Every day I try to open my Moleskine pocket sketchbook and do a little drawing. It's a habit that keeps me sane during the hurly-burly routines of being a stay-at-home mom to a toddler.
Here are a few of the recent daily sketches. You can see more on my instagram....
Five Things about me.
1. When someone raises a camera, I usually try to duck out of the sightline. I’d rather not be photographed, but I love drawing self-portraits. I feel like I can invest each drawing or painting with more authentic emotion than any photo could ever capture.
2. I have green eyes and an emerald engagement ring. Green is my favourite colour; I love how alive and restorative it is.
3. My sketchbook, my planner and my journal are the three most precious objects in my life. My mother, my husband and my daughter are the three most precious people in my life.
4. I was born in Swaziland; I grew up in Canada; I now live in England. I love to travel, but I’m actually happiest when I’m curled up with a book at home.
5. I studied art history, archaeology, Latin, and German at university. None of these are particularly useful in my current incarnation as a stay-at-home-mom and illustrator/writer. However, my studies taught me self-discipline, to be curious about everything, and that all ideas and things have a hidden history of meaning that reaches back through time.
Fancy playing along?
My daughter is my alarm clock. She wakes at (or before) dawn and I hear her small voice calling, “Mama? Mama? I finished sleeping.”
That is how my day begins.
We pull open the curtains and search for the sun, or if we’re up before (as is common in winter), we search for the setting moon and the morning star floating just above the rooftops of London.
While I may not always be ready to start the day, I’m always ready to receive her warm, sleepy, nuzzling hugs and kisses.
What I love about the morning is it’s possibility. The night has absolved all of yesterday’s disappointments and the sun brings a new day full of promise.
Each morning starts the same. We get dressed, we make porridge, we brew coffee, and we invert into a few downward dog poses to clear the head. These routines are carefully choreographed steps that prepare us for the day to come. In the endlessly repetitive actions there is a sense of possibility.
Will we go to town to see the ducks on the river and share babyccinos? Will Little One go to nursery school so that I can spend a few uninterrupted hours in my studio? Will we set up the craft table and draw uncountable numbers of stars and moons (just as many as are in our unfathomable universe)?
For years I have wanted to collaborate with my mother. I have dreamed of writing a memoir or novel together, but it has always seemed too overwhelming. How to start? Especially since we live so far apart?
I decided I needed to think of a smaller project to start with. Something we could do daily, but would add up cumulatively into something rather large.
Since we both love mornings, we decided to take a photo each day before noon: just one picture. It could be of anything at all. It's about illuminating, and making beautiful, the random objects we see each day. The cup of coffee. The bird feeder. The bookshelf.
We may be separated by 6297 kilometers, but we share the same aesthetic sensibility and way of seeing. We love the same things, wear the same colours, and read the same books.
I hope you can see the connections and similarities in these photo duets.
Here is the first instalment...
19/11/16
20/11/16
21/11/16
22/11/16
23/11/16
24/11/16
25/11/16
26/11/16
Grateful for... my yoga partner. Even though she sometimes confuses me for a jungle gym.
Accepting... the fact that sometimes life sends bittersweet surprises wrapped in pretty packaging. I've recently had one such surprise, which was both good news and bad news inextricably intermingled.
Baking... pumpkin pie tartlets to fit into tiny hands. I haven't made pumpkin pie for years, and when the spicy aroma filled the kitchen, I suddenly realized how much I missed it. My recipe is from my great-grandmother, which makes it the best pumpkin pie around, if only for the happy knowledge that the women in my family have been baking it for almost a century.
Re-reading... "Bird by bird" by Anne Lamott.
Considering... my plans for the New Year. I'm making a list of intentions, instead of goals. Intentions are more fluid and forgiving. A list of goals sometimes feels like an militant task-master, for when circumstances change (as they often do), the goals become rigid and unattainable. Intentions are malleable, and can grow and change as our life grows and changes.
Stretching... my creative muscles by doing daily drawings and trying to write 500 words per day.
Plotting... a new novel. I'm very excited, but also nervous. Starting a new project is never easy.
