new plan New Year

For the new year ahead I am thinking about some new projects and musing on what has been best about the past year.
 Lately I have been enjoying my creative time most when I draw and paint in my tiny sketchbook. To my delight, I finished the last page of the 31/2"by 51/2" watercolor book a couple of days ago. The appeal of the little book is the finite size and shape. It fits in my purse or pocket and I took it to so many places since this past July when I began using it.












 I also have this little Winsor and Newton metal folding watercolor case. I have had it for ages, I don't remember how or when I acquired it. It too has been a handy companion on the beach, by a lake, in the mountains, and sometimes just sitting at my kitchen table. Sometimes I forget a paintbrush and have used my fingertips. Water is not a problem, I have used anything from rainwater to Lake Michigan beach water. I just love the spontaneity and the size of the little book. Anything can be go in there and whatever I do, it isn't big enough to take a long time or stand up to much fussing. It is small commitment to a brief moment and gives me that satisfaction of finishing and capturing whatever it was that had my attention that hour.
I am starting a new watercolor sketchbook, (these are the Moleskin brand) and I jumped up a size. This new one is 51/2" by 71/2". Will it please as much? Will I fill it in six months or less?
My newest idea is to post a drawing a day on this blog. Based on the small pleasure of filling a little sketchbook I am going to try to post 365 days straight. I will call it d.a.d. Better than calling it drawing every day? D.e.d?

Every year at this time I evaluate why I have this blog and reconsider whether to simply drop it. As of this past December, I have been authoring this blog for 5 years! I've posted 527 times, which is just over a 100 a year. That's an awfully modest amount of blogging. I have kept it up for the pleasure of sharing my art, telling my stories about my work, and the discipline of writing. Writing about art is the most difficult task for me and yet it is so necessary. I can't enter my work into an art show without being asked to write out a daunting statement of purpose.
And so, I will be trying to post the little stuff more. It might be a sketch on a page of the Church bulletin, or on a napkin at a restaurant, but I will make myself keep that little discipline going. I might write an anecdote of that day or experience or I might not. Having a smart phone now to snap a sketch will make it easier than using my scanner.
Looking back through the sketchbooks is such a pleasure, all those memories come right back, I can almost smell that very day.

For it is all those little moments that make a life and here it all is, my recording of the little moments.

I will be continuing my interest and theme of painting large and small flower works. I will be submitting more of these to galleries and juried shows.








I am finally working again on the large Old Testament paintings for my church. I hope to get these finished soon, in the New Year. And I will continue to write and share all these big projects.