Drawing my day

Over the years I’ve been chronicling my foray back into drawing and trying to find a daily practice and a drawing style that works for me. This past month or so has found me going in a new direction and it seems to be sticking, so I thought I’d share more about it.

I read Draw Your Day by Samantha Dion Baker about a month or so ago. It made me think back to the 100 day project I did a few years ago where I sketch journaled something from my day. And it helped me remember that I have built in prompts for what to draw each day, what I did or where I was or what I saw, it’s all right there.

I like prompts, it’s one of the reasons I liked doing the Draw Every Day Draw Every Way book in 2017. A prompt is good for me and it can get me to draw things I wouldn’t normally otherwise. In her book, Baker shows how to make a spread about your day, using words, lettering, drawing, and painting. I’ve loved doing it.

For more than a month I’ve been drawing my day, first using the sketchbook I had started, a smaller 8.5” x 5.5” one and then in a larger 8” x 10” book. I’ve been playing around with medium, but have settled on a kit that works really well for me and that I can also take with me when traveling. I’m using Stillman and Birn books, either the Alpha or Epsilon, and I love them both for different reasons, but I think Epsilon may be my favorite. The smoothness of the paper works really well with fountain pen, a micron pigma pen, and watercolor pencils.

But there is a big thing going on with these that is interesting to me, I usually don’t want to share the finished product. Because it’s my journal, I’m writing about my day, all of my day, which I don’t feel as comfortable sharing most days. And I know I could figure out how to blur the words and such, but as I’ve thought about it, I don’t know that I want to. We live in a share everything world and I guess maybe I don’t want to do that quite so much anymore. But know that I’m drawing, occasionally I’ll maybe share, but mostly it’s for me.