Attribution: Inspired by Japanese calligraphy; made by self on an iPad Pro
In the past few months 🗓️, I’ve been deliberately building a habit of consistent sketching, inking, and coloring in my main notebook and sketchbook. It takes me back to my roots ✏️ ✍🏽 — early in my life, I discovered a real love and joy for the visual graphic arts. It’s always been the medium I’ve enjoyed the most, and I’m making it a point to return to it consistently, as a daily or weekly habit.
There are other benefits to it as well. It slows me down. Helps me think, feel the feedback, before moving into the next thing. It helps me enjoy the moment and actually stay in it — which is harder than it sounds. There’s something therapeutic about it. It increases that feeling of contentment and inner peace in a way that’s hard to explain but easy to feel.
I do enjoy everything on the other side of the spectrum too — digital creation, whether manual or using GenAI. I’m not choosing one over the other. But the analog medium balances me out. It makes me so much more ready when I get to the digital side. Better positioned to learn, to move, to make, to share. And it’s alluring enough — satisfying enough — that it keeps pulling me back, consistently, to the notebook. These are a couple of my favorite recent pieces:
Our puppy Percy. Well, he’s 5 — but you know what I mean. He’s a Weimaraner (pointer) and one of the key connective tissues at home. He brings us a lot of joy, hoots and levity, and helps us center during those hairy moments. I’ve wanted to draw him for a while and he is such a beautiful subject.
A sneering cheetah. One of my favorite mammals from the animal kingdom. It is an amazing big cat - with a unique characteristic that it can’t retract it’s claws!
More to come from the sketchbook…