Uninspired by Drawing from Life

I'm very superstitious, in some ways. For instance, though I know pigeons die all the time, if I actually see a dead pigeon, I'm convinced I'll have a bad day and the only reasonable course of action is to avoid doing anything rather than risk things going wrong. As I left the office for my lunch break/shopping trip, I saw a dead pigeon right in front of the building, just at the end of the little lay-by. "Ick!" I thought, and as I was picking up the shopping, I kept trying to think of how to rearrange my day to avoid the worst of the pigeon curse. I've been worn out the past two days, and was really looking forward to getting back on track today; but if my work was doomed to go wrong, should I not do anything at all? Or, is that the curse at work, directing me to make the wrong decision, so I should try to do something after all? Or, would that be hubris, a classic cause for all sorts of curses? As I struggled to figure out the best course of action, I finished shopping, headed back to the office, and noticed that the dead pigeon had strings coming off it. It was actually a lost scarf that had rolled up as it was blown against the curb. So, I really should do something now that I'm not cursed after all.

I've written before about how craft blogs tend to focus on the positive, so I'm stretching myself by putting out a rather negative statement: I found Drawing from Life: the Journal as Art Form by Jennifer New uninspiring. It looked appealing on the library shelf, so I checked it out. It is a very pretty book, but it all seems very professional rather than fun, and it made me feel like journalling is something important people do; and I'm not important, so why am I journalling? I know this isn't what the author intended, which makes me feel even worse.

On the plus side, it hasn't made me want to stop working in my art journal. Here's what I'm up to at the moment:

On the bus, I've been trying to draw in a sketchpad I've had for a few years. I've decided not to scan and post the sketches, because they aren't good, and I don't want to feel pressured about that. Plus, I've lowered my sights from aiming to sketch well, to just being able to sketch for more than 10 minutes at a time! If I can get to a point where I can sketch for the entire commute, that will count as a great success, no matter what the sketch actually looks like.

Stuff from the internet

I really don't link to enough stuff on the internet. For instance, I meant to link to a post by Miso in September, but it's only now that she's done a similar piece that I've got around to mentioning it:

Miso ; New York Moon (Bedford Ave) ; pinpricks on paper : 29 x 42 cm : 2013

I've tried to use pin-pricks to make images, but never managed anything like this. Really impressed.

Another neat thing I've come across recently is a post on Sri Threads about an unfinished Buddhist alter cloth:

I've heard a bit about these cloths, and what to my mind seems an odd combination (or even an oxymoron) of opulent scraps, and I think I may have seen one in a museum. What I hadn't realized until I saw this, was how similar the cloth is to what I would call a crazy quilt.

And finally, I really should link to the Knitting in 4 Dimensions blog, where a friend is documenting what I think is a genuinely interesting project: remodelling an old jumper. I'm a bit privileged in that I get to see it in real life, but if you knit and are interested in refashioning clothing, the blog is definitely worth taking a look at.

There! I feel like I'm all caught up now, especially as I haven't been doing much crafting recently. I still feel like I haven't properly gotten into the year yet.

finished pages, new pages

I'm not sure which I like more, the finished pages:

 

or the way they looked before adding the extra green dashes:

 

It's not like I ruined it with the dashes, but I don't think they add anything. But the pages seem finished now, so time to move onto these:

 

Though I've selected a few images and some text, I haven't felt like deciding how to arrange stuff. I'm not very good with decisions, and I use that as an excuse to not work on things.

I also need to decide what to do on the bus. I had been thinking of  trying to do a crazy quilt patch, following the  instructions from the course I took years ago but never actually did the work for. But since the course is running again starting in Feb, it seems like the wrong time for me to start working through it independently and posting my work on this blog. So I'll put that on the 'do  later' list. It's not like I don't have plenty of unfinished projects to work on, but I just haven't decided what to do.