Lost opportunities

I’m trying to complete this certain sketchbook that has been in progress since 2023 (I have about seven pages left). I have a few others that are in progress that I want to finish as well. This year, I’m hoping to finish these pending sketchbooks and lay them to rest officially. Keep scrolling to see some sketchbook pages I’ve done over about a week and a half period in an effort to make some headway.

My studio/office has gotten out of control and I really need to lighten my load of possessions. I work from home in this space as well as use it as my art studio, so I spend many hours of the day here. It is not an “aesthetic studio” and I’m okay with that, but I’ve been feeling ill at ease while in this room and I think it is just because it’s so untidy and cluttered.

Recently, while looking for something I know I own, I came across so much stuff that I purchased with good intentions and never used. Some of these supplies date back to when I was in high school and I have held onto them all these years. I’ve seen some videos on YouTube of artists discussing art supplies they regret purchasing and it felt a bit like that to me.

Some of the things I need to offload are:

• media I bought supplies for but never enjoyed using (gouache, paint pens)

• paper that I just won’t use (pastel paper, watercolor canvas paper)

• random crafting supplies (freezer paper for sewing projects, fabric remnants, transfer paper, tie dye t-shirt kit)

• art books and other books (nonfiction)

• too much of some things that I need to thin out (pens especially)

• random office supplies, highlighters, notebooks, electrical cords for electronics I don’t have anymore, etc.

I have attempted and failed at many iterations of cleaning out my studio in the past. Most of the time, I get rid of a few things, yet decide to hold onto most. It’s been an iterative process. As I was sifting through everything this most recent time, I thought about all the things that I wanted to make with these things when I decided to hold onto them a little bit longer. A lot of my interests and preferences are really different now so the opportunity to realize these ideas has passed. The plans of the things I wanted to make far surpass anything I’ve actually created in my life.

After going through my whole room, I still was not able to find the object I was looking for (a certain water cup for painting). I’m sure I will find it randomly at some later date.

In these pages, I realized that I was sketching in a bit on a theme of groups of small flowers. Also the last two pages were of white flowers, which are always more tricky for me to draw, in part because it’s harder to see the details in photos and also because of the subtle colors.

“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries” - Blaise Pascal

Some links for you:

• Go quietly public on the internet - An interesting article outlining a strategy for how to portray yourself and interact online. It showed me that I am not the only person thinking about these things and missing they way the internet used to be.

• A Life in Scraps - Discussing old and new scrapbooks. Even though I include a lot of tidbits of my life in my sketchbooks, I don't paste a lot of ephemeral materials within them, mostly because I don’t want to introduce non-archival materials that might do damage. I might give it a try though. I came across my travel journal from Greece last year and I liked seeing the museum ticket stubs that I taped in there.

• I found a new drawing app for iPad and iPhone called AmberDraw. It has animated brushes so your whole drawing kind of vibrates and you can export your drawings as GIFs or PNG sequences. The only thing I don’t like about it is that the better brushes are behind a paywall and it is a subscription model. I haven’t had a chance to try it out in earnest, but I will give it a try over the next few weeks.

Until next time,