Even from my comfortable armchair my personal and psychological life seems constantly ‘on the edge’. There are always so many things to keep me sitting to avoid doing. Reflecting on guilt, inertia and life moments not grasped. With access through a large TV screen to the world, if I am not already personally stressed, I find stresses either responding to everyday events bombarding me in the news and advertising – donkeys, cats, young girls all over the world needing my help – then wars and climate disasters not to speak of Novak Jokovich’s all-important (now irrelevant) visa.
At the same time, I feel compelled to somehow remember and record this time, to slow life down as it flashes past one day merging into the next. Something to remind me in case a time comes when all I have energy left for is memory. I want to remember it as it was at the time, not just after my brain has sloshed them around to try and clean them and hung them out to dry.
!!Ref to Susan Sontag ‘On Photography’ about memories and snapshots
Diaries and sketchbooks can provide a ‘safe creative fun space’ explore my own ‘personal edges’ – philosophical and political views that characterise my ‘voice’ so that these can be explicitly and strategically integrated into my more ‘objective’ observational as well as subjective creative practice.
Particularly during Lockdown life seemed much too short to waste getting bored. This project evolved from assignments for a personal development Sketchbook course to start to develops habits and manageable ways in which I can keep better creative track of my evolving thoughts and daily news around me to generate ongoing and well-informed inspiration for future work. Diaries and sketchbooks can provide a ‘safe creative fun space’ explore my own ‘personal edges’ – philosophical and political views that characterise my ‘voice’ so that these can be explicitly and strategically integrated into my more ‘objective’ observational as well as subjective creative practice.
The ‘Everyday Edges’ Sketchbook Diary started with an initial draft and daily record of everyday experiences over the month April- May 2021 leading up to my 67th birthday. Focusing on the concept of the ‘Every Day’, overlaying ‘old normal’ memories, daily reflections and serendipitous responses against a backdrop of news events and daily changes. Pages covered both personal reflections as I reach yet another age milestone, and everyday tumultuous events in the daily news on my TV screen under lockdown.
The most resolved spreads are presented on the right.
Visual recording of news items in spontaneous ‘kneejerk rages and rants’ helped calm down my thoughts for more objective analysis. But I found it was only manageable to keep up this momentum of response for short periods.
I plan to revisit the diary April – May 2024 as I approach my 70th birthday to explore the changes in both the external world, and my internal responses. As a reflection on my creative process – and hopefully progress.
‘Everyday is a Life Experiment’ is a daily record of everyday experiences over the month April- May 2021 leading up to my 67th birthday on 9th May 2021. Pages covered both personal reflections as I reach yet another age milestone, and everyday tumultuous events in the daily news on my TV screen under lockdown.
It started with personal development work for Assignment 1 of Illustration Sketchbooks. I looked through all the empty sketchbooks I had at home. I found an A5 hardbound sketchbook/diary that I bought many years ago at a museum in London waiting for a good use. It has three sections of lined paper, small square graph paper and blank sheets and quirky photographs of daily life, people and places by Elliott Erwitt on each spread. I thought this would be an ideal balance of blank space to fill and daily prompts to respond to if I got stuck.
I started by pencilling in the dates on a corner of every other page to map out two spreads a day each day between April 10th 2021and my 67th birthday on May 9th. Then each day I pencilled in and sketched my thoughts, moods, events and discussion in the news and/or responses to the Erwitt photos. If I had time I finished the spreads that day. Other days when I had a lot of work, I just jotted notes and came back to them later. Sometimes my mood, the event or the Erwitt image reminded me of something I had done in an earlier sketchbook or a photo I had taken, so I cut and paste that.
I also periodically reflected on my concept on ‘everyday normal’. I started off with a Zen approach, that every day is a potential for choice and creativity. Life is much too short to be boring, even in Lockdown. And I was always cheered up by the Erwitt photos. On a personal level the very process of keeping a daily diary routine is to intensify that experience of living – potential for getting lost down depressive rabbit-holes and mood swings as well as creative appreciation of seasonal changes in my garden and daily walks – in the this case Spring. Then the everyday bombardment of information and news – sometimes really interesting, sometimes upsetting and making me very angry, often repetitive and cyclical as not everyone is a news junkie watching several times a day.
I also became very interested in the effect on my sense of time, the merging and interlinkages between the present with flashbacks to the past, and also thoughts about ‘future normals’. Sometimes fearful of climate change and further waves of COVID affecting other countries I have worked in even if things are OK here. Sometimes hopeful and inspired at the thought that the disruptions of COVID may force a more fundamental rethink of ‘normal’ and our everyday activities and responsibilities to the planet and to each other.
Sketchbook Diaries:
Everyday Creative Process
I have used sketchbooks a lot throughout my work on the OCA Visual Communications degree. As:
- a safe space for freeing up, having fun and brainstorming ideas the ‘help me think’
- as a place to bring together sketches, photographs and notes for specific thematic or location project work
- as a place to experiment with materials and processes, rapid and frantic sketching that can then be rubbed out or gone over as a record over time, sploshing ink and paint and seeing how they interact, collage that I can then draw and paint over.
I have worked with many different formats from very small folded pieces to A1 size sheets bound with a Bulldog clip between cardboard. With different types of paper, and also altered books.
My work for the past year has been mostly photographic and digital, partly because those were skills I wanted to develop and partly because I did not have access to my art studio because of COVID restrictions. I wanted to use this project to get back to having fun with drawing. But also to get into the discipline of keeping a diary of regular creative responses to my evolving thoughts, changing moods and the world around me. Something I have always intended doing, but not had time for until now because of professional paid work.
This experimental sketchbook ‘Everyday Normals’ aims to provide a ‘safe creative fun space’ for:
- ranting, raving and following interesting ideas, even if they lead nowhere
- experimenting with visual effects of different drawing, painting and collage media and styles
- helping me think through all the multiple moods, thoughts and influences bombarding me everyday to motivate or prevent me from changing everyday habits
- helping me to get a better sense of how I think ‘new normal’ should look like and start to make the necessary personal changes
- clarify my subjective ‘voice’ that influences and informs my documentary work on location.
Some of these images, thoughts and ideas will be included in the final project ‘The new normal? 2022’.
This Sketchbook explored what is meant by ‘Everyday Normals’.
I looked through all the empty sketchbooks I had at home. I found an A5 hardbound sketchbook/diary that I bought many years ago at a museum in London waiting for a good use. It has three sections of lined paper, small square graph paper and blank sheets and quirky photographs of daily life, people and places by Elliott Erwitt on each spread. I thought this would be an ideal balance of blank space to fill and daily prompts to respond to if I got stuck.
I started by pencilling in the dates on a corner of every other page to map out two spreads a day each day between April 10th 2021and my 67th birthday on May 9th. Then each day I pencilled in and sketched my thoughts, moods, events and discussion in the news and/or responses to the Erwitt photos. If I had time I finished the spreads that day. Other days when I had a lot of work, I just jotted notes and came back to them later. Sometimes my mood, the event or the Erwitt image reminded me of something I had done in an earlier sketchbook or a photo I had taken, so I cut and paste that.
I also periodically reflected on my concept on ‘everyday normal’. I started off with a Zen approach, that every day is a potential for choice and creativity. Life is much too short to be boring, even in Lockdown. And I was always cheered up by the Erwitt photos. On a personal level the very process of keeping a daily diary routine is to intensify that experience of living – potential for getting lost down depressive rabbit-holes and mood swings as well as creative appreciation of seasonal changes in my garden and daily walks – in the this case Spring. Then the everyday bombardment of information and news – sometimes really interesting, sometimes upsetting and making me very angry, often repetitive and cyclical as not everyone is a news junkie watching several times a day.
I also became very interested in the effect on my sense of time, the merging and interlinkages between the present with flashbacks to the past, and also thoughts about ‘future normals’. Sometimes fearful of climate change and further waves of COVID affecting other countries I have worked in even if things are OK here. Sometimes hopeful and inspired at the thought that the disruptions of COVID may force a more fundamental rethink of ‘normal’ and our everyday activities and responsibilities to the planet and to each other.
These reflections prompted me to rethink my location-based psychogeography work to place this in the context of ‘new normals’ and ‘building back better’. To link more closely with my advocacy and activism work.
Inspiration
The below are only a small selection of sources of inspiration underpinning my sketchbook.
David Shrigley
David Hockney
James Victore
Tracey Emin
Louise Bourgeois
Frida Kahlo
Even from my comfortable armchair my personal and psychological life seems constantly ‘on the edge’. There are always so many things to keep me sitting to avoid doing. Reflecting on guilt, inertia and life moments not grasped. With access through a large TV screen to the world, if I am not already personally stressed, I find stresses either responding to everyday events bombarding me in the news and advertising – donkeys, cats, young girls all over the world needing my help – then wars and climate disasters not to speak of Novak Jokovich’s all-important (now irrelevant) visa.
At the same time, I feel compelled to somehow remember and record this time, to slow life down as it flashes past one day merging into the next. Something to remind me in case a time comes when all I have energy left for is memory. I want to remember it as it was at the time, not just after my brain has sloshed them around to try and clean them and hung them out to dry.
!!Ref to Susan Sontag ‘On Photography’ about memories and snapshots
Diaries and sketchbooks can provide a ‘safe creative fun space’ explore my own ‘personal edges’ – philosophical and political views that characterise my ‘voice’ so that these can be explicitly and strategically integrated into my more ‘objective’ observational as well as subjective creative practice.
Particularly during Lockdown life seemed much too short to waste getting bored. This project evolved from assignments for a personal development Sketchbook course to start to develops habits and manageable ways in which I can keep better creative track of my evolving thoughts and daily news around me to generate ongoing and well-informed inspiration for future work. Diaries and sketchbooks can provide a ‘safe creative fun space’ explore my own ‘personal edges’ – philosophical and political views that characterise my ‘voice’ so that these can be explicitly and strategically integrated into my more ‘objective’ observational as well as subjective creative practice.
‘Everyday is a Life Experiment’ is a daily record of everyday experiences over the month April- May 2021 leading up to my 67th birthday on 9th May 2021. Pages covered both personal reflections as I reach yet another age milestone, and everyday tumultuous events in the daily news on my TV screen under lockdown.
It started with personal development work for Assignment 1 of Illustration Sketchbooks. I looked through all the empty sketchbooks I had at home. I found an A5 hardbound sketchbook/diary that I bought many years ago at a museum in London waiting for a good use. It has three sections of lined paper, small square graph paper and blank sheets and quirky photographs of daily life, people and places by Elliott Erwitt on each spread. I thought this would be an ideal balance of blank space to fill and daily prompts to respond to if I got stuck.
I started by pencilling in the dates on a corner of every other page to map out two spreads a day each day between April 10th 2021and my 67th birthday on May 9th. Then each day I pencilled in and sketched my thoughts, moods, events and discussion in the news and/or responses to the Erwitt photos. If I had time I finished the spreads that day. Other days when I had a lot of work, I just jotted notes and came back to them later. Sometimes my mood, the event or the Erwitt image reminded me of something I had done in an earlier sketchbook or a photo I had taken, so I cut and paste that.
I also periodically reflected on my concept on ‘everyday normal’. I started off with a Zen approach, that every day is a potential for choice and creativity. Life is much too short to be boring, even in Lockdown. And I was always cheered up by the Erwitt photos. On a personal level the very process of keeping a daily diary routine is to intensify that experience of living – potential for getting lost down depressive rabbit-holes and mood swings as well as creative appreciation of seasonal changes in my garden and daily walks – in the this case Spring. Then the everyday bombardment of information and news – sometimes really interesting, sometimes upsetting and making me very angry, often repetitive and cyclical as not everyone is a news junkie watching several times a day.
I also became very interested in the effect on my sense of time, the merging and interlinkages between the present with flashbacks to the past, and also thoughts about ‘future normals’. Sometimes fearful of climate change and further waves of COVID affecting other countries I have worked in even if things are OK here. Sometimes hopeful and inspired at the thought that the disruptions of COVID may force a more fundamental rethink of ‘normal’ and our everyday activities and responsibilities to the planet and to each other.
The Sketchbook so far is still very much a work in progress. This will be revisited and updated, with additional spreads, over the same dates April-May 2022 to consider everyday changes on personal and global levels. Although it was very useful and I learned a lot through the discipline of making contributions every day – enriching the way that I lived them, I found that it is difficult to maintain that pace of experience for longer than about a month at a time without it becoming a chore and losing freshness. Many pages from very busy days are still in pencil draft.
The 2021 Sketchbook will be revisited in April/May 2022. Possible things to explore further in representations of time:
I would need to consider copyright issues on the Erwit photos, or work over these, if I develop the diary as a publication. Still to be decided.
But there is a reason why I have always had difficulty keeping a regular diary – life has always been so busy being lived. Like the quantum uncertainty principle (proper ref here) measuring and recording thoughts alters and changes them. Even in quiet periods it is difficult to reflect and live at the same time. Every ‘now thought’ flashes to the past and a new thought comes before the last one was fully grasped. Never mind recorded and put on paper.
I need to develop sketchbook activities that help me create ‘new normals’ in my personal everyday life at home in a flexible and manageable way that I can integrate into busy as well as more intensive periods of creativity.
Further development 2024
The Sketchbook so far is still very much a work in progress. The spreads that I find more successful and with more potential are shown in the gallery on the right.
Although it was very useful and I learned a lot through the discipline of making contributions every day – enriching the way that I lived them, I found that it is difficult to maintain that pace of experience for longer than about a month at a time without it becoming a chore and losing freshness. Many pages from very busy days are still in pencil draft.
I intend most of the sketchbook to be public, although I may put some further notes in the pockets created by the Everyday Stories insert shown below.
Some further things to explore in this or future sketchbooks are:
- to do different perspectives of the same object
- layering of thoughts over time eg using tracing paper or just gouache
- experiment with transfers and gelliplate printing
My plan is to revisit the pages over the same dates in the month before my 68th birthday in 2022. By then I will have developed my drawing skills further in future sketchbook assignments for further reflection and clarification of 2021 images. Adding thoughts about everyday normals in 2022 as the basis for developing final digital and printmaking images for SYP Assignment 5 Building Back Better.
This series of experimental sketchbooks about ‘Everyday Edges’ aims to complement my location derive projects through providing a ‘safe creative fun space’ for:
I work with many different formats from very small folded pieces to A1 size sheets bound with a Bulldog clip between cardboard. With different types of paper, and also altered books.