What are you doing right now?
Staring at the autumn sky and reciting the Vagabond Song as I walk through the park (poem is below....)
Dreaming of staying in bed after several very early mornings wake-up calls from Little One. "I finished sleeping!" she hollers at 4am, 5am, we're lucky if it's 6am.
And the poem that is giving rhythm to my footsteps right now...
There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood—
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
September slipped by silently, and October is also on its way out.
Can you believe it? Where did the autumn go?
We woke early this morning, and the world was cosseted in a thick blanket of mist. Church steeples floated in the grey fog.
On mornings like these, everything seems gentler and softer. The world is stripped of its summer grandeur. All pretence is gone. Autumn's beauty radiates from within.
What joys will November hold?
1. Celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving with a simple, hearty meal.
2. Celebrating our anniversary. Six years!
3. Celebrating Little One's second birthday.
4. Wow! October is such a joyful month full of family milestones and things to be grateful for!
5. The arrival of Gaga (grandma), for a two week visit.
1. Help Thanks Wow by Anne Lamott
2. The year of living virtuously: weekends off by Teresa Jordan
3. A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
4. Season of Storms by Susanna Kearsley
7: cyclamen planted in our front garden
9: guests at Little One's birthday tea party
1: Mary Berry chocolate cake baked and eaten (delicious!)
{Van Dyke Brown: one of my favourite colours}
Instagram: 532
Bloglovin: 918
Twitter: 568
Come follow along!
Making Lists to Get Things Done
Sketches from New York and Minneapolis
I should have a new illustration project starting shortly, and I'm looking forward to immersing myself in a new world populated with new characters. I can't wait to open a new sketchbook and sharpen my pencils. There's always such wonderful energy in my studio when I'm starting a new project, it's like a child waiting to open her gifts at Christmas. Surprise and joy are paramount.
My goals for the month:
+ Enjoy my time off until my new project starts. I want to spend time with my journal and sketchbook and wander the moors of my imagination.
+ Write. Write. Write. Anything. I've finished a short story, which is now on the submission rounds. What to write next? Perhaps a bundle of blog posts?
+ Daily drawings. Because they're like yoga for my fingers and my creative mind.
Are you writing a monthly review post? Feel free to share a link below in the comments. Let’s celebrate our accomplishments!
Currently....
Sipping : My second cup of decaf coffee. Little One is at nursery school. The house is quiet except for the slow tick-ticking of the radiators.
Wearing : A big celery green scarf and a deep purple silk top. I feel like I've been wrapped in the softest cloud of warmth and comfort.
Planning : Little One's second birthday party. I'm going to fill our house with a floating forest of gold, silver and pearl coloured balloons. It will look like the swaying kelp forests in the ocean. Balloons and ribbons will bob back and forth, and float from the ceiling. Hopefully, happy little people will try to jump up and catch them as they float past.
Editing : A story that is dear to my heart. I'm moving words around. Taking commas out, and putting them back in again. I'm slowly sinking into the world and re-acquainting myself with the characters.
Baking : Mary Berry's chocolate cake. I'm not too involved in bake-off mania, but I made her cake for Little One's first birthday party last year, and it was amazing. Hopefully it will be as good this year!
Re-reading : Susanna Kearsley's "Season of Storms" which is one of my favourite of her novels. The story is set in a villa in Northern Italy, where a group of actors are preparing to perform a almost forgotten, and mysterious play. The night before the original staging, in the early 1900s, the leading lady disappeared. Now, the actors and director are defying fate by trying to stage this unlucky play again. Of course, there is intrigue, love and danger, all connected to the mystery of its original performance.
My life is a series of lists: cleaning lists, grocery lists, to-do lists, wish lists…
I’m sure yours is, too.
We keep our lists on frayed scraps of paper, or canary yellow post-it notes that bristle on our bulletin boards like feathers (and flutter underneath the printer and forever out of sight without our permission). Or we have a sturdy, leather-bound notebook in which we record everything. Or perhaps we have an app, into which we input lists that disappear out of sight with the click of a button.
