One of the things I decided to start doing this year was renew a commitment to daily drawing and sketching.  To that end, I humbly offer a new series in this blog: “The Weekly Sketch,” featuring scanned (and unadulterated) excerpts from my 2014 sketchbook.

They aren’t finished works; they are process pieces – the byproduct of my daily commitment to the page, which I feel keeps me loose and open to creative possibilities in and out of the studio.  Essentially, they are meditations on surface and texture, a means of rendering my mind’s-eye more porous and receptive to information which might serve me later.  General Info: The subjects vary – sometimes I work from images, sometimes from life; many of the examples are gestural or loose renderings, some are more detailed.  The media and tools vary as well – brush and ink, technical pen; pencil, pastel; and who knows what else may turn up in the future.  Many of these examples also reflect the use of a new tool for me: a digital stylus and graphic interface which I use now for a lot of my surface design studies – it’s  easy to stay loose without having to worry about committing a line to a piece of paper – also easier to erase if something doesn’t work!   I allow myself an hour to an hour-and-a-half for each session, no more.  The time limit keeps me from getting too deep; and although that often means I can’t finish (or over-work) what I’ve started, I have honored the commitment to the daily practice.  After that, I’m off to the computer or the felting/print table, the sewing machine, or wherever the Work next requires my presence!