Becky adds to Erin's book: "Transform"

My creative nonfiction students created proper noun timelines of their lives. There are a lot of book and movie titles in their lists, and they've inspired me to brainstorm alongside of them, thinking of the titles that have fueled my life at all of its different stages. What resulted was a semi-autobiographic and mostly silly doodle of a few transformations from 16 to 42:

Adobe Illustrator remains a beast I choose not to wrangle--mostly due to reluctance to move beyond my comfort zone. I like feeling confident in the four things I can do with it. This gave me a little permission to stretch my AI boundaries and learn a few new things (adding textures!) without smashing my laptop.

Erin's wisdom

Erin's sketchbook introduction resonated with me. She writes about "enjoying the process of creation, layering words + image, found + repurposed items" and that she "feel[s] nourished every time I make something adds joy to the word." Oh, to always give myself that permission to nourish self, and oh to be confident in the value of joyful contributions that appear to have no monetary or productivity rooted value.

I tried to heed her words and just play--and to play based on inspiration from the world around me. A friend in India sent a block print card (upper left), and from there I doodled my version of the web of flowers. Into AI it went, and the flowers were recolored over and over again. Those hours could have been spent in many more significant ways, but I don't think my heart would be quite as happy.