Lists keep the rhythm of the day moving forwards at an even pace. There may be lots to do (sometimes an overwhelming amount), but we know that everything is scheduled, planned, and accomplishable.
Sometimes that rhythm is like the jaunty beat of a marching band, accompanying us through the day as we scurry from one task to another — or like the drum in the prow of a dragon long boat — we are encouraged onwards.
You can do this. We can do this. Pa-rum-pa-pum. Pa-rum-pa-pum.
But, sometimes the rhythm is off. Like the moment when you hear two songs at the same time, both with different melodies and tempos, and they strain against each other in our ears. We take a breath and screw our eyes shut. Our hearts beat unevenly in our chest, struggling to figure out which rhythm to align with.
Those are the days when our circadian rhythms need re-tuning, and our lists still believe we are steaming ahead like a brass band. Maybe we feel like listening to the sonorous melodies of Debussy instead of rousing marches by Sousa.
Lists aren’t melody, they’re percussion. They're our daily metronomes. They keep us moving in the right direction.
However, some days require long melodies that float and soar and allow time between measures to breathe. Those days require colour and texture: a moment to admire a petunia that is unfurling into bloom, its petals a spiral of perfection, like the whorl of a seashell. Or we need to stop to listen to the breeze in the trees and the delicate susurration of the misty rain against the windowpane.
On these days I have a tendency to throw my lists into the wind.
I spend more time being instead of doing. I take a morning to sit with my journal and dream about life. I breathe deeply and feel the wide margins again, and not like I’m constantly being pressed on to the next thing by the relentlessness of my to-do lists.
I brew a cup of tea, select a beautiful pen and a pristine piece of paper, and make joyful lists. Lists of things to write, things to draw, things to read and think about. Rather than cleaning lists and shopping lists. None of these things have a deadline. Most of them don’t even require any action, but just admiration. For example, I have an ongoing lists of things I love, which I return to regularly for a dose of happiness. Written on it are things like: pearls, rainbows, roses in crystal vases, and new notebooks that have never been opened.
It’s ok to need rest and throw away the to-do lists in favour of the to-love lists.
When I’m overwhelmed, I often devise new, more efficient, and thus more complicated, ways of making lists. I write lists of lists to keep the panic at bay. I schedule reminders in my phone. I cross tasks off, only to rewrite them half-way down the page. I spin in circles, leaving a trail of crumpled paper in my wake.
I start to lose my sense of proportion and individuality as I move mechanically from one job to another. I clean the bathroom. Check. I unload the dishwasher. Check. I tidy the toys. Check. Check. After a day of great accomplishment, I climb into my bed feeling like I've become a robot.
None of us are robots, we all do things our own way. If you gave five different people the same list, it would be completed in five different ways. Boil eggs. Buy milk. Fold the socks. There are as many unique ways of doing those things as there people on this planet. But we forget our unique abilities and style when we focus on myopically crossing tasks off our lists.
A list may provide the framework for the day, but our souls provide the beauty and individuality.
Lists are rhythm, but not melody.
They are plot, but not story.
So, when you write your lists today, remember that you provide all the colour, melody, and story for your day.
Lists are amazing tools.
But you… you are amazing.
This has been a week of adjusting my circadian rhythms to new routines and of making lists for the new season.
So, there have been fewer drawings in my sketchbook, but lots of daydreaming.
What are you dreaming about today?
Please leave a comment or hit reply to tell me!
Autumn is the perfect time of year for writing.
Gone is the glaring sun that lasts until almost midnight and erases all the dusky shadows of inspiration from the mind. The evenings draw in, we retreat inside, and reacquaint ourselves with the deepest musings of our hearts.
For, admit it, we didn’t write much in the summer did we?
The afternoons were too hot, and the long evenings were perfect for lounging, sipping cool drinks, and listening to the echoes of neighbourhood children playing in the twilight. In the summer it feels ungrateful to be sitting inside at a computer when the weather is glorious. And trying to work outside is never advisable, as the sun glares on the screen and the heat is too oppressive for linear thought.
