Doing some drawing

While sorting out some stuff at my parent's house, I came across a big box of my old sketchbooks from 10-15 years ago. Maybe a dozen or more, thick books filled with not-so-good and rather-good drawings and ideas - they were pretty inspiring, because I remembered what it was like to play and draw ideas every day.

On this trip, I've tried to draw something, even if only something small, every day. This is a big thing because I haven't done that for about 10 years - basically since these sketchbooks got put away. -And although I'm enjoying it and I'll persevere, it's annoying how much I've forgotten (like how to draw convincing feet!) Grr. It's not that I didn't want to draw, all those years, it's just that other things - like learning to embroider and to quilt - took over. And so drawing retreated into a corner and instead of drawing and painting anything that took my fancy, all I did were the occasional black and white cartoons for many, many years.
I sat down and drew this one after the Quilt Hunting expedition at the O'Keefe ranch, having seen a stack of folded quilts in a cupboard just like the pile in this cartoon, above.

It's amazing how some feedback sets you running again: I've been working on a collaborative project with a new friend, Jennifer of the CraftSanity blog and podcast (watch this space: we'll be launching it very soon!), and also enjoying looking at the incredible leaps in skill made recently by my Dad as he paints more and more often, and takes lessons and challenges himself. (And he's organising a fantastic Canadian art show, Art Visions 2008). So I am trying not to listen to the demons and to learn to draw feet again - I can see from the old sketchbooks that I once knew how, so it can't be all that bad!

At the bottom of our suitcase, as we head into the final, homeward leg of our round-the-world trip, I've got a fat soft big old sketchbook, busting with ideas. -And the last 50 pages are empty, so I've got some work to do: time to fill 'er up!