Robin's September Sketch

Inspiration!

Exploring Colors on ColourLovers

Heather's book is about "exploration", and her previous entry depicts her exploration of shapes and colors within a grid on the page.  Keeping with my own goal of learning something new with each sketch, and being inspired by her own exploration I decided to explore color palettes in ColourLovers.  I know there are reasons why some colors go together and some don't - but the problem is that I don't know what those reasons are. So instead of learning about colors, I just headed over to ColourLovers and browsed for palates that were put together by other people.  I then applied them to my YouTube channel avatar to see what I liked best.  Pages on my mac allowed me to import the palate then quickly swap out colors using the color inspector.  I think I like the muted grey one the best.  Thanks, Heather for the inspiration.

"The Hamster Wheel of Life" - Exploring in Sandy's book

I love Sandy's first sketch and her theme: The Hamster Wheel of Life.  At this time of the year especially, I often catch a glimpse of our calendar, my eyes bug out and I think, "Seriously?! It's the end of April already?!"  May is always a wash.  And then it's June, and I finally breathe and I promise myself that next year, I'm going to be better at guarding my time and being balanced. Sandy's first sketch perfectly captured the myriad ways our lives often get us stuck on that hamster wheel, and her (awesome) line "strive to be the toad" inspired my collage.  Sandy reminded me that I need to stop moving so much;  it is important to plant our feet, take a breath, and take in what is around us.  Whenever I do this, I am always overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude.

My creation is a collage consisting of thank you notes received, thank you notes we've had printed (that's our lake up there in the top right - 25 teaching days away, but who's counting?!), and the stamps and paper we use to make our own.    I also used some stationary that looks busy to me, with all of those spiralling little wheels, as part of the back drop, reminding me to step off the wheel, take a moment, and be thankful more often.

Home (?)

I chose the theme Home for my book; it was the one thing that kept coming back to me when I was trying to come up with ideas. No doubt the imminent end of the school year had a strong influence on my state of mind.

"Home" (at least for me) is not easy to define. Having been an expat for over 30 years I feel that a home comes in many different shapes and forms, associations and emotions, people and places so I chose words that spoke of home to me, or at least leant themselves to my definition of it. It's ended up looking like a page out of my diary from the 1980's though……and so it begins ;)

A clutter inspired minimalist

We're always trying to streamline and declutter our lives at our house, and yet we find ourselves crowding our art/thinking spaces with obnoxious, messy bulletin boards. I've thrown them out with every one of our moves, but we always decide we need 'em. We'll never be the people with the grown-up office space; we are still college-dorm-room-thinkers, and so when I pondered my theme of "what inspires you," I wanted to create something that looked a little like those inevitable patchwork bulletin boards I stare at when planning my next creative endeavor. Usually I need color, but this time, since coloring books are something I collect as an adult (okay, so maybe we should label ourselves farther back than the dorm...it is possible that we're still in middle school around here), I wanted to evoke those thick black lines that always inspire (and maybe save an hour or two).  --Becky