Since I was little, I loved sketches. Not just making them, but other peoples sketches, and sketchbooks. When you get to look in one, it feels like you are allowed into the private world of that person. Somewhere noe one else are allowed, and that is a great priveledge.
I use my sketchbooks a lot in my art practice. For weeks this summer/fall, all I did was basically work in them, going through ideas, warming up, or just having some fun. I must have filled at least 4 books the past 6 months.
And it goes in waves, not because I am unable to paint, or don't want to sketch sometimes, but because everything has its time. The figurative sketches I have been doing for some months now, have prepared me for getting into painting people on canvas.
You see, people have scared me for a long time. I used to say I don't paint them, because it doesn't really interest me, or... because they mess up a good landscape. But the truth was that I was terriefied of them, and the emotions they would bring up. I have lost my mom, all my grandparents and other loved ones. I have cried and felt sad about it, but never REALLY dealt with the grief, because I didn't know how.
Then a woman in Canada reached out to me, and it turns out she and I are related, and this started a whirlwind of research around old family members, and it was so much fun. I found old boxes of family photos I could send her, and started to appreciate the massive amount of family I actually have, looking back. That they have passed didn't really matter, because I still felt a close connection as I was researching their lives.
This also made me look at more recent photos, and remember my own childhood and closest family. When I lost my mom it was impossible to look back with joy, but when I started sketching the photos that interested me the most, it made me look at the images differently. I had this tendency to look at them and just remember the anxiety I had as a kid, or the wrong doing of others, but this process has brought out so many good memories, that now they overpower the bad.
I guess we remember the bad to protect us from new bad things happening, but it's not a real picture of our history. The real stories has so much more goodness in them, and finding that has been a joy and a RELIEF!
Maybe some of these sketches I have been doing remind YOU of some nice moments, or trigger the search for them in your own life story. This is why I share what I sketch.
Thank you for listening!
Love
