My new year's resolution (now 5 months ago!) was to be much more consistent about keeping a sketch book and a journal. It's challenging finding the time for all these private and public communications. I've wondered how to incorporate everything into just one place. Some of you were kind enough to give me your responses when I asked you how you find your own balance. I guess most of you are just wonder women! I've left all this to ruminate and percolate over the last few months.
Some of the blogs I especially admire have a theme, a raison d'être. Of course being a creative type, I am particularly attracted to artist's pages. There is a whole genre of blogs called A Painting a Day. If you Google the phrase you get a long list. They are quite impressive and what an excellent discipline for the painter. I follow Postcards from Provence since Julien Merrow-Smith is married to a musician who works with Emily occasionally. He auctions off a postcard size image every day and he's made quite a success of it. It's fun to follow his progress, and since its inception, he has become a very facile painter. My favorite drawing a day blog is Ornithoblogical, 365 days of birdies on my brain. Anna Raff is so clever and funny. It's a real pleasure to see what she's going to come up with day after day. My brother writes a daily blog named Two Worlds/365 where he mediates on the states of the natural and political worlds. Such dedication these people show to the quotidian communication!
I've been trying out the daily drawing and I enjoy your feedback. It's not really what I want to do, as I like the rambling narrative as well. It finally came to me in a flash this week, what could be the perfect marriage between all my divergent interests. I've decided to create a whole new face for the blog, a whole new reason for its existence. On Monday I will be beginning a series of posts called 52 weeks in a French village, making a home away from home. It's my intention to add a diary entry every Monday. It will be a cross between a weekly journal, a sketch book and a letter home.
Most well-organized people would begin such a project on the first of January. Clearly that's the logical starting point. But since we moved to France 6 years ago in June and opened our Bed & Breakfast 3 years ago in June, it's not without purpose that I begin my around-the-year writing adventure at this moment in the calendar. Our season is just underway now, so there's lots of stories to tell. The out-of-doors cries out to be sketched. It seems a great time to begin. I hope you'll follow along with me! I love to hear from you. It's the best part about blogging!
Je suis très impatiente de lire ce nouveau blog !
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your new direction. Sounds good. It's tricky to work out exactly how to use blogging for the best. I'm going through a similar "crisis" myself. I'll be reading along with interest.
ReplyDeleteyou are becoming so french, Nancy !!!
ReplyDeletelooking foward to reading it! and good luck!
ReplyDeletei started a journal in march and did it for a month (or less even). I was too unfocused to make it work.
I've begun again on the same lines as I update our company facebook page - I ask myself the question: "What one thing today was more relevant than anything else today". it sounds like a no-brainer but it took me a while nevertheless to come to.
Yesterday the image that pleased me most (apart from my skull prints!) was my ink messy gloves after a day in the studio. I put them all in a pile and took a picture. So that's going to be Day 2.
Day one was a very very old abandoned house in my neighbourhood. I feel certain the wrecker's ball is on its way, so I went over and did a few drawings and took photographs. I'm not sure what I'll do with them, but they're in as an image/activity that make a difference to my day. It's also part of my split between wanting to preserve old things and my belief that, sometimes, things have a sell by date and need to be cleared to make way for new and exciting developments (sadly, in this case, it's more likely to be an unspectacular skyscraper of boxy little apartments).
and here are the gloves!
ReplyDeleteLove it Nancy!! And it rather IS a burden to do it so regularly, but I think worth it, in the end. There is no "requirement" to fulfill in life; we get to decide how we will use our time and talents to fill the worlds we make. You make mine better!!
ReplyDeleteI am thrilled! I love both your writing and your artistry, so perfect!
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