We might have had good intentions to finish that novel, or start journalling, or write a short story. But summer beguiled us into thinking it would last forever, and we would always have tomorrow.
Tomorrow came and went and transformed the world into russet and flame and amber. The air is full of the tang of apples that have fallen from the tree and are slowly fermenting, of wood smoke and leaf mould. Fruit and foliage are being changed alchemically from one thing to another. The afternoons are moist. The harvest moon hangs low over the horizon. The evenings are crisp. And you mark the day on your calendar when you need two duvets instead of one.
Transformation and harvest; fruit to wine; grain to bread; trees from green to red.
Autumn is all about transformation and harvest, and that is why it is perfect for writing. We feel that transformation in our souls, and want to reap the rewards.
Just think of harvesting those plump ideas, hanging pendant and ripe for the picking from the idea tree in our minds. They grew full and juicy during a long, hot summer of growth, and now they are ready to be transformed into words on the page.
The margins of our life is smaller in the darker days. Our routines are concentrated in one or two rooms: for me it is the kitchen and the studio. I bounce between the two ferrying freshly brewed cups of tea, or refilling my paint-water jar.
Winter has always been the season for storytelling, and for the reading of long novels.
In the ancient days winter fell on the small villages and darkness descended on the hillsides. People retired inside to sit and eat and drink, where they could lie in blankets and reminisce about the summer’s conquests. They would spin stories of magic and adventures.
Now, we might not tell stories by the hearth-side, instead we watch boxed sets and netflix dramas, and we stack our bedside tables with thick novels. Those are our modern epics.
There’s a relief when it’s six o’clock and almost as dark as midnight. There’s nothing else for us to do but dive into the soul and write (or read). And let our imaginations roam through the margins of reality.
Or, when you rise in the morning and the sky is still dim with the pre-dawn glow. There is no harsh light to pierce the delicate membrane of our early morning imaginations. We can keep the mysterious and limitless post-sleep dreamlike state alive as long as possible. How much easier it is to sit quietly, intently, writing.
So, my writing self welcomes Autumn with joy.
The portrait of an artist as a stay at home mom
An early morning walk in Richmond Park
My gratitude list for Thanksgiving 2016
Gratitude takes nothing for granted, it is never unresponsive, it is constantly awakening to new wonder…
Thomas Merton
The sun is streaming into my studio window but there is a crisp chill in the air. I’m wrapped up in an oversized hoodie and sipping my second cup of decaf coffee.
We may not notice the hours and days whizzing by, or feel the earth turning under our feet, but one day we look up from our to-do lists and notice that the trees are turning colour.
This is the time to turn over a new leaf, so to speak.
Ever since school, I've taken time to make a few personal resolutions in the autumn. These resolutions always seem more spiritually motivated and positive than the resolutions made in the thinness of January (when I'm feeling worn out and slightly desperate). Autumnal resolutions hold the lushness of harvest festivals in their heart.
If January resolutions are about conquering our wills; October resolutions are about nurturing our authentic needs.
I am between illustration jobs at the moment, which means I have time to focus on my personal creative development. I have re-dedicated myself to writing 500 words per day (they can be crappy, ungrammatical and misspelled, but I have to get them down), and doing daily drawings. I'm hoping that sticking to this routine will prime my mind for new ideas, rather like doing scales on the piano makes the fingers nimble enough to play the most difficult notes. Creative inspiration is a habit; it is the pen moving across the page that creates ideas, not bright flashes from above.
Are you making any resolutions for the changing of the seasons? What are they?
And, here is a small list of the things I’m grateful for this very moment:
1. The bouquets of coloured pencils brightening the corner of my desk.
2. A bookshelf full of books (all old friends).
3. Illustration work that is exciting, challenging and fulfilling.
4. My husband and daughter, who fill every day with joy and laughter.
5. And a few frivolous things: new night cream, freshly polished winter boots, warm flannel blankets, my iphone (how could I survive without it?)
What are you grateful for?
