Dear Sarah - 014
Caught up!
(Just joining us? These letters chronicle our full year of daily drawings and accompanying correspondence/conversation. Learn more about Sarah Harvey here. More info about me can be found here.)
Dear Nikki, - January 14, 2025
Today I continued to look hard at quotidian objects (glasses and a large fork), trying to follow the lines as best I could. I used a cheap dollar store "scribble pad" and a black pastel pencil for one drawing of my glasses, and a fine-tip Sharpie on actual drawing paper for the other. The scribble pad paper is a bit fuzzy, as is the pastel pencil. I think this drawing is more successful than the one drawn in pen because the pastel allows for shading. I have no idea how to use a pen for shading. Cross-hatching maybe?
I have owned the big wooden-handled fork for about fifty years. It came from a thrift shop, so who knows how old it really is. Even though the tines are bent (yes, they actually do look like that--it's not just my wonky drawing) I haven't seen any need to replace it. Ditto my mother's wooden-handled spatula, which must be even older. I still use the spatula almost every day.
One thing that has surprised me is how calm I feel when I'm drawing. The act of applying a pen or pencil to a piece of paper seems to gently silence the noise in my brain. I'm looking and doing rather than thinking, which is remarkably soothing. The critic/demon is always ready to pounce but it's not front and centre, and it's not taking away the joy.
I'm also enjoying the epistolary nature of our collaboration. I love epistolary novels, from The Jolly Postman (I love all the Ahlbergs' books. I can still recite Peepo!) to We Need to Talk About Kevin to 84 Charing Cross Road. A letter a day to a dear friend doesn't feel at all like "daily pages," which I have never done, but many writers swear by.
Dear Sarah - January 14, 2025
I could not agree more re. the delightful ease of this correspondence. I had not thought of The Jolly Postman for years - a favourite of mine, as well. I also agree wholeheartedly about the strange calm that arrives when I settle down with pen/pencil/iPad/crayons/whatever and start to draw. I find it more effective than meditating — time slips away and I look up from the page and realize an hour has flown past.
I’m now enjoying the delights of jet lag once again.
After returning home last night (after many, many hours of travel), I attended a Zoom class during which we discussed braided essays and poetry forms and during which I was only semi-coherent due to lack of sleep.
At 3 am, wide awake and head spinning, I scribbled the following list into my phone notes (and, yes, I know I shouldn’t have my phone so close while sleeping):
a gust of sudden wind
house spared
guilt
braided poems
life choices
fire stats
spark flame
Jasper Banff
kinds of wind
All day, the wee hours of the morning list has been noodling around in my head, so I decided to do several things differently for today’s drawing.
I got out a BIG sheet of paper (I usually work in small notebooks or on the iPad, which limits the size of whatever I am drawing)
Use colour
Explore abstraction
All of that, fuelled by the hideous flames of the California fires, inspired today’s effort.
With apologies to those who will have received a double dose of emails today, we are now caught up and back in similar time zones and will proceed as planned!
Many thanks to those who read, comment, share, like, and all that stuff! If you are also following along and creating a drawing a day, how are you enjoying the process?
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