Writer Victoria Musgrave created this video in support of the Give a Girl a Journal. I so appreciate how she shared the evolution of her journaling practice – and that it included a diary with lock and key!
Thank you to Victoria for sharing her story. You can find her at VictoriaMusgrave.com.
If you give a girl a journal, you give her a way to connect and reconnect with herself for her entire life.
I’m continuing to experiment with this Studio Diary format. I hope you’re enjoying it! You can see all the photos that go along with this entry here.
This week I have started going to a gym for 6:30 am workouts! I know – crazy, right? I thought this would be a good way to support my writing practice. By 8:00, I am sitting at my desk, having already made a great start to the day and I am ready to write. It’s a big change to get up and out of the house so early. The first day I went, I left my breakfast on the counter because I’d underestimated the time I needed. I was totally worried about being late, so I almost didn’t go. Then I got almost to the door of the gym when I realized I’d forgotten my shoes, so I almost turned back. I mean, it’s already uncomfortable to make a start on something new, never mind this early, never mind late, never mind without most of my breakfast, never mind without shoes!
But I went anyway.
Here’s what I know. There is always a reason to turn back. There’s always solid evidence that the comfort zone is the place to be. But the unfamiliar doesn’t get more comfortable until you step into it again and again. I figured I might as well start that process even without my shoes!
Something else new that I’m preparing for is taking the Writing and Drawing Comics e-course with Summer Pierre. I’m so excited and totally nervous. At least the supplies are unintimidating: a composition book, some index cards, a Black Pilot Precise Pen (fine) and a Black Papermate Flair Pen (medium). I ordered the pens on Amazon and had the cards and the notebook on hand. I’m ready for class, Summer!
If you watch Creative Living Bookshelf, you’ll know that I picked up this book quite a while ago, Plant Dreaming Deep by May Sarton. It takes me forever to work through a book. Right now at the far edge of winter, I couldn’t have been more delighted to read a chapter about the garden. When May describes her excitement about her morning tours, I feel excited by what is soon to come:
“From May on, I can hardly wait to get up to see what has happened overnight, for one of the pleasures of the garden is that something is always happening; it is not static even for a day. I go out by six-thirty and sometimes earlier, still in my pajamas and a wrapper, to take look around before breakfast.”
This is just what I do too when I take my camera to capture a #goodmorninggarden moment each day and share on Instagram and Facebook.
from last year’s garden
These days I’m looking longingly out the window, waiting for the snow to melt and for things to start sprouting and I’m not the only one.
Kittens…Windows will always be a favourite spot for kittens. Our three seem to rotate between three favourites: the front window that looks onto the street, where I imagine they watch with amusement all of the people heading to work while they enjoy their life of luxury, the kitchen window, where they often perch with tails swishing, watching squirrels and birds flit by and elude them, and then the studio window, where they sometimes peer out at the sky, Shibumi, in particular, pawing at it as though the glass will give way and a whole new world will open up to her. I know that feeling too.
And the other day I came across this, which has me thinking.
“In their book Art and Fear David Bayles and Ted Orland tell the story of a ceramics teacher who announced on the opening day of class that he was dividing the students into two groups. Half were told that they would be graded on quantity. On the final day of the term, the teacher said he would come to class with some scales and weigh the pots they had made. They would get an ‘A’ for 50 lbs of pots, a ‘B’ for 40 lbs, and so on. The other half would be graded on quality. They just had to bring along their one, perfect pot.
The results were emphatic: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group graded for quantity. As Bayles and Orland put it: ‘It seems that while the ‘quantity’ group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the ‘quality’ group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.” Matthew Syed from Black Box Thinking
Does this resonate with your own experience? I’d certainly say that the last two years of having a regular art day has made all the difference for me, not only in developing my skills and confidence but also in loosening me up for learning. The more I make, the more I’m willing to experiment.
There were times in this exercise that I felt completely in the weeds. I had no idea where to start or how to develop an abstract painting. I still don’t! But the wonderful thing was I didn’t panic. I didn’t get mad or even particularly frustrated. I just kept painting. In the moment there were two things that helped me keep going and eventually finish with paintings I quite like.
The first was Carla’s instruction to keep going until you liked it. I really committed to that and I trusted (mostly) that eventually that would happen.
The second was that after I had been painting for some time and was still not liking the results, I got curious. What was I doing or not doing? One thing I noticed was that I was being very protective of the two little bits I did like on the painting. Every choice that I was making was to protect those bits but nothing else was working. It was only when I decided to let them go and trust that I’d find something else to like that I did!
I love doing collage work too and have been wanting to do more of it. This weekend I gave myself a little bit of time to start developing a piece. I really enjoyed just pulling together this and that and seeing where they led me – clearly to gentler skies!
I think Escher was on the same page! (I love that on Facebook Michaela called him a Purrito!)
Today in addition to working with my brilliant clients, I popped out to put more Give a Girl a Journal packages in the mail. Girls in Ontario and across the US (Florida, Arizona, Texas, New Jersey and North Carolina) as well as girls in Germany, Australia and India will be getting journals soon! Feeling inspired, I took the scenic route back and I’m glad I did. Check out the robots I saw on the way home.
Now that’s a sentence you don’t hear every day!
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As a novice drawer, it’s been good for me to find simple creative practices for encouraging myself to draw. One fun and easy exercise that I’ve come up with (and one that encourages my photography too) is to collect shapes when I’m out and about and then draw them in my sketchbook or journal.
