Lessons Learned: Its Not Just About Drawing

This approach.  It's different. Sometimes a good execution. Sometimes not. Arrangements are an additional design attribute. This is what I was headed for this month. Took a while to get there. Had to get in the traffic flow. Observing people in different postures, positions, and context.

Daily Sketch: Grouping 01 - Copyright James E. Martin 2012

Daily Sketch: Grouping 02 - Copyright James E. Martin 2012

Lessons Learned:  This is the third month sketching along the commute. As I look back at the month's lessons, I did need to get in a different venue to challenge my observation and expression skills. It was time. I was able to derive occasional stories from the sketches which augment the meaning. The meaning wasn't necessarily derived from the subject but from the feelings or thoughts I was having that day and how that affected my filtering and selecton and expression of subjects.

The larger format sketchbook may have both helped and hindered. It facilitated the latter sketches whereby head arrangements were allowed. But sometimes I felt I was getting sloppy in my discipline. I will continue the depot station context where cafe tables, travelers waiting, hoboes sleeping in the morning, and folks ordering food are daily occurrences. The weather has not yet turned extremely adverse in winter yet and when it does that may impose additional variance in subject matter in the three month outlook.

There may be some value in reducing the number of lines to illustrate the sketch. Therein may lie Style.

Sketching from short term memory still has opportunities if I am walking, see something worthwhile, and need to capture it once I have a moment to sit in a sort of graphic note-taking and remembrance.

Many of these faster sketches in the public arena are "faceless". But I am constantly aware that there is a story behind every person, an agenda, a life of wins and losses, of high hopes and desperate cares. And even of the routine of Daily Life to survive, maintain, grow, and perhaps even prosper amidst an economy of uncertainty.

Beauty, hands, Character, Ideas, and Stories are still elusive in sketching. I have much to learn. I am already looking forward to Springtime and the warmth of a new year's outdoor activity.

These are also days of some sadness and grief amongst the cares and purpose of daily living. It's a time for self-reflection and misty eyed moments. This Creative Pursuit and Artistic Endeavor is a Journey that is revealing about Self. This Daily Sketching is not just about Art nor drawing a few lines on paper.