions or goals for different journals it would feel too confined to me. Knowing me, there would be way too much overlap, and I am easily confused. And it has become the same with my other art works. If I am focusing on the "goal' I find I lose sight of the experience that is now.