This week while on a mail run for Give a Girl a Journal, the window of this church caught my eye. It inspired me to pull out my camera for one block and see what shapes I could find.
One neighbourhood block. Five pictures. Lots of inspiration.
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One of the gifts of drawing is the way it inspires us to actively look at the world around us. When I first noticed this window, I saw only the simple pie shapes. When I got closer, I noticed more detail. When I started drawing, I noticed more detail still!
As well as opening up our vision, drawing invites us to practice decision-making. Now that I had noticed all these levels of detail, what did I draw? Would I realistically render every bit of what I saw? Would I pick the simplest shape? Something in between?
Each of us will make different choices in different moments with different subjects. Drawing gives us the opportunity to exercise those muscles and in so doing discover something about our creative voice.
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One of the first things I realized when I started to explore drawing was that I had a really small visual vocabulary. In truth, it was still the vocabulary I had as a kid, which makes perfect sense because that was the last time I had drawn very much at all.
With reading and writing we are constantly expanding our language vocabulary, our facility to comprehend, create and recreate letters, words and sentences. We can do the same with our visual vocabulary. Getting out and collecting shapes is a fun and unintimidating way to expand your range, right on your own doorstep!
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This expansion of our visual vocabulary can come from looking at the world around us but it can also happen when we look at art. In many of the drawing books and classes I’ve encountered, artists have depicted trees and plants with lines that are dotted with little circles. The first time I saw this I thought to myself, “What plant actually look like that?” When I went out looking, apparently many of them! LOL!
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It’s fun to discover what you can create by looking for the simple shapes in whatever is in your line of sight. Starting to see objects as combinations of circles and lines and squares and curves can suddenly make them seem possible to draw.
As you discover these simple shapes, experiment with different ways that you can create with them. These life-inspired motifs can become embellishments for your art journal, simple symbols for your doodling or the beginnings of interesting backgrounds and textures!
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You can start with a basic representation of what you see and then riff on that shape. Let yourself expand the possibilities and your range with a little bit of playing. You never know what you’ll discover! (As a Sagittarius, I’m surprised I haven’t played with arrows more!)
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And you don’t have to limit yourself to line. You can add colour to the mix too. Play with different colour stories – realistic, monochromatic, random. It’s just a little doodle in your sketchbook or journal. There’s no way to get it wrong!
Whether you find drawing as intimidating as I do or whether you’re looking for a fresh way to play, I hope that collecting shapes becomes a fun way to expand your visual vocabulary as a part of your creative practice.
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Pick an area in which to look for shapes. It can be a block when you’re out for a walk or it can be a corner of your own backyard. It can be the top of your dresser or the inside of your purse. It can be the subway car or the waiting room. Everywhere you look there are shapes to be found.
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If you have a sketchbook, a journal or a sheet of scrap paper (basically, anything to write on) you can go directly to it and with a pencil or a pen (or anything you like to write with) gather the shapes you see. If it’s easier, take some photos. Gather as many as you like and then transform them into simple shape drawings later.
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Notice what catches your eye. Notice what shapes your hand enjoys. Have fun, enjoy the process and trust that as you look for shapes and draw them, you are growing your visual vocabulary, practicing your mark-making and strengthening your creative voice.
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It seems like every day in the studio there simply must be a kitten story and today is no different. In fact, I have a breakthrough moment to share. Last night, for the first time ever, Escher dropped a ball at my feet. Half offering, half invitation, it was all amazing, a big social step from our most reticent rescue. You’ve come a long way, Escherpants!
This morning I settled into writing and had a wonderful time digging into some thoughts about our creative lives and how they develop. I was noodling how our creative expression can be a kind of manifestation lab for our life. Whatever we want to bring more of into our life, we can start experimenting with in our art. Wanting more courage in your day to day? Start with being more courageous in your art! Want more spontaneity? More focus? More fun? How can you allow that energy to permeate your creative work no matter what your medium is?
If you’re on Facebook with me, you’ll know I was also getting curious about why it is we never judge our creative efforts to be enough. “I studied dance but only at the local community centre.” “I’ve never really done art, except for summer painting classes.” “I draw but it’s not any good.” Do you find yourself diminishing your creative experience this way? What would it take for you to consider your efforts enough?
Let me follow that up with the fact that I have signed up for a class I feel wholly unprepared for: Summer Pierre’s Writing & Drawing Comics E-Course! Ever since the kittens came into our lives I’ve been drawn to the idea of creating a comic.
Though I feel tentative about my drawing, I find myself wanting to capture all of the wonderful moments they give us. I find myself filling my fauxbonichi with moments like this.
My hip is feeling much better today. Thank you, everyone, for the well wishes! I’m still moving slowly and being gentle with myself. Readying more packages for Give a Girl a Journal seemed the perfect way to spend the afternoon. As I read the little notes that people often leave when nominating a girl to receive a journal I was blown away by all of the love. It is life-affirming to witness a tribe of women looking out for girls with such love and care and deep belief in all that is possible for them. May every girl experience such love and care and belief.
As I wrote, immersed in this circle of love, a song came on that always stops me in my tracks. I’ll close today’s diary by sharing it with you: Lament for Phaedra by John Tavener, performed by cellist Maya Beiser.
Things are changing in the studio. With the close of the Behind the Scenes, I needed a creative outlet this week for all of my musing and inspirations, so I experimented with keeping a studio diary – as audio and a blog post. I hope you enjoy hanging out with me this way!