A week in Skiathos, an island off the coast of Greece, was like a week on another planet. The sunshine was clear and bright, as if it had been focused into its brilliance through a huge lens or prism. So different from the hazy, diffused light of London.
The air smelled of sea salt and pine resin. Soft pine-needles cushioned my feet on the hard, red, rocky earth.
I spent a lot of time sitting on our small balcony staring at the horizon. The Mediterranean rippled slowly towards shore, like someone was smoothing the creases out of a silky, indigo tablecloth. In one moment it was velvety blue, then immediately after it shone cerulean like the sky.
In the distance floated hazy mountains with clouds slowly gathering at their summits. There would be torrential rain that night. Again, so different from London rain. It fell violently; the only thing slowing it down was terminal velocity.
On our first morning a pomegranate washed up on shore at my feet. That, I think, was a sign (of what? I don't know...)
How happy we were as we ate olives and tzatziki, baked aubergine (eggplant), and feta cheese. The local retsina (white wine) was fresh, crisp and light.
As we packed our bags, which were as full of beach sand as clothes, we resolved to take an early autumn trip to Greece every year.
"Greece then ... is a land so ancient that it is like wandering in the fields of the moon." Virginia Woolf
Where did August go?
In the next few weeks the seasons flip from summer to autumn. It's still hot, but there's a crispness to the air that makes me want to buy school supplies. I think once my BIG illustration project is finished I'll take an inventory of my art supplies and refresh the stock. Some of my brushes are over a decade old, and are very well-loved (which means they are frayed beyond repair and can hardly hold a point any more.)
I've been fishing fallen leaves from the water in our bird bath, and the heather bush in the corner of our garden is blushing with the promise of deep pink buds (which will only bloom sometime in mid- winter).
For most of this month it was too hot to do anything but the essentials: look after Little One and furiously paint illustrations for the deadline coming up in early September.
1. Getting bedside tables delivered (after six months of balancing my book and water glass on a storage box)
2. Making the boxes from the aforementioned beside tables into a two-room house for Little One.
3. Running through the sprinkler with Little One on hot afternoons.
4. Sharing conversation with close friends around the braai (bbq)
5. The heat? I'm not sure I enjoyed it that much, but it was remarkable.
6. Watching the Olympics with Little One. "Go Tanda!" she shouted. (Translation: Go Canada!)
{The house: Little One inside, Trudy outside}
1. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
2. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by T. E. Carhart
3.
by Margaret Atwood (this is actually a short story: worth reading)
4. Women in Love by D H Lawrence
4: Braais. We love marinated chicken skewers, herb-dusted halloumi, corn on the cob, salad, garlic bread and of course, ice cream for dessert.
30: Kilometers walked. Yikes! No wonder my legs ache before I go to sleep.
16: Pages of my journal filled.
3: Submissions sent.
1: Gallery visited. I sat at stared at St Francis of Assisi in Meditation by Francisco de Zubaran for an hour in the National Gallery.
{Van Dyke Brown: one of my favourite colours}
: 494
Bloglovin: 916
Come follow along!
The Prairie Wind bustles down the street
When is a bookshelf not a bookshelf?
Selling in Spitalfields Market
Seeing this big project coming to an end has inspired me to think about what to do next. I feel that the writing part of my life has been neglected recently. Most of you know the illustrating side of my life, as I share it quite freely here, but did you know that I love writing just as much?
My goals for the month:
+ Enjoy our holiday in Greece! Yay! I can't wait to sketch the cerulean Mediterranean and the whitewashed houses clinging to the rocky hills.
+ Write. Write. Write. Anything. I've finished a short story, which is now on the submission rounds. What to write next? Perhaps a bundle of blog posts?
+ Daily drawings. Because they're like yoga for my fingers and my creative mind.
Are you writing a monthly review post? Feel free to share a link below in the comments. Let’s celebrate our accomplishments!
{Almost daily walks along the Thames}
Dappled shade in Richmond Park.
