It’s raining really heavily here today. It’s nearly dark. Winter is on the way.

After lunch, I sat down on the sofa to do my sketch for the day. I noticed that the rain caught my attention ~ in fact, today it seemed like the only thing in the world was rain. I watched the rain. I listened to the rain. I noticed how the rain made me feel. And then I drew the rain.

I let myself draw automatically, without thought. I had a sense of discovering what I was sketching rather than knowing what I was sketching.

As with some of my other sketches, I created a colour key. I noticed which of the colours in the sketch drew my attention first, and the second, and so on. I waited for an association to come up for each one. This is what came up :

1. Black = stability
2. Pink = optimism
3. Red = enthusiasm
4. Green = new growth

I think the sketch is a good reflection of how I’m experiencing both myself and life right now!

This is the final day of my sketching adventure. Now what I’m supposed to do is leave the sketch book for a while and come back to it later. When I come back to it, I should be open to noticing what I notice : maybe emerging patterns, colour combinations I might want to explore further, common themes and metaphors.

I’ve got a lot out of this adventure. Much more than I expected I would. I can see how I might integrate art into some of my other work and practices (like journalling and storytelling). And I was pleasantly surprised by my inability to judge my own art one way or the other : it’s just my art. It’s my art and it’s another way of becoming connected to the outside world and to the inside world. And that’s pretty cool.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT