You may or may not know that I’m into fiber or fabric arts. I love quilts and fabric of all sorts. Back when I made books on a regular basis, I had the opportunity to buy loads of fabric. I went through tons of it. I still love it.

I started hand appliqueing fabric to an old chambray shirt that was in disrepair. It looks lovely. IT feels amazing. Overall I just really liked getting my hands on some fabric again.

About 9 months ago? It feels like a hundred years ago at this point, I picked up a free antique, 40s era Kenmore sewing machine in a delightful cabinet. The machine is a TANK. It has one stitch- straight. Though it does go backwards too. There are knobs and dials and it is so satisfying to use. Because it is in a lovely cabinet we put it into our office and I’ve been able to use it on the regular.

I sit down and make what I’m calling my “weirdo patches.” Which are simple little applique mini quilts. They fray and get fuzzy as they get washed but they are lovely to feel.

I’ve been known to track down patches of the perfect size to cover an old logo on an old hoodie. Now I’ve been measuring and creating these little applique quilts to cover up logos. Then I started to make them because being at my machine brings a sense of calm and peace. Plus I love clipping little pieces of fabric and arranging them. They are puzzles waiting to be discovered.

If you’d like to buy one head over to this page. They range from $5 to $10 S&H included.

Here are a few of them:

Occasionally I hit rough patches with my drawing. It’s not a block or a rut, because the desire to draw is still there, but nothing good will emerge from my pen or pencil. As I’m making these rough drawings I hear my inner critic shouting at me that my work sucks, my drawings are no good, and that I should just pack it all up and never draw again. That’s how the critic works. The asshole* in my head waits until my defenses are down and then starts to wail on my already frayed nerves. It’s not so much that I give up, rather I keep plugging away, filling up page after page with shitty drawings.

And that is what I’ve been doing. Over the last few weeks I’ve had a load of crap on my shoulders, real worry inducing crap. The kinda crap I can’t just take my mind off. It’s always there and pervasive. This is when I’ve found my pen starts to create shit on the page. Noses off, eyeballs in the wrong direction, proportions that would make Picasso proud.

The thing is, that this shit, is gold where art journaling is concerned. Shitty drawings give me a window into my head in a way good drawings don’t. I can see the weight of everything that is on my mind in my bad drawings. I’ve regressed 2 years back in my drawing habit. This has nothing to do with the goodness or badness of the art (the art itself is just fine) it has to do with what I personally see in the art. Yes, there are specific things like proportion, perspective, and other REAL problems in the art, but that makes the drawing neither bad nor good, it simply IS.

A art therapy guy named Shawn McNiff ** writes about having a dialog with your art. That you should have a conversation with your piece, and listen to what it tells you. While I find that idea a tad whooo whooo frou frou for my tastes, I do listen to my art, I look at it and gain perspective on what is going on in my life. Like reading your own tea leaves or tarot cards, listening to your art is focus driven and largely a meditative process.

I’ll get more into how I personally reflect on my pages in a future post.

It was good to identify why my drawings were turning out “shitty.” Being able to look through my book*** and see on this day my drawings were really off, and on this day this happened, it was really weighing on my mind= invaluable lessons. Once I identified what was weighing on my mind I was able to break through the barricade in my head and the drawings started to flow from my pen and onto the page in my usual style.

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In my classes and here on my blog I've talked and written about the importance of a pocket notebook or journal, repeatedly and often. Jane and I explored this with our "Field Experiments" posts. I find that when I carry a sketchbook/journal with me ALL the time I use it more often. Even if all i'm doing is writing down which train I need to take and when, I'm using it. Having it on me all the time lets me use it for sketching and journaling whenever I want or need.

I've taken to carrying Field Notes and a BanditApple Carnet peewee in my pocket along with a mechanical pencil and a black ink pen in my coat pocket. It's a barebones journaling set up. No color just graphite and ink.
Because I've been keeping my journal in my inside coat pocket the point of my pencil has been pocking through. I jabbed my hand with it but I was more afraid I'd break a point off or jab someone else on the train. I made myself a little pen sheath that fits over the top of my flap cover.

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Pretty frequently people ask me about drawing portraits. How do you draw a "good" portrait.

Here are 4 tips:

#1. Don't draw from fashion photos. Use well lit images of real people from Flickr or anywhere else you can find them. Fashion magazines and their photography involve a great deal of softening the image to remove the kind of lighting you need to make a good drawing. They also remove every last wrinkle and bump in the face, the stuff you really need to navigate the contours of the face with your pen/pencil.

#2. Don't be so hard on yourself. If you spend 90% of your drawing time worryingabout how much your drawing sucks you'll never get down to the business of enjoying the process. First concentrate on the process of making your image. Enjoy the feeling of the pen or pencil on the paper. Enjoy hte moment of creation. After you are done with the image, then critique it. It's alright to go back and say, "Next time I'll try putting the line for the nose here," or suggesting to yourself, "If I put the lower eyelid in more of a gentle curve, I'd like it more."

#3. Embrace imperfection. You will make some drawings you hate. That's okay. You learn the most from your bad drawings. You learn where you went wrong, so that in the next image you know what you don't like and what you should do with the curve of the nustril and that little divot above the upper lip.

#4. Keep at it. Don't give up. the most important thing is that even though you are going to make some really bad drawings, you will eventually make some really great drawings. But you won't make great drawings if you give up. I make a lot of bad drawings. I'm okay with that. Part of art is learning what your style is and embracing that style.

Here's a late add on to this post, MIllande has some great ideas about portraits. I love what she does with her self portrait.