Deers in Richmond Park
Canada House as seen from a bench in the National Gallery
Curves and cones in every angle: All Souls Langham Place
It was a bright and cloudy day, perfect for wandering along the Thames with Little One in the early morning. Even at 10 am it was almost empty; we shared the cobbled walkway with a couple of pedestrians and a flotilla of seagulls. We listened to Big Ben chiming the quarter hours ("Bing bong!" said Little One) and watched the waves ripple over the low-tide waters of the river.
Thick, fluffy clouds scudded across the sky. The sunlight flashed morse code: sun, shadow, sun, shadow. The city winked back: glimmer, glint, glimmer, glint.
I wished I knew what the sun and the city were talking about... what was their secret conversation?
Little One and I met a friend and we shared hot, buttered toast, berries, and lattes (but only steamed milk for the littlest of us). Then, we covered our faces with "mer-may" (mermaid) stickers, much to the amusement of the clouds and the city; they winked and blinked their approbation.
It was liberating to do something so brave. It took a lot of courage to pack up the stroller, bundle up my almost-two-year-old and take a thirty minute train journey into the city.
"I studied
there
, just across the river." I pointed out the building to Little One. I used to wander those streets every day with visions of art in my head.
"Wow," she said. It is her word for anything she approves of.
All it took was a short train journey to open up our eyes. I had forgotten that London was right there, spread out like a fairy city, just beyond the doors of Waterloo Station.
Flags of Love flying above Royal Festival Hall
How can I summarize a month of such extremes? July spanned two continents, two homes, two different experiences of summer, and one long journey of flights and connections across a very wide, very cold ocean.
Through the changes and opposites, one thing has remained a constant: family. This month started with a family reunion which gathered all 40 of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their spouses and children, on Hecla Island in the middle of Lake Winnipeg. We sang songs, breaking into spontaneous four part harmony whilst playing games or hiking. We hugged. We laughed. We cried. And we hated saying goodbye when the weekend ended.
The day after, we flew home to London. We returned back to our small home, on our little street, right near the vastness of Richmond Park. We recentered. We made our beds. We settled into the routines of our small nucleus.
Family, big or small, was what July was about.
1. The family weekend on Hecla Island with all 40 aunts, uncles and cousins.
2. Seeing the walls of our walls stripped of peeling wallpaper and freshly plastered and painted.
3. Returning to my studio and my ongoing projects. I have fresh inspiration from three weeks away.
4. Splashing in the pool with Little One, and helping her down the toddler slide. She loves the water.
5. The London heat wave. While not exactly my favourite experience, it was certainly memorable!
1. A desperate fortune by Susanna Kearsley
2. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (this one was too dark for me to finish.)
2.5 + 7: Hours in an airplane with an sleepy and slightly grumpy toddler.
2: Hours in Toronto airport trying to stretch our legs and letting Little One run around shouting "Ah-blane!" (airplane)
5: Rooms that are like new in our house with fresh, smoothly painted walls
7: Amazing, multi-petalled clematis blossoms in our garden
17: sketches in my moleskine sketchbook (check my Instagram to follow along as I fill the pages.)
: 489 (+3)
Bloglovin: 903 (+4)
: 946 (+1)
: 507 (same)
Mailing List: 402 (sign-up in sidebar for bi-monthly updates and freebies!)
(Please pick your favourite platform and come follow along!)
Returning to my studio has been refreshing. After three weeks away I have new eyes for the big project that needs finishing. The deadline is looming, so I'm working every minute I can.
My goals for the month:
+ Finish as much of my current illustration project as possible. It's contractually due Sept 1, but I'm sure I would have a little wiggle room if I needed it.
+ Write. Edit. Write. Repeat. I've completed writing the first draft of a short story, which now needs careful rewriting and editing. I'm looking forward to weighing every word.
+ Daily drawings. Because they're like yoga for my fingers and my creative mind.
+ Dedication to blogging. I love this little space. I love you, my dear reader. You make my little studio above the kitchen feel like it's connected to a world of friendly people. I want to connect more with you. What do you want to read about? Tell me. I will write it.
Are you writing a monthly review post? Feel free to share a link below in the comments. Let’s celebrate our accomplishments!
